Charm Master: Astrel Grey
Chapter 2: Reincarnation
Darkness, pure deep darkness shimmering with innumerable points of light was all Ashtal could see after being sucked into a dense mass of broken space.
She looked down at her translucent arms that were similar to the rest of her body.
“I was ready to face the consequences of using the forbidden art, but taking their lives did nothing to quell the resentment and anger in my heart.”
Her body had been eroded by the use of the forbidden art, but her soul had been the storage of all the charm arts that she learned since she entered the Soul Charms Palace, and it was due to this that she managed to survive that suicidal attack.
It was the unique mystic art of the palace that allowed them to use their own soul as the medium to inscribe runic charms. Her soul body is practically swimming with millions of runes.
Ashtal barely managed to survive, but a c***k in space sucked her into an unknown destination, maybe millions or billions of light years away from the immortal continent.
“The time here is moving at a chaotic tempo, and each space current might lead to a place billions of light years away or maybe just a few kilometers away.” Ashtal glanced around the whirlpool of space currents, blackish-gray waves undulated at their own pace, some producing light while some devours them.
Her soul has been flowing inside a single current since she was sucked outside the space of the immortal continent. She doesn’t know how much time has passed since then, and she could only follow this space current to who knows where, believing that her destiny pushed her into this current for a reason.
As a Charm Path Grandmaster, reading a bit into fate and destiny isn’t difficult, but she refrains from peeking too much into the wills of the heaven.
“It was foolish of me to not even read a bit of my future, and here I am suffering from being stabbed in the back.” Ashtal’s lips spread into a wry smile.
She really feels that she is a failure as a charm path Grandmaster. Any betrayal or ill-intent targeting her would have been avoided if she wasn’t such a stubborn fool for not wanting to spoil the future.
“Hmm? What’s happening?” Ashtal’s eyes glittered with golden brilliance as specks of white, blue, black, green and red spectral light streaked in her vision as they were quickly being devoured by three gigantic energy bodies.
The space current around her trembled, blackish-gray space energy sprouted and grew at an alarming rate.
The passage inside the space current instantly crumbled from the surge of space energy.
The last thing Ashtal saw was an explosion of golden, blackish-gray and silver energy bodies before she lost consciousness.
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“Has it been verified? Is she really our baby girl?” Theon Grey rushed to their assigned Clinical Geneticist of the DNA facility in Selar Private Hospital.
Beads of sweat lingered on Theon’s forehead, his face a flush of excitement mixed with fear.
“Y-Yes, is s-she really our child?” Asria Grey’s voice cracked, almost falling into a whispered gasp. Her whitened hands sporting bulging green veins, clasped the DNA test report tightly, quivering with anticipation.
Her eyes met her husband’s, both shaking pupils were laced with hope tangled with timidity.
Their family has been searching for 12 long years, and there have been instances wherein they thought they had found their baby girl, but only disappointment was served to them the moment they underwent the DNA test.
But, a call from three provinces away jolted their entire family this morning.
An automated vehicular accident resulted in a passerby being injured from saving a child on the road. The passerby was bleeding from the head and unconscious before being brought to the hospital.
Accident victims without a family or relative to inform would be subjected to DNA identification as part of Archale Country’s movement on cracking down on illegal unregistered citizens.
The DNA database of the country is a mature database with state-of-the-art artificial intelligence that can comb through millions of registered DNA identifications to match with a newly registered DNA record.
It only took half an hour for the system to send a notification match, and the DNA of the injured passerby matched with the DNA of the Grey Family living in Selar City, one of the four great cities of Archale that is situated in the center of the country.
Seeing the missing person notice on the recorded DNA identification of the Grey Family, the hospital staff called to inform the Selar Private Hospital of the result of the system matching.
The Selar Private Hospital hurriedly conveyed the results to the Grey Family, and they arrived in just a quarter of an hour.
Theon took in a puff of air and let it out to calm his wildly drumming chest. His sweat-filled hands took the DNA report in his wife’s hands and slowly opened the folded thin paper. The rustling sound of the paper sent shivers down their spine.
Asria leaned close to Theon as they both looked down at the words written on the report. The freshly printed ink looked neat and without any blotches.
They have seen countless DNA test reports, and they have been let down countless times, but they could not lose hope. If they give up, then what will happen to their missing daughter?
“Hah…p-positive… Hahaha…it’s positive!” Theon’s guttural shout echoed across the hospital hallway, startling the passing patients and their company, but only the red positive word on the thin paper occupied Theon’s mind.
Asria’s knees buckled down the cold floor, her hands flew to her mouth, stifling the screams venting to come out.
Big crystal drops of tears fell down her reddened eyes one by one, forming a trail of wet marks on her flushed face.
“A-Astrel…my Astrel…” A low cry of suppressed longing, guilt and happiness pushed the 45-year-old mother to a state of emotional overdrive.
In her eyes blurry with tears, Asria seemed to see a pretty and bubbly 5-year-old wearing a familiar light blue princess dress running up to her with a grin.
Theon finally came back to his senses at his wife’s cries. He leaned down and scooped up his wife in his trembling arms.
“We finally found her! We finally found our baby girl!” Theon tightened his arms around Asria, his voice cracking at the end as salty tears fell down her nape.
Dr. Clauss, the clinical geneticist that has been tending to the DNA tests submitted by the Grey Family over the years, felt comforted that the heavens finally answered the wishes of a good family like the Greys.
He waited for the couple to calm down before ushering them inside his office, which he was unable to do so earlier due to their agitated moods.
“Knowing you two, I have already applied for an air-transfer for the young Miss Grey after conversing with her attending doctor that she is stable and would just need a couple of days of rest.”
Theon and Asria nodded at Dr. Clauss’s words. Their crazily beating heart calming down at the thought of their newly-found daughter’s injury.
Arranging an air-transfer is their next course of action if the DNA report matched.
They want to be next to their long-lost child right away, but nothing can be faster than a patient being air-transferred. They had the money to shoulder the cost of the air transfer, and they had Dr. Clauss, a shareholder of the hospital, to move some strings to make it work.
“We are really grateful for your help.” Asria wiped her tear-stained face, clenched Theon’s hand and nodded at Dr. Clauss.
“Yes, thank you for your help.” Theon bowed his head slightly, earning a light laugh from Dr. Clauss.
“You don’t have to be too polite. I have also accompanied your family in searching for the young miss all these years, and it is my pleasure to help with such a small matter.”
“Don’t worry too much about it, as what you two should worry about is to prepare for the arrival of your long-lost daughter. I reckon it will take at most 3 hours before the helicopter arrives. I have already booked a VIP room. You two should prepare the young miss’s essentials.”
Dr. Clauss stood up and called for his assistant outside his office.
He pointed at the Grey couple.
“Accompany them to the VIP room that I reserved on the Premium floor.”
“Yes, doctor.”
“Please, after you.” Dr. Clauss’s assistant led the Theon and Asria outside the office.
Theon glanced back at Dr. Clauss. He did not say anything, but he had already noted down this favor in his heart.
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An intense whirring sound accompanied by wild gusts of wind roused Ashtal to a state of semi-consciousness.
“How are the patient’s vitals?”
“There is nothing to worry about, the patient is stable, and her vitals did not fluctuate much in the course of travel.”
“That’s good. Let’s quickly transfer her to VIP room number 4 on the Premium floor.”
“Yes, doctor.”
The whirring sound was getting further, but it was replaced by mutterings of unknown voices with a few unfamiliar words from the littlest ones that she managed to decipher.
The squeaking of the wheels rolling, the beeping of alarms, and the flurry of footsteps rushed into Ashtal’s ears, and the only thing she could deduce was that everything was unfamiliar to her.
The surge of information to her dull soul that had experienced a broken space, an exploding space current and the destruction of three energy bodies pushed her into a bout of deep sleep once again.