The marrow's ability was unknown to all except Khael. Khael was the first user of the Marrow appellation, much like Sol was the first Eye appellation. Khael has made sure to mislead others regarding the nature of this ability. When he said he "heard the king", he lied. He could not even hear the words of Noro. He could not necessarily read minds. He can deduce what an individual is thinking, seeing, hearing, or any other function that involves biological or chemical cues. He has honed this skill with a level of mastery that is more akin to a psychic reading than reasoning.
The marrow granted the ability to perceive each neurone firing, each muscle fibre twitching, even the most minute things inside the body.
To manipulate the body's insides, it is to visualise the person as accurately as he can, imagine each effect, whether it is one cell being destroyed or millions and imagine the outcome. He must meet all requirements before anything will take place.
In Theory, if Khael were to face someone and they overwhelmed him with speed and pressure to the point he had no time to imagine the full series of actions, his ability would be rendered useless. He had to imagine every single individual step and the outcome for it to take effect; if stopped at the last chemical, or before he could visualise the last convulsion, it would not take place.
What he actually saw when he entered Noro's body is extraordinarily complex. The reading of his thoughts was mapping the activities in his mind. He could perceive Noro's Broca's area activate constructing speech, more than that was considered a thought, but rather an active internal dialogue. Bursts of gamma, increased norepinephrine activity, Rapid amygdala activation and all for no reason, while he sat talking to himself. However, he found something unprecedented and strange in his mind. Noro did not appear to hear anything at all during these moments of thought. No neural signature indicated incoming language or auditory imagery, just internal speech replying to nothing at all. No Wernicke's area activation signalling he is comprehending what he is hearing, just random spikes in Fear alone. Most crucially, his Medial prefrontal cortex, which labels the speech in the mind as self-generated, was not active during these moments of listening. To be brief, his auditory cortex seemed to be vacant, and yet he was hearing something in his mind nonetheless.
Most would think they had made a mistake, as this would not be possible, or perhaps he is just an anxious person, but Khael had perfected this ability.
The same principle follows for sight. Khael visualised Sura's platoon as he read Sura's own brain activity; he read what he heard and decoded what he saw. For instance, he read the Early Visual Cortex to get an outline of height, how the individual was built, slim or bulky, male or female, colour contrasts, what they wore, the colour of their hair or skin. This ability was honed so well that he accurately visualised the first to set foot in his courtyard and processed his undoing so quickly it seemed instant.
The marrow's abilities are the most powerful in the right hands and incredibly useless in almost everyone else's.
The ability to see what the host sees, to visualise others, and to invade them, if accurate, is what makes the spread of the plague of Zod uncontainable.
Inference, visualisation and an accurate chain of cause and effect are the three mandatory principles of the ability.
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Sura looks at his comrade eyes wide, he pries the vial from the mouth of the man as rigor mortis has appeared to ensue instantly. Almost as if it was intended to avoid the vial from being swallowed again or falling from the mouth.
He reads the label and opens the jar calmly. It was a beautiful scent. Akin to a material in perfumery. It smelt like some savoury gourmand accord. Sura's body tensed as he felt as if he was locked in his own body.
Virgil and the others still have their mouths agape looking as Sura walks towards the door. Khael opens the door in a bath robe, "Ah thank you". He takes the vial and closes the door as if he received a delivery from a courier. Sura walks back calmy before jolting as he regains control of his body. He begins to sweat.
"We must leave now" His eyes are crazed and his hair damp with sweat. The others obliged.
He has infected me? How we only shook hands at the council, he did not even see Ulra how did he infect him and kill him? How many has he invaded? Sura leans on the edge of the yacht. Sura could not fathom how they would win against someone who can seem to do as they will with others from the comfort of their home.
If he knew of the specific laws of the Marrows power he could strategize and send tens of thousands of soldiers at a rapid pace aiming to eliminate him before he could visualise them all as it must be one by one. Certainly their would be a few thousand casualties but it would be for a good cause.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Virgil and the others are mute. They count each breath with prayer expecting any one of them to break out in convulsions at any moment. Fortunately Khael much rather enjoyed the thrill of a fight and this was merely an act of dominance. The formal declaration of war from Zod will certainly be another act of domination.
"We are alive still brother" Sura calms down and breaks the silence. "Should we fear a man when we were chosen by the superiors?" He tries to galvanise them but they hardly listened.
Perhaps we make that man an offering instead of Seraphiel and Madarame? The presence of those things would certainly be enough to kill him.
Sura takes a sharp breathe riddled with shock as he remembered the apparent mind reading that this man possessed. A war where the enemy can see your mind and prod at you from his chambers? This was not a war but an act of persecution.
There must be a solution. This world has an order and every Achilles has their Achilles heel.
Would this power work on Pact beasts? Is it limited to humans?
Sura had indirectly been emboldened by this experience, though Virgil was coming too eventually. He realised each thought is monitored and each action could be his last and he sought to make the most of it. it was odd that the member of the clergy just realised he was being eternally monitored, maybe he was not an actualised devotee. Maybe a direct and brutal awakening is what really inspires faith.
Sura pats his head with a towel as his blade at his waist turns into to a snake and slithered to his face.
It hissed and rattled.
Sura spoke to his hydra and was in better communication with it than Seraphiel and his abusive Tengu. Though, he opted out of the Ancient Verezian and Cairnreach royal ritual and took the usual route perhaps the severity of the ritual was the changing variable. Sura pats the snakes head as his boat rocked back and fourth along the tide.
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In Lyeer, Vanele and Valene sit in their chambers. a feline looking creature, as skinny as a cat but the size of a lion, purrs and rolls at their feet. The sky was a milky pink, the air was on the cooler side but not cold, the air smelt of rose and bergamot.
A letter from Sol was hand delivered by he himself to Vanele it was their own in-joke. He hopped back through the floor.
Vanele opens it and leans back. The letter was simple "Werry ball tomorrow night at 9pm" Werry as one of the minor kingdoms under Cairnreach and was going to be used as a crucial piece in the King's strategy, at least that's what Sol was blabbering about whenever they spoke. Valene glances at the letter she snatches it upon reading it "A ball at 9pm? Are you sure this is business" she mocks. Vanele sighs, "Unfortunately i think it is." She sinks into the couch. A boy knocks at their door, its the paper boy Louis and he holds out a paper at them and take his hat off tipping it to them like a beggar. Valene drops into the hat a sugary sweet which appeared to be conjured out of thin air.
They sat back down and read the paper it was an image of Seraphiel and Madarame standing outside the gates of the castle in Cairnreach. Madarame had a huge smile on his eyes and mouth while Seraphiel was engrossed in some type of nervous calculation. The headline read "Rea's Pontiff and his cabby visits Cairnreach despite assassination attempts!."
"What the hell are they doing there?" Valene leans towards the paper.
Vanele tears a card which she kept a bundle of in her pocket. It was the same card which Sol once gave Seraphiel. Sol appears like magic. She gestures towards the paper silently and he picks it up. "Mhhmmm" He analyses the article. "Oh, they are taunting the King".
"What? The article isn't lying" This was unfathomable, if the news said it was day you would be wise to assume it was night.
"Yeah, i seen this already a few nights ago, Madarame is trying to incite anger to see if the King actually has anything up his sleeves". He handles the paper with his finger tips and tilts it. "And the Kid just came along for fun i suppose. You know all we know of the king is he killed a novice appellation and some random assassin, some kid too".
"huh" They said in unison. "But the crown, he has that" Valene replies.
"Yeah but its effects are absurd, that's why they are right outside the castle, no way the king is going to kill himself and his kingdom to destroy an idiot. If multiple of us went it would be an endeavour worth while"
"Why hasn't he just destroyed Zod with it then? Khael reading his mind is not going to help him?"
"I don't know" Sol replies blatantly. "I don't think anyone does, that's why he is just standing there smug".
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Madarame smiles as his picture is taken. He turns pulling on the gates shouting. "Down with the king, down with the king." In a moment, guards pour out of the gate as it opens and the people turn watching this insane foreigner get dragged in and the gates slam shut. Seraphiel stands at the gate watching. A picture is taken of him turned around watching his client be seized. "BREAKING: THE PONTIFF OF REA HAS BEEN ARRESTED".
Madarame is hunched over with a spear to the back of his neck as a shadow watches with disdain from the stairs. Madarame was aware killing the pontiff of Rea would force Yumi's hand along with Seriol and as a result Sol's. He was thrown in the dungeon for the night. Madarame leans back, the guards lock the sell and murmur something before slamming the door and heading down the stairs. The dungeon is designed like a small panopticon. The tower in the centre was circled with about 400 cells yet the whole area was devoid of screams or shouting. Only heavy laboured breaths and strange sounds resembling an animal exhaling air was present.
Madarame waited a little and conjured a key which he unlocked the door with.
