Chapter 0156

Tempest angrily gnawed on the field ration Graden stuffed into her mouth. It wasn’t the roast magical beast meat she wanted but it’ll do.

“Learn to bide your time. I’m not saying you can’t kill her, but don’t kill her in front of witnesses.” Graden tried to console Tempest but she was having none of it.

The mana coursing through her body wanted blood, Hannah Trellis’ blood. It sings a sweet melody of death and violence laced with the immense satisfaction of revenge.

Tempest was having a hard time trying to stop herself from lashing out against her group members because of their sensible actions.

Yes, sensible actions.

Tempest acknowledged the rationale of her group members.

While her mind could accept their reasons, her heart balked at the idea of letting Hannah Trellis live another day. Tempest felt she made too many concessions for group stability. She didn’t kill Hannah Trellis for destroying her charms. She didn’t kill Hannah Trellis for trying to claim her kill. She didn’t kill Hannah Trellis for taking her food. She had to redraw her bottom line every time she compromised. She can’t redraw her bottom line again.

If any of her group members heard her inner feelings, they’d said she’d never had a bottom line to begin with so it doesn’t matter how often she redraws the line. Luckily, they were ignorant of Tempest’s thought.

Tempest took a deep breath to calm herself.

Instead of calming Tempest down, with each breath she took, a strange sensation coursed through her body. It felt like Tempest got zapped with static electricity. She felt it quite often back on Earth. Every time she walked barefoot in a carpeted room, she would be zapped with static electricity. It felt kinda weird. It made Tempest giggle for no reason at all. As quick as it came, it was gone.

Tempest felt like she had been jolted with static electricity, except instead of quickly entering and exiting her body, it decided to linger. The energy ran up her spine, giving her the fear-inducing, spine-tingling feeling akin to fear. All over her body, nerves were firing, sending messages her brain can’t interpret.

It felt like an attack on Tempest’s mind. She was angry. Tempest always thought her mind was inviolable. That was a mistake. She knew she was in a different realm where different laws applied, yet she still judged it from the perspective of an Earthling.

Even back when Tempest was at her craziest, she knew they could do nothing to her mind. They had nothing that could violate the sanctity that was her mind.

It is different in the Cardinal Realm. Some cultivators do have the power to invade the mind. Hell, they can invade the soul, which Tempest thought was more sacrosanct than the mind.

Tempest’s anger rose, driving away the foreign sensation, except it wasn’t a foreign sensation. The emotion fueling the attack on her mind was her desire. She wanted to kill Hannah Trellis. She knew it wasn’t the right time to attempt to kill Hannah Trellis, but she couldn’t stop the desire. The desire was overpowering her rationality.

Tempest ran away from the group. They were sensible enough not to follow. Once Tempest got to a secluded spot, she screamed, unleashing her pent up feelings.

As if responding to her emotions, the mana inside Tempest’s body exploded, releasing torrential rain, biting winds and mini flashes of lightning.

Once Tempest had calmed down enough, she assessed herself. The strange feeling inside of her has dissipated. Tempest has considered everything until now and came to the conclusion it was repressed desires that caused the strange sensation.

Tempest has never considered herself a slave to her emotions. She had always been self-contained because she was worried she would hurt her loved ones if she freely expressed her emotions. The few times Tempest was unable to contain emotions, she acted on them. She went after the people who used and abused her sisters of the heart and she killed the betrayer in a heat of madness.

Given her less than stellar emotional stability, Tempest attributed the strange sensations to being emotional.

Now that Tempest deluded herself into thinking everything was fine, did she assess her surroundings. The small clearing looked like a mini hurricane ran blew through the area, uprooting trees and pouring down enough water to create a small pond. Essentially, a mini hurricane did blow through the area. Luckily, the destruction created by her outburst was through enough that no one can tell how the area was destroyed unless they did a thorough examination of the area.

Since no one died, there was no reason for anyone to do a thorough examination of the area.

“Are you done pitching a fit?” Graden asked, startling Tempest.

“I don’t know what is wrong with me, but I think I have complete control over myself,” Tempest answered cautiously. Tempest doesn’t know how much Graden saw. She’d rather keep her lightning powers a secret for now. She’d read too many books about schemes and betrayal to let her guard down around Graden.

Tempest knew she was lying to herself but her dignity reinforced the lie to the point where she wasn’t going to acknowledge she was lying to herself. She knows all Graden has to do to pry secrets from her mouth is to wave some of that delicious food in front of her face and she’d sink faster than the Titanic. He knows it. She knows it. They won’t talk about it.

Graden gave Tempest a mysterious look before saying, “It happens to the best of us. If we bottle too much inside of us, our emotions take over to release all of the pent up feelings. Your sensibility has been holding back your true desire time after time. I would blow up too if I was in your position.”

Good, sensible, understanding Graden. Tempest can count on him to explain away her strange behaviors. Tempest’s mind eased at his words yet at the same time she raised her guard against him. She knows Graden is a nice, sweet, gentle guy, but unless he prefers men, which he does not because Tempest already test him on his sexual preferences and he behaved like a straight man would, no man would be as considerate as he is.

“Yeah. I miss the chance to kill Hannah one too many times.”

“I’m not saying you can’t kill her, but be careful of the consequences if you do.”

“Do I need to? I’ve told you before, I have a powerful backer. I don’t need to be low key. I can act like one of those arrogant princesses from a rich and powerful country.” Tempest said those words to test out his reaction as well as express her true feelings. She has the backing, so why shouldn’t she use it? “Trying to be low key with my personality? Ha! I’d come off more like a comic relief than anything else.” Tempest thought in her heart.

“Skylar Sedonis, the girl who gave you the money is a princess from a rich and powerful kingdom. She does have a strong backer in the guild as well. I don’t see you acting like her. I see you acting more like the Mark Aventil, the guy who was trying to steal your kill.”

Here, Tempest stamped her feet in frustration, “That bastard didn’t try to steal my kill. He did steal my kill.”

“Yes, and you are behaving just like him.”

“That’s a low blow, Graden.”

“It gets the point across.” Graden pointed out without a shred of remorse. Beneath the gentle facade of his is a sneaky bastard. “Are you done venting?”

“Not really.”

“Get it done then. We have important things we have to do tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah, how could I forget we need to work hard to earn money.” Tempest’s attention was immediately diverted by talking about the second greatest love of her life, money!

“No. While you were throwing a temper tantrum, those suspicious mages recruited us to investigate the situation.” Graden corrected her assumptions.

“Like hell do I want to help them!” Tempest refused.

“We don’t really have a choice.” Graden refuted.

“Damn it.”