~6.893 words
North Borough, Saint Samuel Cathedral
"Is the shipment here?" An ordinary man asked a tall man who had half of his face hidden beneath his collars.
"1-42 and 2-049 have been delivered on an urgent notice. I just hope this is enough."
"We have the Goddess on our side." The man responded and then tapped his chest. "May the Goddess bless us with fortune."
The other man lowered his head and tapped his chest as well.
*****
Making a deep dive, Kiyotaka phased through the ceiling of the Roselle Memorial Exhibition.
He had made only one visit to this museum, however, that one visit was enough for him to memorize the full layout and drill it into his mind.
In this spirit state, Kiyotaka looked down and surveyed the entire area while clinging to a dark corner at the roof top. While he was giving Klein a ride in his car, he had discussed this plan with him.
It was feasible, yes, but there were two risks for it.
First, the space responded to Klein's uniqueness, and it did not do the same to Kiyotaka, anymore. So, it was possible that summoning and bestowal ceremony for spirit body projection could fail miserably for Kiyotaka.
This was not an issue anymore as Kiyotaka had succeeded in this.
The second issue was Klein's spirituality. Since this was done by Klein, it was most likely that the burden of letting him phase through the illusory door of bestowal and then keeping it open for Klein to cancel the ritual and pull him back would put a lot of strain on him.
This is why Kiyotaka had decided to be quick with it. Even if he failed, he could just have Klein cancel his projection and he would be back in the Space Above the Gray Fog where divinations by even mid-Sequence Beyonders would not prove of much help.
Once Kiyotaka saw that the two men patrolling the area went to another corner, he quickly drifted down and arrived in front of the book that he had some suspicion on. At the same time, he let his spirit body drift forward and enveloped the suspicious book and another one of Roselle's diaries inside it.
However, he felt his spirit body feel heavy and turn a little corporeal.
At the same time, verdant green vines began to grow from all corners of the roof, crawling along the walls and began to envelope each and every place of the Museum.
Before Kiyotaka could do anything, he heard a voice rattling inside his teeth.
"Any specific reason for choosing these two? Or are you just a petty thief?"
His brain felt a little sluggish, and while he had gained mental resistance after advancing to Barbarian, he still felt as if he was totally trapped.
Kiyotaka did not look at the voice and instead moved his lips in an imperceptible manner.
His illusory, nearly translucent figure instantly disappeared, leaving his whereabouts unknown. Even the strange copper whistle and the two books which had stolen by wrapping them in his spirit body had vanished!
*****
Opening his eyes, Kiyotaka found himself in a moderate sized room.
The crimson moonlight filtered through the windows as the draperies around it flopped almost silently with the cold wind.
Outside the window, the insignia of the Evernight Goddess stuck to the Church's wall was visible.
Kiyotaka stared at it for a long moment before letting out a slow, controlled breath.
'That was uncomfortably close.'
Reaching out for the inside of his pocket, he took out the cheap chained clock and saw the time.
'There is still some time.'
Standing up and walking over to the table beside his bed, he poured himself a light brown liquid. Once it was half-full, he placed it to his lips and gulped it down in 2. The back of his throat burned but the change in his expressions stayed minimal.
Right at the heels of that, he walked towards the couch and pulled it towards the window. With the insignia of the Evernight Goddess reflecting in his pale blue eyes which was tainted by the crimson moonlight, a flood of boundless gray fog enveloped, pulling his consciousness up.
Sitting at the seat right beside Klein who was starting at the books in front of Kiyotaka, Kiyotaka heaved a sigh of relief.
"What did you steal? It looked like the museum that I planned to visit." Klein asked impatiently.
Kiyotaka did not reply and instead stared at the two books. Pushing one of them towards Klein, he raised his head. "This one is your payment." He spoke as he took out a specific bookmark out of the other one.
Klein's eyes widened as his eyes landed on the bookmark.
The bookmark had Roselle's drawing on it who was clad in black regal clothes and was wearing the crown of an emperor.
"Is that...?" The words left his mouth involuntarily.
"Nothing can be said with certainty."
"Then why did you steal it? This will make stealing the right one even harder in the future!" Klein couldn't help but lament at his fellow transmigrator.
Kiyotaka kept his gaze down at the bookmark and kept flipping it between his fingers.
"Intuition, I guess."
That was all he said. Klein fell into silence and then sunk back into his seat. He was not sure what to say, and he was certainly not in a mood to argue with Kiyotaka.
After all, there was another matter that required his attention and it was just as disturbing, if not more. However, since the urgency of the other matter surpassed the current one, he decided to see the result of his "friend's" heist, and then decide what needs to be done later.
Kiyotaka tried to spread his spirituality, and slowly inject it inside the bookmark, however, just like with ordinary objects, his spirituality only flowed and failed to permeate it, nor did it cause any abnormal changes.
At the same time, the amount of spirituality he could expend was very minimal. Unlike the Seer Pathway or other specialized pathways, he had not currently gained a massive boost to his spiritual energy reserves, which made it harder for him to conduct a trial-and-error with his spirituality.
Wasting too much spiritual energy could result in him losing control.
"Anything?" Klein asked. Despite not wanting to direct all his mental energy on this, it would've been a lie if Klein said he wasn't interested.
But since it was Kiyotaka who stole it and had already paid Klein with a book worth of data from Roselle's diary, he refrained from being too nosy.
"I suppose it will work with a chant. Spiritual Energy is not showing much reaction. A reference, perhaps. Roselle does sound like someone who will do that." Kiyotaka deduced.
"You're right... Hmm, let me try." Klein stood from his seat and walked over to Kiyotaka. Bending down, he brought his face next to the bookmark.
"Pirate King!"
"..."
"One Piece!"
Klein vociferated, his voice echoing heavily in the empty space.
"..."
"What?"
"Hm? What? I did not say anything."
"You looked at me weirdly."
"Can you even see my face completely?"
"No, but I can still tell you're judging me."
"Uh, do you want me applaud you for shouting Pirate King or One Piece?"
Klein huffed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Don't tell me you did not get the reference..."
Kiyotaka did not reply and instead looked down at the bookmark.
"Did you live under a rock?"
"Kind of." Kiyotaka shrugged.
Rubbing his temples, Klein turned his attention back to the bookmark. "Anyways... Roselle has already made a lot of pop-culture references in his diaries. In case you don't know, he seems to be a fan of one of the most famous anime ever. I was seeing if the secret code was a reference to that anime, but it seems like it is not."
"Right..." Kiyotaka let his words drawl. "Assuming that I have gotten the right thing, I do not think Roselle would've used that as a pseudo-voice-command. It is, after all, derived from a Blasphemy Slate. Perhaps something close to himself..." Kiyotaka deduced out loud.
The reason for doing so was because Klein understood Roselle more than himself. There were different types of "understanding" someone. And while Kiyotaka had a more accurate picture of his personality and patterns, Klein who was culturally linked to Roselle would result in a better yield.
However, that was possible only if Kiyotaka gave him the right direction. That is why he deduced out loud.
"Something close to Emperor Roselle himself..." Klein fell into a deep thought, supporting himself by putting both hands on the edge of the long, mottled bronze table.
"Bernadette..." Klein mumbled in Intisian.
However, the name echoed without producing any viable results.
However, just as Klein was about to try again, Kiyotaka took in a deep breath. "Bernadette." He spoke in ancient Feysac.
Since "Williams" had some connections to Highlanders, he knew how to speak Feysac. After his transmigration, Kiyotaka had read many books. And while he did not study Ancient Feysac formally, he had casted his gaze on some of the texts.
Using his innate pattern recognition skills which were further boosted via his advancement to Barbarian, he was able to quickly deduce what would "Bernadette" sound like in Ancient Feysac.
Just as Kiyotaka said that, his mind went blank and he felt like he had died. His entire body began shaking violently and his tongue elongated until it got stuck inside his throat.
His head jerked back and his body began to swell while bones began to grow so heavy that he felt his own skeleton was going to crush in on itself.
Klein, who saw this abnormal reaction, suddenly placed his own hand on the bookmark that had vanished inside Kiyotaka's hands and injected spirituality inside it.
Just as he did, Kiyotaka's situation normalized and his entire body jerked back to normality in an instant.
"Fuck... You scared me..." Klein took the support of the table and steadied himself.
Kiyotaka breathed heavily. "I suppose it is a humbling experience. Next time, someone with high spirituality should try it."
"As if we are going to be this lucky next time with finding a Card of Blasphemy... you're really crazy. What if it was an ordinary card?!"
"You wouldn't have had a mini-heart attack, I suppose?"
Klein facepalmed and slowly wobbled back to his seat before sinking inside it.
At the same time, a bright light emitted, bit by bit, from the bookmark, and the image of Emperor Roselle on the outside was being replaced by an entirely new image.
He was sitting on an ancient stone throne as he wore a black crown embedded with various precious stones on his head. He wore pitch-black armor, and a cape of the same color was draped over his body. He held a scepter, and he looked forward with cold, aloof eyes.
On the upper-left corner of the bookmark, there was a line of text condensed from the bright radiance of stars.
[Sequence 0: Dark Emperor!]
'Sequence 0... It's the one that Roselle talked about.'
Klein did not hurry him and instead watched from the sidelines, fishing for a reaction.
However, what surprised Kiyotaka was not the "Sequence 0" name, but rather the Sequence 9 name, and everything that followed suit.
[Sequence 9: Lawyer]
[Sequence 8: Barbarian]
'This is troubling.... all of this can't be a coincidence. What are the odds of a card of blasphemy correlating to my Pathway choice is in my vicinity, and I somehow spot it on my first try. The sequence of events in my life are really troubling... Yes, this can't be a coincidence. But what is it, if not a coincidence? Who is doing all this? There is nothing to extrapolate from and nothing to base even a shallow assumption on.'
Lost in his thoughts, Kiyotaka kept reading and began memorizing the potion formulas and Sequence names.
[Sequence 7: Briber]
[Sequence 6: Baron of Corruption]
[Sequence 5: Mentor of Disorder]
[Sequence 4: Count of the Fallen]
[Sequence 3: Frenzied Mage]
[Sequence 2: Duke of Entropy]
[Sequence 1: Prince of Abolition]
[Sequence 0: Black Emperor]
'Hmm... It seems like after Sequence 6, every Sequence needs a Ritual alongside the potion for advancement. I wonder why. Hmm, that means, I need to keep everything in perspective from now on.
But that begs a bigger question... Am I doing this myself or am I being made to do it? This space is a safe place, however, the damage has been already done. I can already somewhat deduce that whatever coincidences that are taking place are all because they want me on this path and they need me quick.
For many Beyonders, getting the name of the next Sequence is already a big deal. If I have been purposefully handed all the Sequence names, potion formulas and rituals, that means they need me. And looking at the rituals, it looks even more apparent.
If someone is able to do it on this scale that everything feels as natural as it can be, then it means that this entity is either at Sequence 1 or is a god themselves.
Well ... That's really troublesome. The only way I can contest it is by...'
"Are you alright?" Klein asked, breaking his train of thoughts.
"Yes, I am. Thanks for asking."
"Hmm. Well, I have to leave soon. If you want to share something, it's entirely up to you. You have already given me a big payment, so I won't tell you to tell me what's on it. You can place it under your seat, I won't touch it. But I would recommend not taking the card in the real world."
"I know. Thanks."
Klein nodded and saw Kiyotaka place the card underneath his chair.
While Klein could just read the card any time, he understood the implication from Kiyotaka and decided not to be a dishonest person, even though Kiyotaka had no way to confirm it.
"I have another request as well." Kiyotaka spoke up as he raised from his position.
"Sure." Klein looked like his condition was a little strained. He had let Kiyotaka phase into a spirit form, injected spirituality to stabilize his condition and had been inside the space above the grey fog for a long time now.
He also had to meet up with Isengard Stanton after this meeting regarding something that he had not yet disclosed. Due to this, his tone looked a bit rash.
"I want to attend the future Tarot Club meetings as a new member, who is the representation of the so called 'Mr. Emperor.'"
"That is possible, but can I ask why?"
"I barely get anything out of the meetings. Asking questions that would be beneath of the status portrayed by you and me would put the authenticity of our identity in jeopardy. If I truly want to make the most out of the meetings, I have to attend as someone who can connect and trade with the others. Just like how you have Mr. World."
Klein's eyes almost widened but he used his Clown's powers to stay in control.
There were many questions in his head, but he put on a natural smile and nodded his head. "Sure. That can be arrange for. But I would need some payment."
It was quite apparent what Klein wanted as his payment.
Without taking the card back up, Kiyotaka cleared his throat. "It lists Sequences, Ingredients and Rituals - up until Sequence 0: Black Emperor."
'This really hides the profound secrets of becoming a God!' Klein thought.
"Thanks. That should be enough."
Kiyotaka pursed his lips and nodded. At the same time, Klein cancelled his connection and de-summoned him.
Back in his hotel room, Kiyotaka opened his eyes and looked at the sigil of the Church of Evernight Goddess through the window. He sat there for a long while, deep in thought, somewhat enjoying the brisk and polluted air.
For the first time in a long while, he was not thinking about surviving the Devil Duo, but instead on something else.
"Interesting." He mumbled to himself and took something out of his pocket, before placing a crystal ornament over his right eye.
*****
(Belated April's fool everyone. I thought we were still in March)
*****
Deep within the Cherwood Borough, a man with high cheekbones, blue eyes with a tint of gray, and neatly combed hair walked with a confident stride.
Walking right beside him, without a leash, was a black dog with a shiny fur. The dog has brown eyes with a red point pulsing between it. The abnormally toned muscles underneath its short fur made it look extremely menacing, with its head being bigger than a football.
The night had deepened and crimson moonlight was already bathing everything in a vermillion light. The man—Patrick Jason—followed the dog who's gait began to hasten, jogging towards a nearby canal.
The canal's level was lower than the road with slopes leading down to the tributary that flowed north and eventually merged with the Tussock River. At this hour, there were not many people, save for the tramps and addicts who sat in the shadow of the slope.
The canal itself was a stagnant, oily black water-body reflecting nothing but the grey haze of the sky.
The dog's ears perked and its snout turned in a specific direction. Patrick Jason looked in the same direction and saw two people. One of them was a boy and the other was a woman with a decent figure.
The woman had her legs spread and her skirt was raised. She laid down something that looked like white powder over her thighs and made a trail that led all the way to her crotch.
The boy got on all fours and stooped, before sniffing the white powder through his nose. The woman let out a low moan as he reached for the crotch and disappeared underneath her skirt.
Patrick's lips curled into a sinister smile as he looked down at its dog. He turned and began to look around, looking for any presences. When he found none, he let out a small click of his tongue.
At the same time, the dog pounced forward. In a few blinks of an eye, the dog was already above them. Its mouth elongated and without making a sound, the woman who was deeply plunged into pleasure, had her throat chewed out.
With her larynx crushed and her carotid artery severed in a single surgical, her scream died as a wet rattle in her chest as blood silently slid between her cleavage.
The boy appeared from underneath her skirt, sensing the sudden lack of response, only to find his eyes widen in the same horror as the woman as the dog's shadow covered him.
The white dust that was scattered over the woman's nether was instantly painted with a hot spray of iron-scented red that turned the powder into a bubbling, pink foam.
His breath became fast, and despite the sudden fear, he quickly jabbed at the dog.
The giant black dog side-stepped and brought his jaw with massive canines down at his arm and instantly ripped it away. At the same time, the dog opened its mouth and words that stemmed from the foulness rumbled inside the boy's head.
"Die."
Upon hearing the words, the boy's skin shriveled up like a dried raisin until his skin clung to his bones. Dark welts and spots began to grow all over his skin and blood began to gush out of his pores. The boy spat out his lungs and heart while his intestines began to slither out of his anus.
Within 2 seconds, all of his internal organs were outside his body and the boy died while looking like a wrung out, tattered piece of cloth.
Patrick Jason, who was looking at everything with a delighted expression, looked back and smirked. The devilish smirk on his handsome face widened even further as he looked at a dark street, 200 meters away from him.
His smile reflected in the binoculars and his eyes locked on a hunched man who was observing Patrick Jason from quite a distance away.
The hunched man looked back at his peers who were sitting in the alley, smoking, drinking and indulging themselves with the street girls, one after another. "Get up you donkeys! We have been found! Ready the guns!" He barked as the men began to leave the luxuries and began readying themselves.
However, before any of them could stand up, a shadow emerged on the front side of the alley, and elongated until it covered everyone inside it. The men looked up at the new figure who was dressed handsomely, wearing an expensive suit, a top hat and a cane.
One of the men stood up and spat on the ground as the street girls from before quickly dressed and began running. The man walked up to Patrick Jason and stood face-to-face with him. "Fuck off, unless you want me to spill your guts."
Patrick Jason looked down, finding the man pressing a revolver to his stomach. The revolver was pressed hard enough to cave the skin over his stomach in and the hammer was pulled back.
Patrick smiled once and before anyone could process anything, he brought down his hand, hard enough for the man's skull to let out a sick, crunching sound. Blood instantly exploded out from his nose and his eyes popped out of their sockets, falling on the ground.
The man's body went limp as Patrick held it and slowly guided it on the ground.
There was a look of extreme shock on everyone's face. Just as the first one to recover took his revolver out, Patrick Jason arrived behind him and instantly snapped his neck, snatching away his revolver from his grasp before tossing it away.
"Fuck!" The man behind him exclaimed as he turned away and began to run, however, a ball of Sulfur suddenly hit him from behind, obliterating his clothes, flesh and bones alike.
In a matter of a few seconds, the number of people had dwindled down to a measly 2, instead of the original 10. Some had their heads smashed in while others were burned to nothing.
Patrick Jason stood over the two of them and smiled menacingly. "Where is the person who was looking at me? Did he run? If so, where?"
The two men looked at each other, sweating profusely, and shook their heads in horror. "We do not know... He was just here... We don't know... We really don't know... Please believe us... He was here just moment before you came and then he... We can tell who he was... Please spare us..."
Their collective fear made Patrick Jason throw his head back, close his eyes and take in a deep breath through his nose. It was almost as if he was enjoying the collective fear that was currently emanating from them.
"W-We call him Mal... But his real name is Malakhi. He-He works for the new boss..."
Patrick Jason rubbed his chin. "Your new boss has been quite slippery. Where can I find him?"
"We d-don't know either... He rarely comes to see us. Mal is the one who used to meet him, but now his representative comes to see instead—he is called Hyde. Please... let us go..."
Patrick Jason nodded and then turned around. As he walked a few steps away, he looked over his shoulder and mumbled. "Die."
The two of them instantly exploded.
Right at the heels of that, he took out a bottle form his inner pockets and spread the contents inside it everywhere before dropping a match on it. The entire alley caught on flames as he ran away. The alley exploded seconds after he left as smoke formed a mushroom in the hazy, night sky.
Just as Patrick Jason arrived where he had left his dog, he saw that it was no longer there. He looked around and went back to the place where the dog had killed the boy and the woman, but he could not find anything.
Suddenly, he realized something.
He parted his lips and shouted. "DEATH!"
Around him, a figure turned corporeal with a pained look on his face. And then a few others appeared as well.
The world around him shattered instantly, breaking into fragments of dreams and reality intersecting each other, only for them to converge once again as Patrick Jason saw a man flying with his boot towards his face.
Ducking underneath it, he held the man by his leg and then flung him away. From the corner of his eye, he saw another man running towards him.
He opened his mouth once again: "Slow!"
Everyone in a 7 meter radius instantly slowed down, as if they were carrying tones of weight and were being crushed by it. Right at the heels of that, he conjured up a large Cage of Flames that instantly trapped the man who was rushing at him and 3 others inside it.
"Thus it blooms on while night is by;
When day looks out with open eye,
Bashed at the gaze it cannot shun,
It faints and withers and is gone"
Suddenly, a melodic voice began to ring in Patrick Jason's ears. His body loosened up and he suddenly began to turn sluggish.
At the same time, he suddenly began to morph and his features began to change their composition, transubstantiating into an illusory, thick, black liquid form that looked like a collection of condensed emotions and Desires given a semi-visible form.
This thick liquid blitzed towards the nearest man, however, just as it was about to touch and devour him, a man suddenly appeared in Patrick Jason's blind spot. It was a man with very short golden-brown hair, and blackish-green eyes that were as dark as a forest on a moonless night.
He was wearing a black windbreaker and a white shirt. The collars of his shirt and windbreaker were propped up high and hid the entirety of his chin. This was Crestet Cesimir! A Sequence 5 Spirit Warlock from the Sleepless Pathway!
A shadowy, nightmarish tentacle tore out of Crestet Cesimir, sharpening at top and stabbed through the liquid. The semi-viscous liquid began to solidify around the tentacle as he took shape again.
Patrick Jason's hand hug to the side and suddenly a massive blade shaped Flaming sword that looked like a scimitar in design formed in his hand. He swung it at Crestet Cesimir in a diagonal arc, aiming to slash the man's face in half.
However, the sinister, nightmarish tentacle that protruded from his Crestet Cesimir's back slashed at Patrick Jason's arm. The sharp edge made his hold over the Sword of Lava weaken, making his swing miss Crestet Cesimir entirely, however, Patrick Jason followed up by opening his hand.
Pale blue fireballs began to fly outwards. Since they were conjured at point blank, Crestet Cesimir did not had much time to dodge. Instead of following up with a direct slash towards Patrick Jason's arm and totally ripping it off, he instead jumped back and tried to dodge the trajectory of the Sulfur Fireballs.
"SLOW!"
Much to Crestet Cesimir's horror, Patrick Jason had completely outsmarted him in that instant. The entire point of him turning into his Desire Incarnation and not running away was a ploy for him to get into close enough distance for him to blast one of the stronger Beyonders with Sulfur Fireballs and then lower their chances of escape by using Language of Foulness.
Crestet Cesimir's pace slowed down and he wobbled mid-dodge, falling to one knee.
Just as the Sulfur Fireballs were about to hit him, he reached towards the inner side of his windbreaker and took out something that sparkled in the dark. It was a pure white bone short sword, with surface of the sword being laced with layers of symbols and icons. These mysterious patterns intertwined to form the body of the sword.
The sword glowed and he gained some immunity from the effects of "Slow"
However, that was not enough for him to dodge all of them. One out of the three Sulfur Fireballs landed, hitting his shoulder. At the same time, a crippling sensation invaded his entire arm as poison began to spread through his arm and turned the flesh purple.
Patrick Jason did not waste any time in theatrics or reveling in his success, instead, he once again conjured a Sword of Lava and dashed towards Crestet Cesimir. He brought his sword up and was about to swing when once again, his entire body went into a strange sense of calmness.
His violent thoughts turned peaceful, and any intent of harm turned inwards before getting extinguished. This sudden change in temperament caused him to be frozen in spot.
"Now!" The man who was barely holding Patrick Jason in place using "Requiem" barked. He was man in his forties with soft facial features and long hair, wearing a black windbreaker and red gloves while carrying a black cane that was inlaid with gold.
Soul Assurer Soest and his team of Red Gloves had arrived on the scene!
Crestet stood up and brandished his Bone Sword before charging towards Patrick Jason with full speed. Just as he was only yard away and was about to leap and stab him, Patrick Jason regained lucidity.
A demonic circle appeared on his forehead, batwings sprout of his back and goat-horns began to tear through his temples.
With blood gushing out of the corner of his lips, he immediately burned one of his horns. Right at the heels of that, Crestet Cesimir who was already in a bad shape felt like something had taken birth inside him.
Like he was seeded.
This was a Defiling Seed of a Desire Apostle!
Crestet Cesimir's emotions began to swirl in a tornado of complicated emotions and he began to bleed from his ears, nose and eyes. The same effect happened to Soest who had his emotions rattled.
Patrick Jason was once more about to shift into the bubbling, liquid mass when he suddenly froze in place. A wet gargle left his lips as he looked down.
Wedged into his right chest was a scythe that froze his entire body.
Patrick Jason looked back and saw an illusory spirit that had created considerable frozen domain. The spirit had lodged its giant icy scythe in his chest, but due to Patrick Jason's Danger Intuition warning him in advance, he was able to move just in time to avoid his heart being struck.
3 Sulfur Fireballs suddenly shot out of his hands and struck the spirit who had materialized and it went up in a noxious smoke in an instant.
Patrick Jason began to listen to his Danger Premonition once again. Since a Desire Apostle's Danger Premonition varied from person to person, he was only able to foresee one day in advance. However, even after all that, due to the constant pressure and subtle danger instilled by Kiyotaka Ayanokōji that invertedly did not trace back to him, he could not pinpoint the danger.
The slight danger from Nighthawks.
The miniscule danger from Zmanger Gang.
The looming threat of Count Hall and his suspicions on Patrick Jason and his sale of the bank.
The active and debilitating threat of MI9 that were just a few blocks away.
The threat of two people who were looking to aid Kiyotaka.
All of these threats made his Danger Premonition go into an overdrive, and it made it really hard for him to pinpoint the real danger. Now that he had lost his connection to his pet Devil Dog, he was in an even bigger pinch.
The more time he spent in this dream realm that he had been pulled in by Crestet Cesimir, the more it was likely for him to lose himself to it. His emotions were broiling and he was beginning to show signs of losing control, evident from how his remaining horn had grown longer and had twisted even more.
Patrick Jason flapped his giant bat-like wings and the flesh over his face fell down, revealing his real features. His true form was that of a medium heighted man with curly brown hair and cold brown eyes and the gentlemanly look on his face had vanished.
He took to the air and looked down where Daly was still reeling from having her spirit being killed off.
Patrick drew in a lot of air and shouted. "SLOW!"
Everyone in his vicinity, who had already been injured quite a lot by him, began to slow down to a near halt.
"CORRUPTION!"
He shouted once again as a black liquid began to cover Daly and Soest, while Crestet began to resist it and tried to pull Patrick Jason in a dream once again.
"DI—"
Just as the words were about to leave his mouth, another strong voice rebounded everywhere. The voice had majesty in it and it made Patrick Jason's heart fill with horror.
"Flying is prohibited here!"
Just as the sentence was formed, Patrick Jason found himself plummeting towards the ground. He crashed into the ground and instantly debris began to fly up as a part of the ground was shattered.
"Imprison!"
The verdict was given almost immediately as an immaterial wall—a transparent cell—with Patrick Jason at its center materialized. Not wasting a single moment, the blonde man who had just appeared raised his hand and lighting coursed through his eyes.
"Flog!"
A scream tore through Patrick Jason as his mind began to feel like it was being whipped by a hot, spiky iron flog. Patrick directed his hand towards the blonde man who walked confidently and fired Sulfur Fireballs but another man beside the blonde man twisted his hand and Distorted the trajectory of the attack, making it land back on him.
"This was the threat?" The blonde man asked with a voice of majesty, looking down at Patrick Jason who was squirming and losing control.
His features began to grow more and more inhumane and he growled like an animal. The wings on his back became thick and he began to froth at his mouth.
"It looks like it." The man beside the blonde one who had black hair and golden eyes.
The blonde man looked to the side and saw Soul Assurer Soest and Crestet Cesimir recovering. Meanwhile, a few other members of the Nighthawks and Red Gloves were either dead, or writhing in extreme pain.
"Take them to safety. I will handle the Rampager." The blonde man ordered as the other one merely nodded his head and began helping the others to their feet.
Crestet Cesimir stood up and held his bone sword close to his chest. He stared at the blonde man for a long while before saying anything.
He merely sighed and nodded as the two men faced Patrick Jason, around whom the illusory confines were beginning to break and crack.
Daly looked at the rampaging devil and then in a totally opposite direction.
"I really hope this works..." She mumbled to herself, hoping that the intel she was provided with would turn in their favor.
*****
In the outskirts of the East Borough, Klein, Isengard Stanton, Sharron and Maric were locked in a death lock with the Devil Dog.
From the very beginning, Kiyotaka had never intended to fight Patrick Jason or the Devil Dog directly.
That was the first and most fundamental principle he had operated on.
Patrick Jason was a Desire Apostle sitting at Sequence 5 while the Devil Dog was a Sequence 6 Devil. A direct confrontation with either of them was not a battle, it was a funeral, scheduled in advance. It did not matter how many Mystical Items he had.
So Kiyotaka had done what he always did when faced with a wall he couldn't break through, he built a maze around it instead.
The architecture of the trap was deceptively simple in concept yetbrutally precise in execution. Patrick Jason's greatest weapon was not his Language of Foulness, nor his Devil Dog, nor even his capacity to ramp and lose himself to something far more dangerous than rational thought.
His greatest weapon was not even his offensive capabilities, but rather it was the Danger Premonition.
There was no amount of planning that Kiyotaka could do to sneak up on something like that.
But there was definitely a way to circumvent it.
Kiyotaka had spent weeks doing exactly that.
He cultivating surface level threats and then let them fester, kept them alive and let them simmer at precisely the right temperature.
The Nighthawks had been investigating into the serial killings and The Red Gloves were tipped via an anonymous letter delivered to them via different proxies, which were originally written by Kiyotaka.
Count Hall had his growing suspicions about the bank sale as well, which once again, was instilled by the letter from Kiyotaka and his perfect audit of the bank sale which Patrick Jason wanted to do in order to run away.
That led to the involvement of the real threat: MI9, but since Kiyotaka was not directly involved and it was the doing of Count Hall, the Danger Premonition never pointed towards him.
The rest of the pressure was exerted via Zmanger Gang, that was still raw and bitter over Bill Red's death and quietly seething at the hostile takeover of their operation. While they posed no threat, they merely acted as conduits for Kiyotaka's hostility to be chaneled.
And since all of this was done through the person who Kiyotaka had installed as second in command at some point in time due to some unknown reasons, it once again, the Danger Premonition never completely pointed back at him.
Each one of these subtle and large threats generated its own signature in Patrick Jason's Danger Premonition.
And when you layered enough genuine frequencies on top of each other, what you got was not a clearer picture but rather an unreliable static. That was the whole reason why Patrick Jason fell into the trap in the first place.
The threat that he got from his Danger Premonition felt like just another day since his premonition had been screaming at him for weeks from every direction. So when the real threat finally moved, it looked identical to everything else.
That, however, was the first layer.
The second was geometry.
A Desire Apostle and his Devil Dog were terrifying precisely because they functioned as a unit. Patrick Jason's battlefield awareness and the Dog's predatory instincts created overlapping fields of danger that left almost no exploitable gap.
Together, they were a closed system that Kiyotaka had no chance of breaking.
However, he was never interested in attacking a closed system.
And hence, he began to put his effort into opening it.
The arrangement he had seeded days in advance—through intermediaries who had no idea they were intermediaries, through the careful manipulation of information that made certain locations feel more attractive than others—he had ensured one thing above all else: that when the night arrived, Patrick Jason and his Devil Dog would be split the moment his second in command lure Patrick Jason away.
On the surface, it looked nothing like manipulation and looked like unfortunate circumstances.
And that was the point.
The third layer was the most elegant of all.
Kiyotaka himself was nowhere.
His involvement was so thoroughly laundered through layers of resentment, institutional interest, and manufactured coincidence that even if Patrick Jason survived, even if he interrogated every single person who had moved against him that night, the chain of causality would terminate long before it ever reached Kiyotaka Ayanokōji.
A one-sided hunt had been turned inside out.
And the hunter had been delivered, gift-wrapped, to a collection of people who had been waiting for exactly this opportunity without any of them realizing they were the instruments of someone else's arrangement.
Looking over his plan, Kiyotaka heaved a sigh of relief as he took in a shallow puff of a cigarette and gulped some alcohol. Looking down from his window in a distance which echoed with grunts of animal and human alike, Kiyotaka slipped his hand inside a fishnet glove that was made out of a thin layer of flesh and made a squelching sound.
"Time to reap the benefits, I suppose."
*****
Author's Note: I am not going to lie, I would've delayed this chapter by quite a lot since I am really busy with work. But today is my Birthday and for the first time I have received too many gifts from colleagues and stuff, so I got in a good mood. So, here I am, finishing the chapter on my phone during my lunch break.
Y'all better vote this chapter to oblivion. Anyways, thanks for reading, and do leave comments about the chapter. Do you like long form chapters or short form. And how was the fight scene?
Mid-Sequence fights are fucking hard to write. God help me after the Demigod level.
Do point out any consistencies in powers, if any. I really do appreciate feedback.
Well, enough yapping, now that the word count has been increased by 100 in this A/N, I shall stop typing.
See you all soon in the next chapter. Tchüß.