The front door was blasted open with a loud meow. Mater flew inside on the pages of his book. His red eyes scanned the interior of the big house.
"More Chaos. There is definitely a wraith or something similar living here."
The black cat controlled the Dark Grimoire to fly upstairs. The shadow was last seen on the second floor window so the cat checked their first.
As he expected, there wasn't anyone at the spot.
"This house is pretty big. Better start looking around."
Mater floated through the long hallway of the second floor. He blasted open every door he found. It was a big house with at least a dozen rooms in the hallway.
A few empty guest rooms. The furniture was still inside, covered in dust and rubbles. The mattresses were all torn to pieces. Many scattered pieces of wood on the ground.
"What exactly happened here?"
Then he found an empty storage room with tools and candles inside.
Mater grabbed a candle and sniffed it.
"This candle was mixed with blood… Pig blood?"
With his sharp cat nose, Mater was able to differentiate what kind of smell he was picking up. A trait that a human wouldn't have.
"Definitely a material for some dark ritual."
Mater meowed and destroyed all the black candles. He continued his search on the second floor. But there wasn't much to continue on.
Right when he thought the wraith might have gone, Mater spotted a hidden door on the ceiling.
"A cellar, perhaps?"
Mater used [Desperation Scream] again and blasted the hidden door open. He flew up to the cellar. There was a small circular window looking out to the outside world.
On the floor was a bloody red pentagram with five black candles that had burned off.
"Ah ha! Found you! A demonic ritual to artificially create a wraith."
Behind Mater, a woman in white crawling on the ceiling. Her head turned an entire 180 degree in an unnatural way.
Suddenly, she jumped at the black cat. Her nails were as sharp as knives.
Black chains reached out from the shadow and locked her in mid-air. She struggled fiercely but was unable to get out of the restraints.
Mater turned back slowly. His sharp cat teeth revealed under the dimly lit area of the cellar. The cat grinned wider and more unnerving than the possessed corpse in front of him.
"Possession? Haven't seen a wraith to have this power for a long time."
Mater's eyes flashed red. He could see that the corpse was influenced by Chaos. Dark red strings reached out from the corpse's flesh, leading to some other area in the house.
The wraith wasn't here but Mater could locate it via the dark red strings.
The decomposed corpse growled. Its long nails swirled at Mater in desperation but it couldn't touch him.
"Shut the hell up!"
Mater opened his mouth wave. The shockwave came out of his throat and crushed the head of the possessed corpse into pieces.
The black chains disappeared and the headless corpse fell to the ground.
"Pathetic."
Mater followed the red strings downstairs to find the wraith. On his way out, he screamed at the corpse, plunging it deep into the wooden floor.
The dark red strings were slowly withdrawing. Mater followed them down to the basement.
"Basement again? Why do these wraiths like the basement so much?"
Mater rolled his eyes. "Necron energy can be harvested more easily underground so that is probably why."
Necron Energy was a term from his Alchemist friend. That was what fueled the specter species and provided them with their undead power. They were the opposite of the benevolent life force everyone knew.
In front of the door of the basement, the two male undead stood there. Their heads vibrated non-stop.
"These must be Darren and Eric Wilson. The father and the son. The woman in the cellar is probably Lisa. All the members of the family are here."
The red strings withdrew behind the basement door. The wraith was located.
The black cat stretched his body and yawned. "Come on, boys! Let's get this over with."
Being a cat was hard, you felt sleepy all the time.
The two undeads lunged at Mater. He waited for them to get in range of [Desperation Scream] and let loose.
The two undeads were sent flying, slamming their back on the door behind.
Mater waited for the spell cooldown to pass and let out another scream, blasting the door and sending both of the corpses down to the basement.
"Ghosty, ghosty! Daddy is coming for you!"
Mater grinned from ear to ear. He flew down to the basement.
Back in the ACPD station, Alister had just finished working on some paperwork. He logged onto the Bounty Hunting Site to check the status of the current missions.
"There are quite a lot of new bounty hunters these days. The missions are completed much more than before.
But most of these people are useless. Only a few of the recruits had psychic power.
Hmmm… Selina probably inherited some power from her mother as well. I should recommend her to go to the Institute to learn more about her power.
Let me see if she has accepted any jobs."
Alister blinked repeatedly at the screen.
"She already accepted three jobs? These are all the ones with the highest chance of having NCEs.
She really is similar to her mother.
Oh? What is this? She already found new evidence relating to a mission."
Alister looked at the pictures that Selina had sent to the bounty site. They were marked with her bounty so Alister knew which case it was.
"This is… Three desecrated graves. From the look of it, it could be MIH."
Alister picked up the black phone on his desk. "Carpenter? I need you to check something for me. Bring silver bullets."
The basement of the villa was built with cutstones. Its structural design was not from this age.
It looked like a cell of a long lost time ago. Mater's golden eyes turned completely black as his slit pupils expanded entirely to let more light in, activating his night vision.
On the four corners of the basement, four giant nails were hammered in. Four chains were connected to them.
There were big iron bars separated from the entrance of the basement to whatever was on the other side.
Mater cracked his small cat's neck.
"What even are you?" He meowed.