Jace was waiting about 100 meters or so away from the warehouse.
He was waiting for the fight to start, and when it would, he would act, swoop in amongst the chaos, and eliminate everyone form the shadows.
This was their plan, or rather, his plan.
His spiritual intuition triggered. He looked up at the warehouse; the fight had started.
He snapped his fingers. A spark of fire appeared in the dark night, well over 60 meters away from Jace in the direction of the warehouse.
The spark expanded as Jace stepped through it. He did it again, and he was in the warehouse.
But he was on the other side of the warehouse, behind the enemy; it was intentional, of course.
"Let's see..." Catherine was taking care of the Ocean Songster. Jace doubted she would need his help, so he turned his attention to Natalie.
Natalie had erected a barrier to block the fire ravens and sent out multiple ravens of her own at the Pyromaniac and the man behind him.
Jace turned on his spirit vision and carefully looked at the man behind the Pyromaniac.
He was a sequence 8, precisely a 'Folk of Rage' from the Sailor pathway. He had an interesting-looking iron axe in his hand.
It was an artifact, but it looked different from most, leading Jace to believe it was a charm-type artifact.
He smiled and fire-jumped behind the sequence 8.
The man didn't notice him because Jace was wearing the 'Hypnotist' necklace given to him by Catherine, so he was using 'Psychological Invisibility'.
Because he was wearing the Hypnotist necklace, he could feel that the man was quite scared and nervous, which was how it was supposed to be, as the guy was literally a sequence 8 in the battlefield of mid-sequence Beyonders.
So Jace worked his magic. "Attack him..." he whispered a couple of times using 'Hypnosis'.
The man was affected because he was a low-sequence, but he still seemed hesitant.
So Jace used a mild 'Frenzy' to disturb his mind and said again, "Attack him!"
The man went crazy, did as he was told, and killed the Pyromaniac in one strike of the axe right in the chest, utilizing the electrocution power of the axe.
Jace complimented the guy from behind as he stabbed him with a short paper sword he had brought with him.
Thud. The body fell.
"Interesting..." Jace murmured.
No, the killing part was not 'interesting'—it was just messy. What was 'interesting' was the fact that the fire ravens Natalie had sent towards the Pyromaniac were weakened and veered off their direction.
Whatever that power was, it was awfully similar to his 'fire control' ability.
Through the fiery haze of Natalie's flame barrier, Jace saw Natalie.
Behind her was a man with a knife pointed at her side.
She seemed to be in trouble there for a moment, but she turned the situation around by flexing her left hand with the fire ball behind her back.
That's when Jace saw it. The man behind Natalie disappeared and walked out of the flames near him.
But Jace was alright, as he was still using Psychological Invisibility.
Now, through close observation, Jace could tell that this guy was a sequence 7, and from the Devil pathway at that, meaning he was a sequence 7 Serial Killer!
And there was one particular thing that caught Jace's attention.
The Serial Killer looked at his fallen subordinate, then at his boss, who seemed to be on the losing side. There was no reason for him to stay here.
He looked back to the other side of the dark warehouse. There was no one there, so he sighed and started walking out.
Zhup!
Fire expanded as a young man stepped out 10 meters away from him. The Serial Killer immediately got into an alert stance, preparing to teleport using the artifact on his hand.
But he froze; his mind scrambled for a moment, and he did not know why.
"That's an interesting artifact you got there," the young man said as he threw an axe at his head.
He tried to move, but he couldn't.
Pui!
Blood spewed out as the axe hit right between the Serial Killer's temples. Not only that, the axe again exploded in lightning, killing him on the spot.
'Whoaa!... That's coool,' Jace couldn't help but feel that the axe was like the 'Stormbreaker' of Thor.
He had used Dragon's Might/Awe to freeze the man and attacked with the lightning axe.
He walked to the body, crouched down, and searched the corpse with spirit vision.
He found 2 interesting things: one was a Beyonder characteristic, and the other was an artifact in the form of an untied bow tie, wrapped around the Serial Killer's hand like a ribbon.
Seeing the artifact up close, Jace was certain that it corresponded to a sequence 7 Magician of the Seer pathway.
Booooom!
A shockwave hit him.
'What the fuck...' Jace looked up. It seemed like Catherine was fine and so was Natalie; only the Ocean Songster seemed to have been blasted out of the warehouse.
Jace sighed. He grabbed the axe, removed it from the dead body's head, and snapped his fingers.
Zhup!
He walked out of the flames and saw the Ocean Songster running towards the river.
He seemed kind of out of it, so with great precision, jace threw the axe at the smuggler's side where his body already seemed damaged.
Soon, after using air bullets to end his life, Jace stood over the dead body of a sequence 5.
'What a shame...' he thought.
His potion was digested well over 90 percent; he was close.
Had he been a sequence 5 Marionettist, he would have made the Ocean Songster his marionette.
A sequence 5 was hard to come by.
Jace sighed.
—
Catherine and Natalie stood side by side, looking at the blasted wall of the warehouse.
"Well... that was disappointing..." Catherine said.
"I suppose it was," Natalie agreed.
"That's because you guys did nothing except for waving your hands..." Jace said while looking at both women as he walked through the blasted wall.
"There were 4 guys, and I killed every one of them," Jace said with some irritation, as he showed them 4 fingers on his hand.
Catherine and Natalie both turned to each other, then they looked at Jace. "Fair enough," Catherine said, while Natalie just shrugged.
Jace rolled his eyes. "What now?" he asked.
Catherine thought for a moment, then turned to Natalie. "Natalie will handle collecting the bounty part from the Church of the Lord of Storms, while we will wait and take the Beyonder characteristics and the crates over there to the inn...
Also, we will hand over the sequence 5 Ocean Songster characteristic to the Church as well with the smuggler's body. As they would likely go to extreme lengths to acquire it, it would be troublesome for us to keep it, so we are better off selling it to the Church."
——
An hour later, Jace and Catherine were at the same inn they had met at in the evening.
Catherine was taking a bath while Jace sat at the table, inspecting and performing divinations on the spoils.
And the spoils were awesome!
There were three crates. One crate was filled with the ingredients Catherine had ordered for herself, Natalie, and Jace, and the other two also had different kinds of ingredients, but since they weren't useful to them, it was best to sell them in Beyonder gatherings.
Then there were the Beyonder characteristics: 1 sequence 7 Pyromaniac, 1 sequence 8 Folk of Rage, and 1 sequence 7 Serial Killer.
The Beyonder characteristic Jace found on the Serial Killer's body was actually of a sequence 6 Devil!! Jace planned to have it made into a sealed artifact! It was going to be interesting!
Other than that, the sequence 5 characteristic of the Ocean Songster was taken by Natalie to sell to the Church of the Lord of Storms, but they did find a sequence 6 'Wind-blessed' characteristic on his body.
That would make a great artifact as well, but Jace had already decided to take the Devil characteristic, so he was not sure...
There were artifacts as well!
First was the 'Magician's bow tie'. Jace had just divined its powers and side effects: it had the abilities of fire jump, fire control, illusion creation, Clown agility and flexibility, as well as the 'Clown's premonition'.
The side effects were visual and auditory hallucinations.
It was a good artifact, but Jace had no use for it. However, he figured Natalie would take it for Sarah, because the side effects were inconsequential to Sarah. As a Hypnotist, she had better control over her mind, so she could resist the side effects better than most.
The lightning axe, as Jace had guessed, was a charm-type artifact which could electrocute the opponent when it hit. It could electrocute about 70 times or more, then it would just turn into a normal axe.
And there were 2 more artifacts; these were found in one of the crates, and they were great!!
First was in the form of a red and black bracelet with complicated patterns.
It had the abilities of 'shadow lurking', 'manipulating shadows', and 'shadow shaping' of a sequence 7 Shadow Ascetic.
Not only that, it also had the powers of a Rose Bishop, like flesh and blood control, 'flesh blood fusion', and 'flesh bombs'.
The side effects were that using the artifact would turn your vision black and white and slightly blurry, and it would also drain your blood, which could only be recovered through consuming the blood of other creatures... humans, to be precise.
This was a great artifact; Jace really liked it.
There was another.
This one was a bronze, old-looking locket with a something like a copper coin hanging on it. It corresponded to a sequence 5 Wraith.
It gave the powers of Werewolf's regeneration, Zombie's durability, ice control abilities, Wraith transformation, and mirror blink with a range of 200 meters.
The side effects included physical and mental weakness and a bloodthirsty hunger after usage, making one more prone to losing control.
Using the artifact on a full moon night was not recommended, as the side effects on that night would be significantly amplified.
These artifacts were really good, and the side effects were manageable. It was obvious to Jace that these artifacts were crafted by an Artisan, given how good they were.
All these artifacts and spoils were to be distributed tomorrow.
Jace wanted to take 2 things here: one was the Devil characteristic, and the other was the Rose Bishop bracelet. But he couldn't take 2 objects of sequence 6 level...
The Wraith locket was good as well, and Jace wanted that too, but he could only take so much.
On the other hand, no one knew he had the Devil's characteristic because he had taken it from the Serial Killer while no one was around. So he had just told them that he only found the 'Magician's bow tie' on the Serial Killer.
Meaning, in addition to the Rose Bishop bracelet, he could choose another thing, but he obviously couldn't choose the Wraith necklace because it was too valuable.
Ha... He sighed. He kept his greedy thoughts aside and focused on divining about the ingredients in the crate to confirm what they were.
A few minutes later...
"Still not done?" Catherine's voice fell on Jace's ears.
"Almost done... just... a... few... remai..." his words spaced out as he looked at Catherine.
Catherine, who had just taken a bath, wore a dangerously loose bathrobe, revealing most of her fair skin.
Her curling dark hair fell on her shoulders. She moved her head and tucked one side of her hair behind her ear with a seductive flare, showing her nape.
"Oh... that's a shame," she said with disappointment as she walked into the bedroom.
At the door, Jace saw the bathrobe fall.
This was... a blatant attempt at seduction, and it... succeeded...
Jace would be a fool if he didn't accept such a invitation.
He quickly put the ingredients and the artifacts back in the crate and walked into the bedroom.