The Seeker | Volume 2

I watched as the boy ran helplessly into the woman's arms, crying into her chest. She looked towards the dead body while rubbing her son's back.

"What happened?" She asked, her tone serious yet still managing to carry that motherly feeling.

The boy looked up at his mother, tears continuing to stream down his face.

"H-he stole from a homeless woman, she had no food! I want to give her back her money, I want to see if she's ok!" He replied, his eyes red from the crying.

After hearing the boy's reason, a small smile formed on her face, but behind it, I could still sense the deep disappointment and fear in her eyes.

"Do you have the money he stole?" She asked again.

The boy with black hair nodded as he approached the dead body and opened the palm, taking out the small amount of coins inside his now cold palm.

She smiled and nodded as the boy approached her and put the coins inside of her palm.

Suddenly, the crowd in the distance parted as a large, towering figure entered the scene. He was wearing a dark gray button down shirt and overalls. He had a rather bulky build and had a black stubble.

He looked left and saw the carnage inside of the alleyway, before glaring back to his son, his eyes filled with an eminent anger.

"What the hell did you do, Owen?!" He asked in fury as he brought his large palm to the boy's cheek, delivering a loud and painful sounding slap.

Owen looked up at his father as the tears came back to his eyes; they began to flood out again more than before upon being reprimanded.

"Charles, he was doing the right thing!" The woman shouted as she walked in front of her son, carefully nudging him behind her.

Charles took a few steps towards the woman, sighing heavily.

"He just killed a boy. Do you know what this means?! We could go to jail for our son's actions, that little shithead always getting into trouble!" 

He then brought a fist to the woman's face, causing her to stumble back and let out a groan in pain. The boy who had continued to cry watched in fear as his mother was sent back from the force of the assault.

"I was just doing the right thing! I didn't mean to kill him!" Owen shouted, covering his face with his small hands as he turned around and fled from the scene.

Just then, my vision turned hazy again, and I was brought back to the real world; where Cheyenne was looking at me with curiosity upon seeing that my eyes had gained feeling again.

"What the hell was that? Why do I keep seeing people I don't know?" I thought to myself as I met the man's gaze.

I didn't have the courage or patience to ask him those questions, so I just smiled.

"I feel good." 

…

"A supernatural encounter? How can such a thing be determined by a needle and a blood sample?" Ling asked, curious about Dominik's methods of extraction.

Dominik put the needle on the table and smiled. 

"Everything and everyone has spirituality; even the needle I was just holding. By getting a blood sample I could determine her spiritual condition."

Ling, who had remained silent following the explanation, had remembered what he had heard at the crime scene.

"She said something about an Angel of Depravity before she died."

Dominik raised an eyebrow, his lips parting slightly, causing his mustache to move slightly above his lip.

"An Angel?" He asked, confused while also decently intrigued.

"But …why?" Palsy asked, picking up the rounded glasses that had been set on the table.

"Try sampling this for its spirituality." He said as he handed the glasses to Dominik.

The man with the mustache took the pair of glasses and closed his eyes. He reached into his satchel and took out a pair of red gloves.

In his numerous investigations of murders and robberies, the police and other organizations always used gloves reminiscent of the ones that Mr. Dominik was wearing.

"Sealed Relic 2-917, it enables anyone to amplify their spirituality to see another one's spirituality." He explained as he put the gloves on and picked the glasses up.

The second the gloves made contact with the gloves, it began to shake and vibrate slightly.

Ling's eyes narrowed as he suddenly caught sight of something that he wasn't sure the others could see, otherwise they would have reacted by then.

Tiny wavelengths began to emit from the gloves, they were transparent, but their effect on the surroundings was eminent.

"These glasses …they're special." Mr. Dominik said softly as he opened his eyes.

The glasses continued to shake as an illusory purple hue began to engulf them.

Mr. Dominik's eyes widened upon seeing this, and he cocked his head slightly.

"These glasses sure aren't normal…" Palsy repeated Dominik's previous statement.

Suddenly, the lenses on the glasses shattered with a loud boom, and a massive surge of light sprung forth, engulfing the trio and blinding them. The trio was still recovering from the shockwave and their ears were still ringing when the light left the room.

They suddenly saw a figure standing in the corner of the room. 

He had neatly combed velvet black hair that was parted, and he wore the same rounded glasses that Mr. Dominik was just wearing. 

The ends of his lips curled up slightly as he approached the trio, giving them a faint yet mischievous smile. 

Everyone in the room got chills upon seeing Raymond, but Raymond seemed oblivious to their reactions, leaning against the wall with a passive expression. He suddenly cocked an eyebrow.

"I see you've found something." he said, pointing to the continued explosion of dazzling light inside of a glass sphere. Palsy, Ling and Mr. Dominik looked towards the sphere of the contained energy.

"You…saved us?" Ling asked, looking towards the angel.

"Saved you? No, it was the habitual instinct of the Uniqueness of the Depravity Routeway."

"Uniqueness?" Ling asked, astonished by the sight of the contained energy.

The orb suddenly darkened as black scales engulfed the sphere, and bulging red veins emerged from its form, pulsating and beating like a living organism.

"That's the Uniqueness manifested as a physical object; or its true form. The glasses you saw earlier were merely something I could project without much strain. After all, I'm not here at the moment."

"Depravity Routeway…" Ling repeated Raymond's words under his breath, his eyes narrowing slightly. 

"At the death scene the victim was of the Depravity Routeway, I recognized the sigil on his forehead."

Raymond chuckled deeply as he leaned off the wall, floating in the air slightly. 

"So, it appears the accommodation did work."

"Accommodation, what are you talking about; who even are you?" Ling asked, turning to look at Raymond.

Raymond popped his collar and sighed in disappointment for his lack of introduction. 

"I'm Raymond Appastos, The pseudo-Angel of Depravity, The Mad-King."

"It was you! You made the Hampshire's explode!" Palsy exclaimed, pointing at Raymond.

Raymond clapped his hands a few times as he grinned. "Marvelous deduction, sir. It was for the accommodation I mentioned earlier."

Raymond suddenly snapped his fingers, and the sphere of obsidian and veins gravitated in his direction. 

"You see, if I were to truly ascend to Order 1 I had to grasp the Uniqueness and do the ritual to do so. As inscribed on the slate created a few epochs ago…"

Raymond snapped his fingers, and a large stone slate the size of a cutting board manifested in front of him. Its surface was mottled and stained with blood and other unknown substances, a testament to its age.

"Order 1 advancement ritual. Kill every low to mid Order Depravity Routeway user to further enhance the probability of its success. Then, the Uniqueness you have probably acquired will manifest further, allowing you to absorb it and advance to an Angel of Affiliation."

"But how would you pull off such a feat, murdering thousands without direct interference?" Ling asked.

Raymond chuckled to himself. "As we speak "He" is reviving. The Lord of Angels of the Apocalypse: Khorvath. "He" stated that there would be an angelic battle in the wake of his revival. You already have one of the candidates below the castle a few blocks from here."

The ends of Raymond's lips curled up slightly as he unfolded his hands, revealing a stone figure that resembled Izuku Midoryia's mangled form kept beneath the stronghold. 

"I know he's not an angel, but he has entities inside of him that are at the level of an angel: The Primordial Demon King. Are you saying he'll have to fight himself?"

Raymond shook his head. "Although I'm not sure of their current identity, another powerful angel is reviving underground. "He's" ready to emerge once a crucial part of "His" plan works."

"Why haven't you intervened to stop him? Do you want Khorvath to be resurrected?" Palsy asked. 

Raymond gave the three of them a faint smile as his body became more transparent. "I do, so I'll simply watch and laugh." 

Raymond's form disappeared from the room, along with the Uniqueness of the Depravity Routeway.

…

"That's good." Cheyenne replied upon hearing my initial reaction to drinking the Order 7 potion.

"The last time I drank a potion it had a name: Wraithcaller. I'm guessing this one has a name too, one that corresponds to the abilities I'll gain or any new changes?"

"It does, Isaac. If I remember correctly it's called Voidbound."

"Voidbound?" I repeated. Cheyenne nodded.

"So far the only abilities I've gained are the Scream of Catastrophe and Wraith Limb."

He suddenly extended his left arm, and with the flick of his wrist, it became dark, shadowy and illusory. 

I watched in astonishment as he waved his arm, causing a wraith or two to emerge from it, flying away into the clouds. Cheyenne then reversed his bodily changes and looked back at me with a smile. 

"Wow…" I was too stunned to speak. 

I then tried to do the same. I extended my right arm and flicked my wrist, expecting a qualitative change to happen. But when I saw that my arm remained with its human qualities I sighed in defeat.

"It usually takes about a week or two for one to practice this ability. If we do manage to stop Raymond I'll help you learn the Order 7 abilities; after that I'll get you the Order 6 ingredients after you've digested your potion."

I smiled warmly upon hearing Cheyenne's proposal. "Thank you, Cheyenne."

Suddenly one of the tribes-woman ran out of the forest clearing and pointed at the mountain. The storm atop the mountain had turned into something reminiscent of a cyclone. The storm had grown more dangerous, I could feel something in my gut telling me we didn't have much time as I expected