-Lunar-

It hadn’t taken the Creature more than just one minute to bring Lunar, holding Caelum’s body, far into the Eastern side of the forest. After rocketing through the dense woodland with lightning speed, the Creature came to another, larger open space; a circled alcove surrounded by floras. The one standing in the middle, dressed in a dark brown leather jacket with black pants, was Emon, imperturbably flicking off his cigarette after one final puff. A strong wind pressure flew past his figure as his Creature landed before him, fluttering his attire.

Lunar stepped towards him, leaving Caelum’s body behind.

“Emon Moreau. I certainly did not expect you of all people to come and rescue me,” he said with a smile.

“Don’t mind it,” Emon responded, passing him to reach his son’s corpse. As he gazed upon Caelum’s lifeless face, he fell silent for several seconds before mustering up the courage to speak again.

“…His spiritual body is what Michel needs. I think you should be able to safely hide it whilst my Creature forms a cocoon around you. They won’t find this place anytime soon.”

Lunar stepped towards him.

“What are you going to do?”

“Michel is seeking a grade six Artifact; The Mors non Vult. Just in case Caelum’s reincarnation goes awry, he would perform a ritual with the help of the Artifact to offer his own mind and body to Sylas.”

Lunar lowered his head, planted his hand against his face, and began chuckling.

“…So it seems that Sylas will awaken after all.”

“Not before I stop him from reaching the Artifact first. He is most likely heading towards the source of the Artifact in the hopes that you will be caught by one of his Fleshes. He planned to find it within the span of Caelum’s eventual death…”

Emon then began to smile, as he gently rubbed his Creature’s snout.

“Call it pride if you will. Because after all, he was foolish enough that you, Lunar, Declan and Geneve, the Dark Triad, would comply with his words.”

As he let go of his Creature, it began to morph into a cocoon made of its own flesh around Caelum’s body, its human limbs slowly and distastefully being pulled back into its body.

“Stay inside of there,” Emon said, pointing towards it. “After you’ve finished, leave the cocoon without the body. Michel will eventually confiscate the body regardless, so try your best to hide his spiritual body well.”

“I got it,” Lunar nodded. “He won’t ever find it.”

Emon then reached for the pockets of his jacket and fished out a small green-coloured potion. He handed it to Lunar.

“Thank you. Here’s the Nirvana Transformation Potion. Ingest it when you’re ready.”

“…Of course.”

***

After Lunar crawled his way into the cocoon, Emon materialized his Grimoire from thin air; The old, weathered-looking book. As it fell into his right palm, it opened and flew through what seemed to be thousands of pages by itself. After a few seconds, it stopped on a page that detailed his Sixth Creature.

The humanoid Creature with white wings and a pale complexion then protruded out of the page like a pocket dimension, and grew into its gigantic size after floating in the air. Emon levitated in the air, as if in space, and gently landed on the Creature’s shoulder. After readying himself, the Creature’s wings began to flap aggressively, and soared away from the alcove, leaving Lunar behind.

Verbatim to Emon’s previous words, Michel was indeed searching for the Mors non Vult, which had presumably manifested itself within the Great Eastern Forest. Any Artifact emanated soul pressure depending on their grade level. A grade six Artifact would emanate enough soul pressure to cover an entire generic forest, but only Sequencers or Divination Tool users of any rank higher than three would be able to “sense” the soul pressure of Artifacts graded five or higher.

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Emon, as a ranked five Sequencer, was therefore able to perceive the soul pressure of the Mors non Vult. It laid deep in the forest enough to make it hard for him to even find it, despite coming closer and closer to the source of the emanating soul pressure.

Eventually, Emon broke out of the dense part of the forest, and found himself floating in front of a river that divided the woodland. The presence of such a significant Artifact felt prevalent at the other side, but Emon took a sudden halt right in front of the waters; As though being stopped by an invisible wall. Emon then glanced over his shoulder and squinted his eyes.

A gigantic sword glowing with gold and white hue stormed towards him. Emon only had less than a second to react to save his own life. He leaped upwards, kicking his Creature down as the sword blasted through the distance Emon made with his Creature, the overwhelming wind pressure forcing Emon to cover his face with his arm until it settled down.

He levitated in the air, comfortably burying his hands in the pockets of his jeans as he faced the source of the attack. His Creature took a stance right next to him, constantly flapping its wings to remain afloat.

A wide smile tugged at the corners of his lips as soon as he noticed Michel, surfing on a swarm of black butterflies approaching him. An outsider would presume that Geisterpriesterin and Grisha were present, but Emon already had a firm grasp of understanding Michel’s powers. At least some of it.

He “stole” the Sequencer characteristics of both Geisterpriesterin and Grisha, and “adapted” his own body to them. As he slowly approached Emon, he said with a composed tone,

“Not so fast, Emon.”

Emon chuckled and landed on the right shoulder of his Creature, his hands still in the pockets of his jacket. As they were now facing each other from just a few meters away, Michel, standing on the floating swarm of black butterflies, continued to speak.

“I know of the true reasoning behind your arrival. You haven’t disappointed me one bit. I am sure Father would be proud.”

“Oh yeah?” Emon chuckled. “Well, I’m glad I don’t have to chew it out for you.”

“You wish to free your own soul… to free yourself from Father’s grasp. You know that the Child’s reincarnation will happen regardless, so just like the equivalent of a fragile worm squirming through wet soil that you are, you wish to throw The Gambit into shambles.”

“That is my plan B, yes,” Emon responded, nodding, closing his eyes. It was at that moment when he sensed Geisterpriesterin rapidly approaching them. Knowing his time here was dire, he decided to ‘play it off’, and act as if he wasn’t noticing anything.

“You’re such a cool person, Michel. It would be a waste for you to sacrifice yourself for that bastard. Why don’t we hold our own Gambit? Never thought of paving your own path? To live a life without strings attached to every part of your body?”

Michel’s voice grew low and malicious. That alone was enough for Emon to realize he struck a chord within him.

“How dare you blaspheme against Father…!”

In an instant, Emon widened his eyes as he snatched his head behind him. He thought the Lady in Black would approach him from behind Michel, but it seemed that Geisterpriesterin foresaw that Emon would anticipate that. A large, destructive arrow made of black butterflies soared towards him at a speed equivalent to an actual gunshot.

Emon’s immensely fast reaction time allowed him to leap backwards, leaving his Creature to take the hit right in the middle of its abdomen. Meanwhile, as Emon was still upside down in the air, he swiftly grabbed his gun and pulled the trigger—a clean connection to Michel’s abdomen, causing him to fall onto the non-deep river.

In the span of the same motion, as Emon was slowly rotating back to normal posture, his Creature, with Geister’s black arrow still penetrating its chest, swept him up from below, and flew away from the scene further into the adjacent part of the forest. Geister did not bother to persuade him, and was holding her Lord in the water that was gradually being tainted red with Michel’s blood.

“Are you well?” she asked, as Michel pushed her away and got back to his feet with a grunt.

“Go after him. He is going to enter Nirvana. I want you to be there once I throw him back into the physical plane.”

“Understood,” she responded, summoning a set of wings formed from black butterflies and soaring away. Following her departure, Michel, still standing amidst the waters, spread his left, black glove-covered palm in the air, and summoned an ungraded Artifact named ‘Eye of Nirvana’.

Crafted from obsidian and inlaid with veins of silver, the Artifact had a shape of a single, unblinking eye, perched comfortably in Michel’s palm. The sclera of the eye was deep, dark onyx, smooth and cold to the touch, whilst the iris glowed with an ethereal blue.

Michel, with his right hand, stuck one finger into the gun wound, causing tremendous pain to race through his body. After sticking his now blood-soaked finger out, he hovered it over the Eye of Nirvana, and let a few droplets of blood fall upon the glowing blue iris.

As a reaction to the blood, the Artifact began to blink seven times. After seven blinks, a small cluster of gray mist suddenly appeared in front of Michel. The portal leading to Nirvana.

Michel did not hesitate for a second, and stomped into the cloud through the water, entirely dissipating his physical body.