The instant the clasp snapped shut, Manziholet’s Oculon was taken over. Lines of messages ran across his vision.
[Lex: Ephemeral Facade established.
Your metaphysical presence has been neutralized.]
A shiver briefly coursed down his spine before vanishing. Limited as his grasp on the inner workings of his Circuit might be, he knew something had been applied to the device that encased his ArchSoul.
Manziholet flexed his fingers. The wristband’s size was a little small for him. It dug into his skin, sending a faint pressure through his hand as if a constant reminder for who was the illegitimate wearer, but there was no spontaneous skin-flaying or sudden urge to kill himself, the sense of relief from which canceled out the discomfort.
Manziholet manifested his Armament on his left palm, dismissed it, then manifested it again on his right. Vaepor had been pulled to his ArchSoul without any apparent irregularities or increases in cost. His Circuit, however, still detected the mass of vaepor in Fliker’s intact brain, but not his own.
[Seraph: 0?υ of vaepor
ArchSoul: 0?υ of draeg]
[Errors detected. Contact your personal After-Deather immediately.]
Further tests would be needed once he returned to TerraSol, but it seemed Manziholet had now effectively become invisible in the metaphysical realm. As far as he was concerned, everything else was behaving as normal, the implications of which, on the contrary, were awful.
What the Daemoneers had used was working properly on Seraphists. If the government, or the Church, got hold of one of these Lex: Ephemeral Facade, then their Breakers could easily slip through Overwatches and cause unchecked devastation, while the Overwatches themselves would be further empowered to spy, stalk, and generally poke their noses into places they had no business being (like perverts). The wheels were coming off the wagon of civilization, so to speak. Society as they knew it would collapse.
Therefore, as a law-abiding citizen of the Imperium, he bore the solemn duty of ensuring that all unworthy hands were kept away from this dangerous item for as long a time as possible. Some burdens were heavier than others, indeed, Manziholet thought happily as he removed the wristband and hid it away in his jacket.
After that, Manziholet rummaged through Relias’s armor and clothes. For a person hailed from the Defiant Path, the quality of his equipment was unremarkable – practical for adventures, but nothing extravagant. Most likely, he had thrown on those ordinary gear to blend in with the locals.
Manziholet had hoped to find more dissonant items like the wristband. Back on TerraSol, after their declaration, the Daemoneers had also displayed the ability to freely perform spatial shifts, but Relias carried none as such. Among his most valuable belongings were a steel dagger as well as a few coins. The rest was the usual assortment of traveler’s useless odds and ends.
Leaving all of them alone, Manziholet struck down the corpse with the Wispstrike Cutter as well his Rapier. Both minced it to pieces, which he then kicked to distribute around the scene. That way, if anyone had prior knowledge of the wristband, he could claim ignorance by pointing at the mess. At this level of disarray, even the evidence would struggle to find itself.
Manziholet then stepped forward until he loomed over the half-head of Fliker. The independent’s sleek white hair had been soaked in blood, its lengthy strands spreading out and clinging to the cold stone floor like a grotesque halo.
For mortals, a wound of this magnitude was nothing short of an early retirement from existence. But, a Seraphist would never truly die so long as their organ of intelligence remained unscathed. As one Guild had made clear to the public, the brain served as the last anchor for their Circuit, which preserved the metaphysical kernel that was their ArchSoul, which in turn preserved critical information to be used in successful revivals. No brain, no second chances, his After-Deather had said, though Manziholet believed the Nat’Seax meant it figuratively, too.
Hence, when his Vixtrian Rapier skewered into the independent’s ear and through the other, the life of a man called Fliker was officially terminated. Manziholet raised the head off the floor as motes of light, dense and abundant, leaked out from it into reality. Attracted to the weight of his seraph, the vaepor converged around him.
[Unclaimed vaepor registered.
Absorbing…]
[Seraph: 932υ of vaepor]
As someone who had reached Second Sphere and unlocked his first ArchSoul-specific Miracle, Fliker undoubtedly possessed a vaepor reserve exceeding ten thousand standard units. Given his progression, even when factoring those he had expensed into draeg or those Manziholet had not managed to capture before they dispersed, Fliker should be hoarding many times more to ascend into the Third as well.
[Seraph: 4035υ of vaepor]
Manziholet laughed as power filled him. All of them, no doubt painfully accumulated through a lifetime and traded with the independent’s sorrow and sacrifice, would now be his to wield as he pleased. The cost of disloyalty would be paid in blood. The trick, as his mother had so lovingly demonstrated to him over her career, was making sure it was not yours.
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[Seraph: 9497υ of vaepor]
He felt his seraph stirred up within the Circuit. Sated with a fresh influx of vaepor, its metaphysicality bulged up, slowly pressing against the encasing shell as the figure on his Oculon increased. Soon, the critical mass of ten thousand units was reached, and the shell was shattered. The Outsider’s authority over the Domain of Mist took another order of magnitude towards totality.
[Seraph: 17331υ of vaepor]
Mist began manifesting to herald the ascent. Thin, translucent tendrils creeped out from nowhere. At first, they were faint and fragile, but soon they thickened, their presence undeniable, swirling in defiance of the constant breeze originating from Pneuma Heart. The phenomenon clung to the air, wrapping itself around the vines that crawled on the wall, caressing their leaves and making them tremble ever so slightly. It waned away the light from the glowing fruits and filled every breath Manziholet took.
Within a few seconds, the tunnel had become cold and wet. Water condensed on leaves, clothes, and any other surfaces. Just as quickly, however, the Outsider’s will was silenced once more as the mechanism built into the Circle formed another shell over it. This seraph of Mist would never be allowed the taste of freedom or mindmeld with mortals, forever doomed to be a component in the machinery of soul and serving the Seraphist.
[Seraph: 25590υ of vaepor]
The last unclaimed vaepor was dissipating away, while the mist weakened and followed the air movement outside, returning normalcy to his surroundings. Dropping Fliker’s head, a mere husk of lifeless flesh no different from any other mortal remains, on the floor and putting away his weapon, Manziholet considered the changes.
At Second Sphere, he unlocked an additional Miracle, its usage having woven into his instinctual mind like a limb he had not had, liable to be switched on at his will. It was not an Armament whose functions were determined solely by the Domain, but a specific Miracle shaped by the very definition of the ArchSoul.
[Seraph: Mist, Second Sphere (27308υ of vaepor)
ArchSoul: Porter (101υ of draeg)
Miracles: <
Ruin Scars: <
The main roles of Porters were mobility and logistics. They specialized in the transport, storage, as well as movement of goods (themselves and other creatures included), across thresholds. Their Miracles could give them the ability to generate personal demiplanes to carry vast quantities of supplies, phase or travel between locations faster than the speed of light, or perform similar actions to provide the opposition with truly unforgettable headaches.
Specifically, designated by the name of <
Upon the Miracle’s activation, a curtain of mist instantly superseded the air around him. Unlike the previous fleeting phenomenon, it was much more dense and heavy. Despite the cold on his skin, there was a strange comfort in its embrace, because here he held the power.
[Seraph: 25988υ of vaepor
ArchSoul: 1421υ of draeg]
He knew the exact dimensions of the curtain – spanning over five meters in all directions from his central mass at first and slowly shifting under environmental factors such as the tunnel’s breeze. It had been manifested using 1320 units of vaepor and sustained using 5 units per seconds, more than extravagant compared to <
It cost an arm and a leg, yet it gave him wings. Inside among the tiny water droplets of <
At his will, the Miracle applied a force to his body, lifting Manziholet off the floor. Anything physically connected to him, from his equipment to the caked blood on them, came under its influence as well. The more mass controlled, the more vaepor his Circuit must convert to sustain this anomalous state. Currently, around twenty-four units were used each second.
With an ease akin to moving his legs, he glided forward, the speed of which was only set by the depth of his desire, not by the world around him or bearing any additional cost. The Miracle could instantly accelerate him to near the speed of light, provided that Manziholet was tough enough to not be crushed by the force.
There were limitations, of course, or else Porters of Mist would run society by now with impossible fast spear thrusts or arrow shots. They were not Breakers; their ArchSoul-specific Miracles might be capable of breaking distance but not mountains. For one, in this state, expelling the mist in his vicinity away would lead to backlash, as was any attempts to influence the mist with <
Also, any momentum created at the result of the Miracle could not be imparted to external objects, except into the air or the mist itself to part them away. Sword slashes he made would be supported by his weight without being further amplified by his speed. If he propelled himself into the empty space outside of the Miracle, the momentum would also dissipate and he would immediately be halted as normal reality took over. In fact, lacking caution and finesse, the difference in speed between what in and what out might squeeze his body to pulp.
Already, the part of the human brain responsible for causation might feel ache with questions about paradoxes and implications. At the Academy, the instructors had told him best not to dwell on the workings behind complex Miracles. Knowledge expanded the mind, but some of them shattered it. Overthinking about Miracles, especially those of high Sphere, could drive people crazy as it had with many researchers of the past Defiant Path or the present After-Deathers.
What Seraphists should do was to leave the Miracles as they were – highly improbable and unexplainable phenomenons under natural or scientific laws, and go on merrily dominating reality with them. When inquired about the Studium’s advanced techniques in usage of Miracles, the instructors smiled and skillfully switched to another topic. They were of ordinary minds. They knew trying to answer about what smarter people were doing would only embarrass themselves.
Manziholet did not intend to be such failures. He had chosen to encase with a seraph of Mist not only because it led to an Armament suitable for his fighting style, but also because its Miracles were among the hardest to master. Until he was granted a legacy seraph, he would explore and dry all secrets from it. But first, he must travel back to TerraSol in one piece. Relias had admitted to having a dispute with his colleagues, but he might not be the sole Daemoneer on Marwind. It was time to call in the Knight Purifiers.