Chapter 174 - Pain, Loss, and Despair

"Aghh!! No, please, let me go!!" screamed the over-smart failed escapee as Victor tackled him to the ground and gripped his skull.

"Where do you think you're going?" he hissed, rubbing the absconder face into the cobblestone. "You thought we wouldn't notice, huh?"

The red-haired, pretty face resisted his push and tried to struggle with all his might, but in reality, there was no force behind it. After all, in the daydream that Victor had trapped him, he was a giant crushing this man with all his might.

So, his struggle in real life was proportional to that—and it was meager. To his credit, the guy had resisted him quite well for just being a lowly first-shade observer of some stupid sequence.

"Please! Please!" he yelped. "I haven't done anything wrong. I never offended you people, and nor did I commit any crimes. Why are you doing this to me? To all of us?"

Victor’s eyes suddenly turned sharp. This was the part that he hated. Questioning. Who did this guy think he was to question him? Was Madame Leah not enough for that? Did he really need these random fuckers to question him?

He raised his free hand and—slap! "You think you can question me?" Slap! Victor asked, a surge of ecstasy washing over him as he watched this otherwise strong-looking man turn into a mess under his slaps.

Slap! Smack! he hit him again and again until—

"Please, please! Stop! I—I didn't. Please. I did nothing wrong."

"Ohh, then why were you trying to run? Surely, there's something you're guilty of."

"You—you guys are doing something unnatural to everyone. They—they're not themselves. It—it's not correct. It's not right. We did nothing wrong. AGH!!! Police! Kingsmen!! Please, someone HELP!!"

Victor couldn't not lose himself to the pleasure, "Ahaha Haha!" He dropped his face to the man's eye level and exclaimed, "Pray all you want. Scream as hard as you can. Shout your lungs out! BEG UNTIL YOU'RE SORE!!"

He slammed that pretty head into the ground once again, held it back up, and pointed at the slow crowd in this backwater district. At the people in their houses, on the street, terrace, and everywhere else. At the police constable who marched by in ignorance, and the Kingsman who zipped across without a care. "You see them!? They don't care."

"NO ONE CARES!"

"Your life is worthless!"

"You are worthless!"

"Help! Please!! Someone help!!!" the pretty face screamed with outstretched hands, his voice getting hoarse by the second, and Victor couldn't help but shiver as those eyes became more dejected as each and every passerby completely ignored those pleas.

Ah, the pleasure. What better joy was there in life than to savor someone's despair? To lock them into a cage of their own mind with no hope?

That's when someone or something grasped his shoulder. Victor couldn't help but be annoyed. It was obviously Keeth—the newcomer. He turned, "The fuck is wrong with you? What makes you think it's a good time to interrupt me?" he yelled. "Can't you see, I'm honing the art of inducing Despair!?"

It was how he advanced. It was how all that followed the Shepherd shade sequence advanced. Mastering the emotion they chose to wield was the path. How dare someone interrupt him from getting ever closer to the sweet understanding of dejection?

Would there really ever be another situation as perfect as this? Illusions he could conjure only went so far. What the Eye of Seraph did here was on a whole other level.

The passersby weren't under some overt mental suggestion. No. This wasn't even an illusion. It was grander than any of that. It was everyone's subconscious's defense mechanism. To avoid coming in contact with the singularity of an Elden One, or even register it.

It was the most primal urge to not look at god.

This created this situation where the man beneath him wasn't just ignored physically but was shunned on the most primal levels. And, oh, was it beautiful! Was it breathtaking to observe his very soul drowning in despair!

"Boss, please stop. The Eye of Seraph needs pure, untortured minds for nourishment. This will be no good," he pleaded.

Victor suddenly halted in his tracks and turned to look the fucker in his eyes, and spoke with a dangerous edge to his voice, "You think you can tell me what to do?" engaging some of that control over lower shades of his own sequence, he gave the newbie a tiny daydream of pain, loss, and despair.

The soft-hearted Keeth recoiled as Victor's expression turned even more ferocious. It was sweet. The control was sweet. Until recently, it was that bitch—no, Madame Leah, who always subtly controlled him through her superior insights on the path of a Shepherd.

But now?

He was the boss! He'd recently ascended to become a Unifier—the third shade of the Shepherd sequence. After having honed the emotions of pain and loss, he finally controlled another emotion—Despair. Now, he was the one who had superior insights than all these grunts in Seraph's Order.

"Heh. You think you're Madame, huh? You want to tell me what to do and what not to do?" He gripped those red hair tighter and slammed them into the ground as he yelled, "Fuck off!"

"Madame's not here, and I'll do what I want. The cage is only to be used once I've had my fill. Until then, go do your fucking job. Go inside and help those fuckers out or something. I don't need you out here."

The good-for-nothing had asked to be on guard duty because he didn't like ‘toying with mundane’s memories.’ Why did Madame even let a useless mut like him on their team?

Further angered by his uselessness, Victor bellowed, "Know. Your. Fucking. Place!"

His emotions clouded by pain, loss, and a tinge of despair, Keeth shook like a leaf and ran inside as if his life depended on it, "Yes…yes, boss!"

Victor suddenly closed his eyes and reveled in the cloud of despair that was getting denser around the hotel. It is heavenly, he gasped, feeling a little breathless. This city was already a cesspool of pain and loss, but despair was more challenging to find.

And this. This was how he handled that shortcoming—by creating it himself.

He took a sharp breath and continued his prior work of art, "Now, tell me. What does it feel like? To not have someone watching over you? To have the world ignore your misery? To be alone!!!?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"It's painful, isn't it!? It hurts, doesn't it?!"

Victor pulled on his hair and dragged his face back up to savor those glistening tears. The handsome face was nowhere to be seen. All that remained was a mess rocked by heavy sobs and incessant pain.

“More.” He snarled. “More! MORE. MORE!!!!”

Suddenly, the door behind him burst open, and out came a scream, "BOSS!!"

Victor's blood boiled, and he seethed, "HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT ME AGAIN!" Crack! he smacked the head in his hand into the ground with all his might and stood up. "I need to put you in your place."

"Boss, no. Listen—"

Victor's eyes glowed a malevolent purple as a raging inferno reflected within them, and he extended his right arm into the air. Keeth's annoying voice lost its timbre, and his body turned limp. Victor closed his open fist finger by finger—constricting the air as if he was choking someone to death.

Well, that was the daydream Keeth was witnessing right now—of his own painful, slow death.

Once even those limp arms began to flail in terror and pain, Victor relaxed, and Keeth fell onto the door before sliding down as if a puppet without strings. Obviously, he wasn't dead, but the soft fucker wouldn't be pestering him anytime soon.

He could just tell Madame that the guy was injured in a fight. And if the kid tried to tell on him? HueheHe. He needed someone more accessible for his practice of despair anyway. This soft kid would do good.

Still annoyed by having his pleasureful exploration of the pretty observer ruined, he clicked his tongue and looked inside. No one seemed to pay attention to him and Keeth out here. Madame had made sure to leave a lingering suggestion in the air before departing to help them with their task.

After all, even a Unifier like him wasn't versed in human emotions enough to create such masterful mental suggestions that didn't break with the slightest inconsistency. They were absurdly hard to master, and Victor wasn’t one to be subtle.

Only if I had Walter's brain, he lamented. The man was a fourth-shade Influencer, and even his dead brain would've been of so much use to Victor. But that bitch!

Aghh, he suddenly felt his innards burn. Whenever he thought ill of Madame, his body rejected it, disagreed with it. But what could he do? That woman had fed all of Walter's insight to that Eye. Why did a non-living artifact need those precious insights? Especially when they could've been so much more helpful in the perception of someone like him!?

He wasn't a fan of ingesting brains—they were outside help. He was old-fashioned and liked to gain insights through the real method—inflicting pain, loss, and despair himself. But even he couldn't resist Walter—the genius's brain.

The man had single-handedly raised some random kid from the citadel into the child of death. If nothing, Victor had to respect him for that.

"Huh?" that's when he noticed something odd inside. "Where's Bayle?"

He was in charge of keeping an eye on everyone's progress and the crowd's susceptibility. Make sure they didn't band together or try anything funny.

Ignoring the pretty redhead with blood flowing out his head profusely, as well as the unconscious Keeth, he waltzed in and Yelled, "Bayle!?"

There was no response.

He walked in further, and while the dozen or so people in the foyer didn't react to him, they still shied away from his path subconsciously. It didn't matter either way. He was going to wipe clean each and every one of their memories.

But they went through them one by one because Madame believed that Walter had a sock puppet, which he controlled more explicitly, and there was a great chance that person was in this hotel. After all, there was no way that man was doing all the grunt work required to collect the evidence for the child of death himself.

Madame wanted his team to find out if that puppet was here and then probably use them as a catalyst to divine the location of the child of death. Since even she had little to no understanding of that anomaly and was grasping at all straws to catch him.

Otherwise, if she wanted, she could’ve erased all the lesser minds in here with a single snap of her finger. Victor shivered at the mere thought. No matter how much of a bitch—no, saintess she was, her prowess was unmatched.

Shaking his head, Victor refocused. What the fuck is everyone doing!?

Frowning, he took a deep breath and bellowed, "BAYLE! JASPER! LYLE! EAMON! Get the fuck down here!"

For a second, the crowd turned over to him—bothered by the inconsistency, but he just turned at them with a menacing glare that promised their subconscious it was better to ignore the flaw in the logic, or they would regret it.

It did the trick, reinforcing Madame’s suggestion, and they went back to their stupid merriment like cattle being fed before getting butchered. He sneered, Enjoy it while you can. All of you are next on the chopping block.

Victor waited for his underlings to run back like scared monkeys. After all, it wasn’t like before, where he was just a better second-shade persuader than them. They were utterly beneath him now.

.

.

.

He stood there, his arms crossed, tapping his feet repeatedly as his expression grew worse by the second. What the fuck is going on!?

Did someone get the drop on them? But that can't be possible, right? Madame ensured them that no one was above the first shade in this hotel. Heck, Walter had never had any trouble in here.

And no new tenant had come back since Madame left. So, if there was really a scary element in here, she should've realized something off while she was here. On top of that, how could even a band of first-shade observers kill not one or two but four Observers of second-shade?

Heh. He chuckled at the absurd thought, Yeah, no.

"COME BACK RIGHT NOW, OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES," he shouted at the top of his lungs.

Again, there was no response.

These assholes really don't respect me, huh? Do they think they can get away with ignoring my command twice?

Victor's blood boiled, They still think I'm their weak second-shade pathetic friend, huh? No, he understood how it was. They still thought of him as if he was on the same level as them. That they didn't need to follow his commands. Didn't need to obey their superior's orders.

"Three seconds! That's all you get."

He pulled out the rusted cage the mistress gave him. It consisted of two circular iron frames, one at the top and one at the bottom, connected vertically by six slender wrought iron bars. These bars curved inward slightly, giving the cage a tapered, hourglass shape.

Within this skeletal frame, a central hollow chamber housed the eerie, flickering flame. A phantasmal glow that couldn't even be seen by mundanes. It was the essence of Midra. The hallowed angel—or so they said.

Not minding the cold chill that attempted to dampen his raging emotions, he poured some of his essence into it. If the fuckers won't come out themselves, he would just have to force the whole hotel into the cage for a while and see where they were hiding through its connection.

And then…it would be time for a lesson. Lesson of pain. Of loss. Of Despair. On top of that, he could capture some odd ones inside the cage to keep Madame and her eye happy.

A marvelous plan that hit two birds with one stone.

"THREE!" He bellowed, rage coursing through him.

"TWO!" He gripped the cage tighter.

"ONEEE—"

Chik—BOOM!

.

.

.

The ground beneath Victor gave way with a deafening crack, his furious countdown drowned out by the thunderous collapse. The floor shattered like brittle glass, plunging him into a yawning void. His scream of rage turned into a yelp of surprise as he was swallowed by the darkness below.

For a split second, he was weightless, his senses overwhelmed by the chaos around him. Then, the air was knocked from his lungs as he crashed onto the cold, hard floor of the basement. Pain shot through his body, but he had no time to recover.

Something—no, someone was waiting for him. Someone who moved with the swiftness of the predator. Victor's wrecked body wasn't ready, and his thoughts had yet to catch up, but his instincts kicked in. He tracked the eyes of his assaulter beyond the falling debris in the gaping darkness—glowing with a deathly white ring in the ambiance of utter black.

He stared into those eyes as they closed in on him and conjured the most terrifying image of loss he'd ever seen. Of that night when the world wept, and sky bled. It was the culmination of all his understanding of loss—his most powerful and mind-shattering illusion.

The Lament of Loss!

Suddenly, the figure came to an abrupt halt, and Victor couldn't help but let out a pleased smile. Rushing to get back up, he pushed himself off the ground.

But that's when he felt it.

In a stuttering, slow arc, he turned his head back towards those eyes, and a shiver raced down his spine. What in the name of Angels is this…?

.

.

.

There was…nothing in those eyes. No emotions. No pain. No loss. No Despair.

He might not have realized it a couple of days ago, but ever since he advanced to the third shade, his perception had evolved enough to see—to perceive that this wasn't natural.

That, what stared back, wasn't…human.

And before he knew it, Victor's eyes widened as he saw the glint of steel—swords coated in an eerie purple, already in motion.

"Motherfucker!" he yelled as those blades shot straight for his heart.

He only had one option now.

So, Victor did it.

Made contact with the phantasmal flame of Midra's cage.