Chapter 180 - Wrap up

Alabaster locks, high cheekbones, a regal bearing, and finally, those eyes covered by a blindfold that seemed to pierce through his very soul. All these features could exist together on none other than Captain Akira, who walked towards him as his ethereal form turned solid.

Vern's taut nerves began to ease as he loosened his grip on Duality, but right when he was about to walk out, he suddenly halted in his steps.

Wait. What if this is a fake?

In an instant, he realized how high the chances of such a thing were. He wouldn't put it past these mind manipulators. So, to make sure this wasn't some sort of illusion, he linked himself to Axiom's singularity for the briefest of moments.

It was close to running out, but he didn't want to risk falling for the most classic of the traps in history after being so meticulous all this time.

.

.

.

Yet, the moment he did so, the prince's head, which was now sure not to be an illusion, suddenly snapped in his direction.

Vern instantly realized his mistake. Crap! What do I do? It's actually him.

Others might not notice a difference between his normal self and his alternate singularity, but how could that escape the eyes of an Observer who seemed to specialize in seeing things?

Fuck! After rapidly debating on how to proceed, he decided to first of all unlink himself from his alternate singularity. In any situation, it wouldn't help him to continue spending that limited resource.

However, he didn't know what to do next. Should I—

"Vern…" said Captain in what could only be a gentle tone.

Not keen on being awkward and making more mistakes, he shook his head and walked out. Facing the man in a royal navy blue outfit and sharp epaulets, he bowed slightly, "Greetings, captain."

To his chagrin, the prince didn't say anything for a few seconds, and it was more than enough to make his mind churn with myriads of conjectures. Did he notice that just now? If so, to what extent?

Soon, however, the prince nodded and turned without a word. Walking over to the scrawny corpse, he crouched and asked, "Are you alright?"

Vern did his best to erase anxiety from his voice and answered honestly with a shake of his head, "I can barely stand, sir, and my head's ringing with pain and emptiness due to overuse of my visions. But I can go on for another battle if it's really needed."

"Don't worry." He said, his white hair falling over his shoulder in gentle arcs, "It's over."

Vern didn't expect those words to help, but Lady-above, when this man said it, it really set his mind to ease. He couldn't help but collapse against the pillar on his back and relax.

After a while, however, came the line of questioning he dreaded the most, "You handled all of them yourself, didn't you?"

If it was anyone else, he could've tried using some rational deflections, but the arrival of the captain had completely caught him off-guard. He didn't know where to even begin.

Just what the hell happened that the very leader of Vigil came out? And how did he even knew to come here? Who alerted him?

Regardless, there was no way to explain this without exposing his secrets, and he wasn't foolish enough to try and lie. As Vern debated on what to do, the captain turned towards him and waited for an answer.

Vern snapped back into reality and opened his mouth to explain with half-truths when the prince suddenly raised his hand, "You misunderstand my intentions."

But I haven't even said anything yet.

"I couldn't care less about the means you used to achieve such a feat." He shook his head, "While it would be a baffling turn of events if you indeed dominated a group of Shepherds and even killed a third shade observer all by yourself, I can assure you, it's not the most perplexing event I observed today."

With a heavy tone, the prince advised, "Your secrets and unique abilities contribute greatly to your singularity, so keep them as close to your heart as you can. The more the world understands you, the less unique you become."

Vern's expression turned solemn, and he reflected on those words. He was already doing his best to keep his secrets as tightly locked as possible, but it was hard not to slip up when monsters like Prince Akira were around.

With a wave of his sleeve, the captain turned around, "And as long as you don't actively work to harm this city, I have no reason to pry further than necessary."

Vern slowly retracted his outstretched arm and closed his mouth, almost feeling embarrassed for his paranoid thought process. Yeah, that's…right. While others like Arthur or Lucian back in the vigil may find this too shocking, Captain Akira wasn't to be measured with the same standards.

With a nod, he replied, "I…see. My apologies, then. I indeed handled five out of six of them myself. Unfortunately, I was forced into a situation where trying to go for the last one would've made it impossible to ambush their leader."

Akira nodded solemnly and turned back to observe the corpse of the man as he answered, "Don't worry about it. The sixth person you mentioned was already close to death and not exactly aligned with this group's goals. He's been taken into custody already."

Vern wanted to ask what he meant by that, but it didn't seem right for some reason. So, he instead asked something that had been on his mind for a while, "Who exactly are these people?"

Completely out of his expectation, the prince chuckled, "So you didn't even know about their abilities beforehand?"

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Vern couldn't help but curse. It was hard talking to people who could read between the lines like this. They figured out so much from random comments and harmless questions. Luckily, he's not my enemy.

Soon, the prince answered, "These are observers of Shepherd pathway from Seraphine's Order. As you may have already figured out, they specialize in illusions, memory manipulation, and emotion control."

Vern nodded and filed away those names in his mind. Deciding to voice out his worries, he asked, "Captain, would it be possible to keep it under the wraps that I'm the one who thwarted their plans?"

Prince gave him a sharp look and nodded approvingly, "I was about to try and convince you to do just that if you didn't mention it yourself. So, yes. It's indeed in everyone's best interest that your involvement remains under wraps. I'll see to it that no one knows exactly what went down here."

"And what about the hotel tenants?"

Captain seemed to stare at nothing for a few seconds before responding, "Most of the ones who had their memories buried have a rough couple of months ahead of them, but they have you to thank for even the chance.

A couple more hours would have erased them for good. Unfortunately, we'll have to suppress the memories of this incident for others for their own good."

That was…great? He'd worked on the assumption that memory erasure was permanent, but it looked like it needed some more time to actually become irreversible?

In a few seconds, the prince got up and spoke with a serious expression, "So he lost his mind to whispers near the end…"

Vern wasn't surprised that the Prince managed to figure it out and nodded solemnly, "His last attack seemed to push him over the edge, and I didn't want to risk it, so I finished him while I still had a chance."

"Did you take anything from his body?"

Vern shook his head, puzzled.

As if noticing his lack of understanding, the prince added, "It is pertinent to minimize the contact with someone who lost themselves to whispers. They could become a source of corruption and wanton spread of their twisted viewpoint under right conditions."

That couldn't be good. Vern replied, "I see."

"Unfortunately, there's no stopping once the mind is truly lost to whispers," Prince said, moving his arms in patterns he didn't understand. "I'll have to expedite the process, so it can be nipped in the bud."

The man then signaled him to fall back and commanded in a serious tone, "Do NOT observe what's about to happen."

Oh? Vern got up and followed those orders without any question. He remembered what happened the last time the prince had given similar orders. Even with all his new powers, he wasn't about to try and observe some horror like that.

Once Vern was far enough, Prince pulled at empty air. Nothing happened for a second, but then the world shook, and low whispers emerged out of nowhere.

Vern, who was already tired beyond measure, had a rough time keeping his thoughts in check as those voices—so far away from himself, tried to force their way into his mind. Fortunately, he was just a bystander, and their focus wasn't on him.

Vern completely wiped away his perception and shut it down, not expanding it even an inch beyond himself. Still, what his eyes showed him was terrifying enough.

He was too far away to be sure, but out of nowhere, a chunk of the man's body suddenly disappeared. Then another, and then another.

Vern's spine tingled at the sight. It was as if something was eating away at the body, piece by piece. Something that was in the same room as them.

Squelch.

Crunch.

A chill crept up his spine, and he decided not to pry any further, looking away. After all, even the captain was looking up at the sky, keeping his distance from it all.

Seconds turned into minutes, and Vern's heart didn't slow down even once until the whispers were completely gone, and so were the terrible noises.

"It's done," came Captain Akira's voice, and Vern followed him back to the corpse in silence. A small black stone oozing a dark liquid now sat in place of the corpse, and the moment he was close enough, he began to feel depressed.

His pain turned twofold, and he almost cried out in distress. The captain, however, remained unfazed and walked up to the stone. A black aura suddenly covered his palm, and he picked up the item before stating, "It's malevolent by nature and has too high of a pollution quotient."

He turned towards Vern and sighed, "Apologies, Vern. But I don't think I can let you keep your loot in this case."

Vern took a step back and waved his hands, "I am more than happy to let this be shoved into the repository." He didn't want to have anything to do with these mind-benders.

Captain Akira nodded and wrapped the stone in his palm completely, somehow blocking out its effects, "I'll make sure you'll be rewarded appropriately."

But then, he suddenly paused, "Actually, I have just the idea…" he turned and pointed at the white expanse, "I believe this place can be of use to you."

Vern narrowed his eyes, "This cage?" He wasn't sure if the captain understood the situation and value of this artifact. While he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he would rather not take possession of an item that could be more trouble than it was worth.

Especially since that woman was the original owner of this cage.

So, he took a deep breath and explained everything right from the start, clearly attributing the surveillance to the mirror amulet Irene had conferred back to him.

He mentioned how that woman ordered these men to wipe everyone's memories and how they were here due to the death of someone named Walter as well as the disappearance of Child of Death.

He left out his prior meeting with the pair in question but added all necessary details about this cage as well as the events where possible.

Once he was done, Captain remained in thoughtful silence for a while before saying, "So he decided to turn on his manipulators…"

Vern wasn't sure what that meant, but if he had to guess, it would be that Captain was already on this case, and he'd just given the man a lead.

"Anyways," Prince soon addressed him, "My offer still stands. This artifact is beyond any standardized use. Besides me or the very Shepherds of the Order, anyone else would be hard-pressed to activate it without destroying the artifact."

He crouched and scooped up some of that dust, "It's been cannibalized far too much and has lost most if not all of its illusionary effects. Right now, it's nothing but a broken cage."

Vern couldn't help but find something wrong with that statement and pointed it out, "If I can't even activate it, I'm not sure if it'll really be useful to me."

Captain shook his head, "You're missing the forest for the trees, Vern."

He slowed down and tried to think it through. He wasn't very keen on embarrassing himself. What can I use this cage for, if not to trap people or enter it by activating it? Surely, not to smack someone in the head with it.

In a bit, he had an inkling, and he blurted it out, "…as a resonance catalyst?"

Prince nodded calmly.

"But…is that really how it works? Can I just absorb any artifact as insights, then?"

Prince remained silent for a while before answering, "Not always. Anything with an active owner that's not yourself is out of the question, and so is anything that can't meld with your viewpoint."

"Beyond that, it's a matter of severing its anchors in Everflux, and I don't think you have the prerequisite insights needed to understand that just yet."

Vern barely restrained himself from asking for a full lecture right away, primarily because his head felt too heavy to absorb anything of import right now.

So, he instead asked, "Then, should I start trying to absorb the insights in here right now?"

Captain turned towards him with a soft smile, "It's fascinating how you know so much yet so little."

"…"

Shaking his head, Prince added, "You can't just absorb insights at will. You'll need to attempt to imprint a new vision in your thought space. That's what triggers the phenomenon of insight absorption. Beyond that, it'll take me a while to sever its anchor from the Everflux."

Vern nodded sheepishly. He'd become a little too worry-free after having all the guillotines taken away from his head.

Prince suddenly waved his hand as his and Vern's form began turning transparent. "Let's head out of here first."