Ascension of the Dark Seraph

Lucivar crossed the city, passing a handful of Hybrids along the way who gave him a subtle nod.

It felt nice to soar through the sky in the middle of the night, going against the breeze.

One that he had always wanted to do, his dream, but never really had the time to do it.

A faint smile crossed his lips, but that quickly disappeared.

'I bet it'd feel a lot better if I didn't have to worry and rush like this.' He clicked his tongue and sped up.

Soon, he landed on the street, right in front of the library, and began tracking down the sidewalk.

Inside, he didn't know what to expect.

Nerissa was supposed to be in the academy, resting, not out here like this.

But regardless, he had to come and check.

Sirrush was usually relaxed and even aloof, but his voice earlier was uncharacteristically serious.

Something bad must've happened.

Fortunately, it was very late in the night.

Not a lot of people are around—the street was even devoid of cars or motorcycles, empty, and the sound of creaking insects is about the only thing in the background other than the voices of the cleaners and security guards of the library bickering.

As he rounded the corner and made a turn into what was supposed to be the library's restricted section, a forgotten storeroom, his steps came to an abrupt halt. He locked eyes with Nerissa—who stood pressed against the wall, trembling with bloodstained hands.

For a moment, their eyes met and held.

Then, Lucivar's gaze trailed down to the sprawled corpse lying near Nerissa's feet.

She has her body cleaved into two cleanly, separating her torso and her legs.

A fresh kill, the blood was already dried up, but it's certainly only about a few hours old.

However, worst of all, Lucivar recognized the corpse.

He didn't quite see her properly, but he was quite certain that this was Angel's friend from earlier.

At that realization, he snapped.

"What?!"

Lucivar held his head with both hands incredulously, looking at Nerissa in shock.

He didn't know why she had done this.

This came out of nowhere.

Holding back his anger as this could lead to a whole scandal that'd implicate him, he approached Nerissa with steady and restrained steps. Despite his calmness, his face showed clearly that he was fighting back anger that was boiling inside.

As he towered before Nerissa, he leaned closer and asked with a dangerously low voice.

"Nerissa, what did you do…?"

"I was protecting our family."

Lucivar bit down on his tongue, forcing himself to remain calm despite wanting to scream.

He waited two months to make his next move, allowing the situation to settle down a little.

But the moment he did, something like this happened.

"How…?"

"You-you're already with Ravenna, but you're giving that woman your time—and your heart! If I don't do something, Ravenna will be hurt, and the family will be broken! I- I don't want that. I did the right thing, no, the necessary thing to keep this family whole!"

"You should've talked to me first. Angel is an extremely useful piece—and I am only rewarding her so that he'll keep being useful. Besides, Ravenna knew about this, about her, and she didn't mind!"

Nerissa stepped closer, meeting Lucivar's gaze head-on.

She smiled with glassy, unhinged eyes.

"No, that's a lie. Ravenna is threatened by her, and I know it."

"So you decided to kill her?! For what?"

Veins swelled across Lucivar's neck, eyes drilling into Nerissa's eyes in disbelief.

It was too late in the night to be dealing with this kind of thing.

Not because he would rather deal with this during the day, but because he would rather not deal with this at all!

Nerissa looked at the corpse again, hesitantly.

"I don't know. Maybe if the people around her die, she'll get the message and leave you alone."

"Then why didn't you kill Angel directly if your goal is to get rid of her?"

"I can't do that… You'll hate me, and I also don't want that."

"Fuck me… Fuck. Me!"

Throughout his rise to power, he had predicted everything that his opponents would do without a single failure, and he fully expected the streak to continue until he finally met a worthy rival. What he never anticipated was that it would be Nerissa who broke it.

An hour ago, if he had been told this, he would've laughed.

But now, he wasn't laughing.

She was sweet and timid before, but now, she has become as twisted as her morality.

'I helped her overcome her fear of Shadow. It works for a while, but it comes with its own risks.'

Seeing how he reacted, Nerissa's face changed.

"No, no, no!" She pointed her index finger at him sharply. "Don't react like that as if this is all my fault. This is your fault!"

"My… My fault?" Lucivar exhaled sharply. "How in the living fuck, is this!" He jabbed a finger at the corpse. "My fault?!"

Hearing this, Nerissa retracted her index finger and crossed her arms, slightly panicking.

"You and Ravenna left me alone in the room! I can't- I can't be far away from you or I will have these weird urges, you know that! So this is your fault. You're the one who turned me into this… Into your Vestal."

"Don't put this blame on me. I made you better in every single metric."

"It's precisely because you made me that this became your fault too."

Lucivar swallowed hard and pulled his hair in frustration.

No use in arguing since neither of them is going to back down.

Fixing his gaze on the corpse, Lucivar paused for a moment—before focusing, expanding his senses to search for any signs of movement nearby. His sharp eyes swept the surroundings, methodically checking every corner.

He moved toward the entrance next, scanning the street beyond.

His focus is more on tilting his head up.

Clearly, whatever he was searching it wasn't on the ground.

Nerissa stepped forward, "Wh-What are you doing?"

"CCTVs, Nerissa… CCTVs," Lucivar replied exasperatedly. "This is an independent city, remember? If you're caught in even one of the CCTVs, our entire family would be scrutinized and we'll be hanged by the damn public. Did you even stop to think before you kill… this woman?"

A sudden realization dawned on Nerissa.

She was too focused on killing the woman that she completely forgot about everything.

Unlike in slave cities, where killing was easy to commit, it was a lot harder to do in independent cities.

One wrong move and she'd end up locked away by the Hybrid Association.

"Oh, no… Wh-What are we going to do? I don't want to be taken away…" She stressed with a trembling voice, afraid that this might lead to something worse. "We… We can leave her here, yes, we can. The purple dungeon happened, and this one is still not found until today."

"Purple dungeon?" Lucivar glanced at her. "With a cleanly sliced body?"

"I don't know," Nerissa bit her lower lip. "We can crush her body or something, it's plausible!"

Lucivar turned away, ignoring her frantic.

Crushing the body wouldn't do any good, as there will certainly be a trace—one that they missed, which would lead the Hybrid Association back to them. So, there must be another way. But first, he has to make sure whether there's a CCTV in the area.

Just then, he saw one CCTV camera on a street lamp, taking in the entire view of the parking lot.

He cursed under his breath when he saw that.

"Shit, there's one, and it certainly caught you bringing away this woman."

"We… We can ask Master Tobias."

"No, Master Tobias will come too late. If we leave the corpse right now, someone could've found it."

"Then w-"

"Instead of talking and disturbing me from thinking, clean up the dried blood. Leave no trace behind."

"O-Okay…"

Seeing Lucivar staring daggers at her, Nerissa immediately shut her mouth, nodding her head before going to clean the bloodstain around the corpse. With her new body, the pale blue, natural color of her ether now turned dark blue like the color of sea water, and that's the same for her water attribute.

It was stronger and seemed to attain acidic properties that she could control.

Even as she cleaned the bloodstain, the acid also scraped off the concrete along with the bloodstain.

Lucivar averted his gaze and went back to contemplating a plan.

He crossed his arms and closed his eyes, thinking of a way out of this.

And surprisingly, he remembered something that could help.

It was the Monstrificiation Meter.

Lucivar remembered that the ability was able to turn anything inanimate into monsters.

'Inanimate, that also included dead people, right?' He opened his eyes again.

Now, a peculiar light of an idea flickered behind them.

Nodding his head, Lucivar approached the corpse, pushing Nerissa away before kneeling beside it.

He reached out his hand and placed it on the corpse.

Commanding with nothing but his will, Lucivar summoned the ghostly monster and gave a slight nod toward the corpse. Understanding his intent exactly, the creature used the essence liquid, channeling its energy directly into Lucivar's ether.

Slowly, the corpse convulsed as it glowed with a purplish hue.

Even its body knitted back together—the power of Tamtu was morphing it into a monster.

A forced metamorphosis.

Nerissa stepped away in surprise, marveling at the sight.

But instinctively, she channeled her water attribute and enveloped the corpse with it.

"What are you doing?" Lucivar asked.

She shrugged her shoulders, "I don't know, but this felt right."

Lucivar didn't question what she was doing and stood up, preparing himself to do something.

"Now, it's time for us to get hurt."

"Hurt…?"

…

Meanwhile, inside the academy's dormitory.

Leandra came back with slumped shoulders, walking across the lobby like a ghost.

She failed to tell Master Tobias about the phone call and Delilah.

No matter how much she tried to brace herself to tell him the truth, she always hesitated, which ended up with her backing out. All she could do while she was there was talk about menial things, unable to quite get to the important part.

"Sigh… This wouldn't happen if Ravenna or even Bob came with me." She exhaled through her mouth.

Instead of going to her room to rest, her direction shifted.

Leandra headed for Bob's room, recalling that Master Tobias has his favorite towel.

She knocked on the door a couple of times, but there was no answer.

Assuming that Bob was sleeping as it was already quite late, he knocked again, but still, no answer.

Noticing a student coming out of the neighboring room, Leandra quickly approached him.

"Hi, excuse me…"

"Yes?"

"Did you know where Bob, the person from that room, went? Did you see him today?"

Hearinh this, the student glanced at the room.

He was about to shake his head, but then remembered something.

"Oh, I think he went out last night. I came across him. I don't know where, and I think he hasn't come back yet." Nodding lightly, the student turned around to leave.

"Thank you…" Leandra said late as her mind churned. "Where is he?"