Ascension of the Dark Seraph

It was worrying.

Bob has always been the quiet type, but he's also known to be the older brother in the family.

He's attentive and never hesitates to help or keep the family safe.

Most of the time, whenever he went somewhere and couldn't be contacted, he'd say something to at least one of them. He usually told Ravenna if he needed to go somewhere, but there was no news now, and that's worrying.

"Never mind… It's Bob. He's going to be fine."

Leandra swallowed her worry and turned around.

She headed back to her room, passing a few students along the way, but stopped when she saw someone.

Around the corner, Ravenna appeared.

Surprisingly, she seemed to be in distress as well.

Noticing Leandra across the hall, Ravenna exhaled deeply from her nose before deciding to approach.

"Let's go to your room." She said with a serious tone.

Leandra's chest tightened.

She could already tell that whatever Ravenna had to say to her was something heavy.

It was weighing down on Ravenna from how her shoulders slumped slightly.

Knowing that this can't wait, Leandra brought Ravenna to her room.

She impatiently closed the door behind her and turned to Ravenna—who was standing in the middle of the room in thought, not knowing where to start. Eventually, she took out a folded letter from her pocket and gestured for Leandra to sit down.

"Sit down."

"W-What…? What's going on?"

Despite the questions, Leandra sat down—her heart pounding inside her chest.

Ravenna sat down beside her and handed the letter over.

Hurriedly, wanting this unease to end, Leandra opened the letter and read its content.

Inside was a letter from Master Tobias, his handwriting was unmistakable, notifying the grim news about Bob breaking off contact with the family. He said that during their last meeting, when Master Tobias visited Bob to reward him for his hard work on getting stronger, Bob voiced out his feelings of being trapped.

And not long after, on the third day of the South Hues tournament, he came to the mansion.

Bob said goodbye.

Since he was now strong, Master Tobias and the servants in the mansion couldn't catch him, and from then on, Bob was never seen again. Based on his contacts, Master Tobias knew that Bob had met a girl who should be the reason for his departure.

Leandra's face darkened as she read through the letter.

"No, this can't be right. I'd believe this if it were Bakar or even Mirel, but Bob…? He's the most loyal. He's our big brother. There's no way he'd leave us—without saying goodbye, even!" Leandra protested, cupping her face in her hands. "There must be a misunderstanding."

"I also didn't believe it, too," Ravenna mused lightly. "Bob isn't that kind of person, but it's because of a woman. A woman can make a man do the unthinkable, including leaving his own family. Not even Bob is immune to that."

"No, I won't believe it! Bob is not like that!"

"Except there's no woman…"

Hearing this, Leandra paused and turned to Ravenna in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"No woman. Bob isn't close to any woman. I knew this because he always tells me things. If there's one, I'm certain I'd sniff it out of him."

"Then why is Master Tobias saying that…?"

Ravenna's face turned grim and conflicted as she took out a folded paper from her pocket.

She handed it to Leandra.

On the letter, there was only a short message, a faded sentence written with a pencil.

I'm sorry, but I can't stay. I hope you can forgive me in the future.

"Who's this from?"

"It's from Bob."

"What…?"

Leandra looked at the paper for the second time as her mind worked to connect the dots.

"How do you know that this is from Bob?"

"Bob—and I, including Darwin, were the first ones to ever be picked up by Master Tobias. Unlike you and the others who thought the master was weak because of his cracked Supernatural Ego, we knew that it was a lie. Master decided to hide his power to motivate the new ones to be more protective of him."

Ravenna gazed ahead at the wall, reminiscing about the past.

It has really been a long time since she was picked up in that ruined village.

"He believed doing so would push the new members of the family to be stronger." She added.

Hearing the news came as a shock to Leandra.

For the longest time, she thought Master Tobias was helpless and weak.

But it seemed that was all an act.

"How do you think he keeps tabs on us and determines who made more progress the most?"

"Even then, what does that have to do with this?"

Leandra raised the paper.

Even if Master Tobias was still a strong Hybrid, what does that have to do with their situation?

Ravenna smiled sheepishly.

"Before we got into this academy, he always had eyes on all of us through his Vampiric powers. Because of that, Darwin, Bob, and I communicated through this if we wanted to say something that we did not want the master to know."

For a moment there, Leandra went silent.

Her mouth opened and closed as if she wanted to say something, but don't have the courage to say it.

Eventually, she managed to let it out.

"So, the master is telling the truth…? Bob left us?" She asked, her voice trembling.

Ravenna shook her head, "No, this is also from Master Tobias. He's pretending to be Bob."

She had been spending the entire day in the main building, asking Professor Aeldric who was close with Lucivar about accessing the CCTVs. It was a hard ask, but eventually, the professor caved and decided to accompany her.

From the CCTVs, Bob was last seen on the day of the tournament.

It was when Ravenna herself asked him whether he would want to watch the South Hues Tournament.

He refused to come, but when somewhere that same day, an hour after the others left.

And the last moment of him that was captured was him walking out of the academy's premises.

It has been so hectic after Lucivar's victory that none of them realized that Bob went missing.

"Huh? You literally said this communication is exclusive to you, Bob, and Darwin."

"Yes, but we're not naïve enough to think the master didn't know about this. He certainly did, but what he didn't know was that the message was supposed to be folded into four and left on the bed. I found this on the bed, but it was only folded in half."

"Maybe he forgot."

"No. We created this method to know exactly whether someone was pretending to be us."

Leandra gulped harshly.

She was expecting bad news, but this is more than mere bad news.

"That… That can't be right. What proof do you have that Master Tobias was th-"

Leandra stopped mid-sentence.

She recalled Bob's towel that she saw in Master Tobias' office, which made her doubt her own view.

But she quickly shook her head.

'No… I saw him crying. It could be that he was mourning Bob's departure, and that towel was left there by Bob. Yes, that must be it.'

As if knowing what Leandra was thinking, Ravenna sighed exasperatedly.

"I don't care if you believe it or not, but at least, will you help me investigate this? I need someone. No harm in investigating. If it turns out to really be from Bob—then it'll be my mistake. But if I'm right… You'd want to know, right?"

"But why…? What makes Master Tobias do something like this? And where is Bob?"

"That's what we're going to try and find out."

Leandra lay back on the bed, staring at the intricately beautiful ceiling that felt bleak and hollow now.

It was too much for her mind to process.

"First, Lucivar and Delilah. And now, Master Tobias and Bob? Shouldn't problems come in turns?"

"That's too idealistic. The world isn't a kind place. You should've understood that now since Lucivar, someone who has literal God blood in his body, said so."

"Huh… I guess it's about time we addressed the elephant in the room with Lucivar."

…

Crash!

On a particular part of the city, a crashing sound resounded.

It happened near the library.

Lucivar and Nerissa were thrown away, blasting from the metal gate, and landed on the street.

"What's going on? You didn't tell me that she's going to be alive again!"

"I don't know. I also didn't know how it'd end. This is my second time using it!"

Originally, the plan was for Lucivar to use the Monstrification Meter—on the corpse, turning her into something inhuman to serve as a scapegoat. In his mind, if the corpse looked like a monster, it would make Nerissa's actions seem justifiable.

After all, she noticed the woman turned out to be a hidden proselyte and decided to kill her.

It would be a good alibi.

No rules oppose the murder of monsters or proselytes.

But what Lucivar didn't expect was the woman to revive and turn into a monster.

From the smoke, a figure emerged.

A female monster with a pale torso and ink-black armored legs, smiling with glowing red eyes.

Her face resembled the woman before she was turned, but everything else was different.

'Even though it didn't go as planned, this is still fine.'

Lucivar glanced to the sides, noticing people were gathering around due to the commotion.

It was late at night, but there were still a couple of people nearby.

No Hybrids though, unfortunately.

"What are we going to do?"

"What else? We'll kill it, of course."

Almost instantly, as if her instincts kicked in, Nerissa's eyes glowed brightly with dark azure power.

Splash!

Water seeped out from beneath Nerissa's boots, dark and glimmering, like a tide called forth by her will.

It swirled around her faster and faster, answering the newfound command of her Vestal power.

Nerissa made a flicking motion, sending the water coiling forward like a serpent.

Its body is a whip of swirling acid.

Before the monster could do anything, the water struck, wrapping around its torso and hauling it off the ground. The acidic torrent hissed as it climbed higher, curling around the creature's limbs, lifting it like an offering.

And the God she was offering this monster to was none other than Lucivar.

Lucivar moved at the same moment.

He gripped a street lamp and, with a sharp yank, tore it from its foundation.

Activating the Monstrification Meter once more, the street lamp in his grasp shimmered with a sinister purple glow. Metal twisted and groaned, reshaping into a brutal lance—its tip spiraling like a drill that was thirsty for flesh.

It was an abrupt transformation, unnatural.

A weapon born of corruption.

Smirking, he hurled it with practiced force.

Lucivar watched as the lance shrieked through the air and pierced straight through the monster's chest.

A heartbeat later, the acidic water detonated—an eruption of steam and shards of corrupted flesh.

Splash!