Ascension of the Dark Seraph

It was an act.

Lucivar pretended that the light coming from inside the chest had somehow hurt him, but it didn't.

He wanted payback for them using him as a shield, but the reaction wasn't as expected.

Leandra, Ravenna, and Nerissa looked at him with a blank gaze, almost like they were looking at some sort of disappointment. It was as if they had somehow united to go against him, however he acted, "Hey, what's with the face? It's not that deep. I'm only playing, there's nothing inside."

Smacking her lips in annoyance, Leandra approached and shoved Lucivar to the side.

"It's not the time to play around." She mumbled.

"You pretended as if this place wasn't the place of someone who was using us for years," Ravenna, with a level voice, added sharply. She shook her head disapprovingly. "He could leave something behind to kill us, you know."

"Come on," Lucivar threw his hands exasperatedly, and turned to Nerissa for support. "You too?"

"I… I'm also with them." Nerissa mumbled sheepishly.

"Wow… Some Vestal you are." Lucivar clicked his tongue and headed downstairs. "I'm out of here."

Since the chamber was safe, there was no need for them to be here.

Ravenna looked at him leaving and sighed, "I thought he was going to sulk—since his plan today was ruined, but he acted like this instead. What's gotten into him lately? After that night, he became a new person somehow."

Even though it sounded like a complaint, her eyes trailed towards Nerissa.

She was inspecting Nerissa's reaction.

And seeing that she was avoiding eye contact, and acting too calm that she didn't even say a word, it became apparent that she really knew something. Ravenna turned to Leandra, who knew exactly what she was doing.

"What are you planning to do with Lucivar, anyway?" Leandra asked, opening a small talk.

"Nothing much," Ravenna shrugged. "He wanted to see a place with me."

"Hoo… Did he not tell you anything? You two seemed close."

"Wha—"

Ravenna was at a loss for words; she looked at Leandra with a look that said 'what the fuck?'.

Both of them should be ganging up on Nerissa, not her.

"Ekhmm…" Ravenna cleared her throat. "No, he didn't say anything in particular to me. You?"

"No. He didn't say anything that stood out in particular," Leandra answered while still inspecting the chest to see whether there were traces left behind from what was inside it. "What about you, Nerissa? Did he say something to you?"

"Me?" Nerissa stammered, a bead of cold sweat drizzling down the side of her face.

Unlike Leandra and Ravenna, she was basically the most innocent.

Lying is not something she was particularly good at, as she probably rarely lies in her entire life.

She was the family's princess, and that shows.

"W-Why would he even say something to me? I can't quite help him the way both of you can," Nerissa answered, wrecking her brain to answer as calmly as possible. "But maybe we're all on edge. Maybe he's acting like that because he's still in shock."

"But you're his Vestal," Ravenna added. "I'm sure he'll be inclined to tell you more than to us."

"He didn't say anything… really." Nerissa raised both hands in surrender and smiled acutely.

"Come take a look at this," Leandra's voice rang, changing the topic—as she could sense Nerissa being too stressed. It would be bad if she informed Lucivar about their suspicion. "I think I found something. The chest is not emptied out well."

Upon hearing this, Ravenna and Nerissa approached.

On the bottom of the chest where the moonlight from the cracks on the roof touched, there was a sparkle, which was a stain from a magical substance. It seemed to be something, but it didn't emanate a peculiar trace of ether or any kind of energy.

"What is that?"

"Maybe the item inside is a vial or something, and it spilled?"

"Huh, maybe…"

Ravenna stared at the stain for a couple of seconds longer, sensing a very faint pull towards it.

'Is my bloodline reacting to this?' Her brows furrowed as unease crept in. 'Ever since the day Lucivar killed Caldaros, and I saw those… Gods, something inside me shifted. Maybe my Surpanakha bloodline is awakening more. Regardless, I can now feel an energy that isn't ether… another current altogether. And more often than not, it radiates from Lucivar. Divine energy.'

Even though she wasn't sure what it was, she was almost positive that it contained divine energy.

Whatever was stored inside this chest contained divine energy.

Realizing this, Ravenna wanted to inform Leandra, but she caught herself and turned to Nerissa.

"Nerissa, can you go down and inform the driver that we're going to be a bit later?" Ravenna said, her tone gentle but demanding at the same time. "He's going to wait for a long time, so tell him to sleep or something. He must be bored out of his mind."

"Why not Lucivar?" Nerissa asked.

Hearing this, Ravenna smirked, "Do you want to be the one to tell him that?"

Nerissa paused for a fleeting second before she quickly shook her head.

Nobody dared to tell Lucivar what to do, especially after knowing what Master Tobias planned for him.

"Then go," Ravenna smiled. "Besides, we're going to continue our search, too. There's nothing here."

Eventually, Nerissa nodded and climbed back down.

As soon as she stepped out of the barrier, cut off from this secret attic, Ravenna immediately turned to Leandra, "It's divine energy, the stain contained divine energy." She informed firmly. "I can somewhat sense divine energy now, and that stain has a trace of divine energy. It was probably why, for you, this stain only feels odd, but it looked normal."

"Since when can you sense divine energy?"

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that the item stored inside the chest contained divine energy."

Realizing this, Leandra looked down in contemplation.

But this was no time for contemplation.

Ravenna gestured for Leandra to move aside as she knelt before the chest.

"What are you doing?"

"My Predator Oculus ability has grown stronger, and I feel like I can see more of this divine energy."

Leandra nodded and stepped back to give Ravenna some room to work with.

She didn't know she was moving away when she didn't have to, but the moment she did, Ravenna drew a steady breath—and let her eyes fall shut. Deep within, she reached for the still point at her core—the very place where her Supernatural Ego resided, coiled and waiting.

With practiced focus, she tapped on its power, and it responded by letting out ether like a tide.

Perfectly, she guided the current with precision, letting it course through every vein and nerve until her body thrummed with restrained power. Then, she pulled it upward, weaving the gathered ether into her eyes

Around her, the air seemed to tighten as the ability took form.

Crimson markings across her skin, unfurling from the corners of her eyes and trailed downward.

Unlike what Leandra was used to, this time, they did not stop at the edges; the streaks cut deep along her cheekbones, stark and vivid, a sign that Predator Oculus had grown far beyond what it once was. It has become more powerful than it ever was.

'Must be because of what Lucivar gave her,' Leandra thought, and clicked her tongue in displeasure. 'I got a weird golden key that's 'specialized' for me, but Ravenna also got one, but she got something far more useful than a damn key.'

Lucivar was playing favorites, and Leandra wasn't his favorite.

It was Ravenna, and that irked her.

Once Ravenna opened her eyes again, they burned with an unearthly glow—sharp, luminous, and also predatory. Just the sheer force of her gaze rippled through the space between them like heat, and from the change in her expression, she could now see things more clearly.

But Leandra had no time to marvel at the terrifying beauty of it.

Almost instantly, Ravenna's breath hitched, and she staggered back a step as if she had witnessed something both horrifying and shocking. She was surprised by something that only her awakened eyes could see, something that Leandra couldn't see.

"What…? What is it?!" Leandra asked demandingly.

"A swirl…" Ravenna mumbled as that was the only word she could use to describe what she was looking.

Even the word felt woefully small compared to what she beheld.

Inside this cramped space, Ravenna could see a storm of color churned and writhed, every hue carrying with it a weight that was not of the mortal world. She soon realized, with a shiver, that they were not mere colors but divine energies, woven together in chaotic harmony and yet utterly confined within the barrier that strained to hold them.

"I think there are five," Ravenna added, eyes still fixated ahead. "Five different divine energies."

She felt it first as a breeze brushing against her skin.

A gentleness more refreshing than the purest winds of nature, so sweet it almost drew a sigh.

From another was a razor's chill, a steeliness so sharp she swore she could feel the phantom edge of a blade resting against her throat. Then sound followed, layering upon one another in maddening contrast: the soft flutter of wings as if countless birds circled unseen above; the roar of tides, violent and crushing, pressing in as though she stood at the heart of the ocean; and beneath it all, whispers—low, inaudible, and ghostly.

The kind of whispers that made her skin crawl, for they felt less like sound and more like unseen eyes fixed upon her every move.

Crack!

Ravenna snapped to the side when he heard a loud crack.

She thought that it was the attic collapsing, but it wasn't the attic; it was the fabric of reality instead.

Beyond was total darkness, the void that lies beyond reality.

As expected, the attic wasn't as it seemed, but she wasn't expecting it to reach this extreme.

"The barrier is caging the divine energies, but inside… the dimension is collapsing!" Ravenna shouted, eyes widened in horror as she stepped away warily. "All… All of the attic is breaking apart. We-We're hanging over an abyss!"

Leandra listened to this in confusion.

Nothing was happening inside the attic, nothing that she could see, but it was chaos for Ravenna.

For her, it was as though she and the others now stood not within a room, but on the edge of existence.

But there's one thing that Leandra's mind was stuck on, one thing that Ravenna said.

"Five different divine energies…" She mumbled in contemplation. "Does Lucivar have five Gods inside him? That would explain why—there are five divine energies. But the chest doesn't contain him, but some divine items instead."

"No, don't tell me…" Leandra's eyes widened as she took out the torn page in her pocket. "Was Master Tobias gathering the materials to make the Ending Needle?!"