Chapter 48: One's Presence
Tuesday, 5th December 2023.
7:30 a.m.
Gray mindlessly brushed his teeth.
The previous day he had to face inconceivable threats. He could now finally return to his usual and boring daily life.
Gray wasn't left scarred or injured, but still wasn't at the prime condition he experienced when he faced Selene.
It wasn't a problem, though! All thanks to Ophelia's healing!
He also only had to visit school, there was no way he would face a different divinity there.
While his luck in these weeks hadn't been astronomically good, it just couldn't possibly go worse, right?
…Right?
As soon as he finished school, he would return to the warehouse to train for two hours, and after he was done, he would also visit Mnemosyne's Antiques properly.
Since he now knew the advantages and disadvantages over Selene's abilities, he was aware that after summoning The Heralds of Sin, she would become extremely lethargic, making it impossible for her to come there.
It was already much if she were wake up, let alone have the ability to try and kill him.
Gray had also gotten the chance to know about her abilities the previous day. This made him learn about the extreme peculiarities of her Nephilim powers.
She didn't start out with her moonlight creation ability. In fact, her primary ability was the power to summon the Heralds individually.
Every Herald of Sin possessed a distinct ability. By defeating one of them, Selene would gain control over their skills.
The Herald of the New Moon, or as Gray called it: "The Sewn One," could manifest an ethereal moonlight that had an incredibly potent soporific effect over the beings without enough pure quintessence inside their bodies.
She could even increase this lethargic power so much that it would cause the heart of the sleeping ones to completely stop, ending the ones she wished to kill effortlessly.
This meant that, when Gray had been at the brink of life and death in the physical plane, the things he had seen in the world beyond, the first time he could consciously see his mother, was all a dream that belonged to the Eternal Landscape.
She also hadn't wanted him to become lucid.
Was it because in his previous dream, the one where he could re-experience his childhood, had ended abruptly just as soon as he did his reality-check?
Or was there a different reason?
The lethargic effect would also only work with humans, animals, and the Nephilim who had a negligent, almost infinitesimal amount of quintessence inside their bodies.
While this power could rule over the world of humans, its effect would be far less significant in the Nephilim one.
To put it in perspective, using her ability would be akin to trying to drown a fish.
She could cover this weakness with enough skill, however.
Selene could condense the moonlight into weapons, forming extremely sharp objects.
While defeating one of the Heralds allowed her to acquire their abilities, it was something she couldn't possibly do on her own.
To call upon His Descent, the three Heralds of Sin had to be brought inside the physical plane together.
But because of this, it meant that most of their power would be extinguished by the ritual of summoning.
Thus, if Selene called upon an individual Herald for her trial, it meant that the one she called would retain every single ounce of their power.
This is where Franz came in play.
Since the summoned Herald wouldn't keep their connection towards Sin, it also meant that Franz could see and fight to his heart's content, without the need to keep his eyes shut against the catastrophically powerful enemy.
Even though it was still straining on his enhanced vision, it was bearable.
The Heralds of the New Moon was the only one they could fully defeat, and its ability was the one where Selene was most proficient in.
Gray wasn't aware of how much time passed from the first acquisition of the Herald of the New Moon's ability. Yet by judging from just how much she was experienced with it, it was definitely more than five years.
The power belonging to the Herald of Crescent was the ability to 'switch' small parts of the physical plane with the Eternal Landscape of the Begotten Self.
If used on a person, the being would consequently get parts of their body hollowed out, transported into that unknown dimension.
While this capability was extremely powerful, Selene couldn't use it fully. In fact, the cost to awaken this ability was the loss of her sanity.
When Gray heard this explanation from Franz, he couldn't help but wonder of how she could assimilate the power of the Herald of Crescents without them having defeated it in battle.
And so he had questioned Franz about it.
Franz explained more thoroughly.
While they had fought the Herald of Crescent in the previous years but could not defeat it fully, they were able to take advantage of their combined strength to take the weapon it wielded—the scythe Gray had seen the previous day.
Although Gray didn't know how proficient Franz was in fighting, the fact that even those two couldn't defeat the Herald of Crescent at full power demonstrated just how powerful the Heralds of Sin were individually.
The scythe also retained most of the Herald's abilities. Yet it was not as powerful as the real deal, possessing many glaring weaknesses.
Firstly, if the scythe was taken away forcefully, she would subsequently lose its power.
Secondly, since it weakened her sanity, this would bring Selene at the edge of summoning every single Herald accidentally, bringing forward the Descent of Sin.
Thirdly, without the enhancement on the moonlight, the weapon was slower than her rapier and harder to wield.
Gray's arsenal was mainly focused on passives powers and defensive ones, with Replication being his only major means for offensive plays. He just couldn't compare in fighting prowess with Selene.
Yet, thanks to the sheer versatility of Genesis, a power that could allow him to escape death multiple times; thanks to its subsequent effect on its mental state, and the formulation of plans and hypotheses based to reach his survival; thanks to the mysterious power of his second Mercurial Fragment, Replication; and most importantly, Selene's disturbed and troubled sanity, he could barely survive against her.
Had these clauses not been present—No, had even one of them been missing, he would've died.
Lastly, there was the most bizarre power of the Heralds, the one belonging to The Herald of the Half-Moon, the strongest member of them.
Thanks to its power, it could cause massive amounts of reality to over-lap with the Eternal Landscape of The Begotten Self—but not with a randomized location of the infinite dimension.
It could make the divine kingdom of the Sult-Hurni, the ancient Loranne, and the physical plane overlap.
Although their world was dead…
Although their own divinity, Sin, had long died…
Thanks to their presence inside Loranne—a reign overlapping inside the Eternal Landscape, where time itself was all cluttered—they could remain still between life and death, prolonging their annihilation for eons.
The Herald of the Half-Moon's only open eye could also bring forth an extremely hot laser beam, theorized to be the blood shed by all the past Sult'Hurni.
The only way Gray could survive it was because it had been greatly weakened by His Descent.
Lastly, there was the liquid oozing from its mouth.
It had special properties that could revert the Descent, but only if the multi-faced being did not reach the Third Step.
One thing Gray was shocked to know was that, to acquire this 'liquid,' Franz and Casanova had to fight the Herald of the Half-Moon.
Most importantly, there wasn't anything else they could have done.
They didn't win, they 'survived.'
The previous day he had also intended to call Casanova, to inform him about what the hell had happened and to ask about his correlation with Selene—but Franz interrupted him abruptly, saying that, since Gray had already spoken about everything with him, he would be the one to inform Casanova about everything.
Gray's body was already failing after retelling everything once, doing it twice would've been too much.
After having finished with his quick morning routine, Gray went back into the living room, seeing Kathy there.
Her long, black hair was tied loosely, a few hair strands falling on her forehead, creating a messy look.
She ate her cereals as she browsed through social media with her cracked phone.
"Good morning." Gray yawned, scratching his hair.
Kathy glanced upwards, smiled, and said the same.
"Good morning."
After having taken the items for his breakfast, he sat in front of her, eating his food rather quickly.
Kathy looked at him with suspicion and asked,
"Yesterday you ate like an elephant… How can you still be hungry? Do you have a black hole in the place of your stomach?"
Gray coughed dryly and kept on eating his breakfast.
If only she knew what he had to face the day earlier, what injuries he suffered!
Gray thanked Ophelia inwardly.
He was glad of not having the burden to explain the massive damages he had sustained.
More importantly, he was glad that her healing made it so that Kathy wouldn't see the wounds he had received.
It broke his heart to even imagine her tear filled eyes, her pain stricken expression, and her suffering.
While what he had faced brought him immense waves of pain, he feared that seeing her in that condition would be ten-times worse.
All in all, he was glad of having survived.
Yet he couldn't shake off the mysteries about his Fragments.
If The Monolith was truly the one he had as a secondary Fragment, why did He decide to grant him one of his antediluvian powers?
The stars and galaxies danced at His arrival, the universe itself crumbled under His power—what could He gain from a mortal such as Gray?
Which one of His plots was Gray part of?
It went without saying that knowledge was of utmost importance. With it, he could finally understand more of the 'truth.'
And since he had just started to unravel some of the enigmas surrounding him, he couldn't possibly let the threat of Selene undermine the knowledge he could find inside Mnemosyne's Antiques.
Ultimately, even if it was uncomfortable to ignore his underlying mysteries, he just had to surrender to his uncertainties.
This did not mean he would lower his guard.
Doing so in the Nephilim world was already incredibly dangerous, let alone in a situation where The Monolith itself was present.
…
As Gray entered inside his class and talked with Rowan about trivial matters, a couple of students looked at him, their expression slightly bewildered.
Something had changed about him, but what?
Was it the cadence of his words, was it the way he gazed upon the crowd, or was it the way his steps had a weight behind them?
Nobody could quite seem to figure it out.
It was as if his innocent air had quickly extinguished, leaving behind a different kind of person behind.
It was like when when a well-built man joined a room full of other men, causing every single one of them to fix their posture instinctively, without them even noticing.
What was the reason for the students' reactions?
The reason was:
Gray's past!
After a person experienced traumatic, painful and emotional events—even if they were not aware of it—these experiences would linger in their being!
These memoirs would cause their body language to switch abruptly, their way of speaking to change, their gazes to deepen, and they way the glanced upon other people to transform.
This allowed them to view the world and the people residing inside it with a kind of indifference, as if they were experiencing the world through the eyes of an otherworldly being!
How could all these people understand?
How could they deal with the truth beyond?
"Psst!" a girl whispered to her friend, sneakily pointing at Gray.
"Is it just me, or does he seem more mature?" she asked.
Her friend shook her head, "Not at all, I was thinking the exact same thing!"
For once, Gray was overshadowing his friend Rowan.
As other girls began to speak about him, their words reached Nekare—who in turn, started to watch him more closely, her thoughts as indecipherable as ever.
The english professor abruptly opened the door, the metal handle hitting right into the school wall.
"Montoya, you're up for the oral test of last week's program!" she shrilled, her voice sharp and annoying—similar to a chainsaw to one's ears.
Gray's eyes twitched.
With a small drop of sweat sliding right through his face, he slowly turned around.
"P-Pardon?"
After dealing with so many unexpected problems, he completely forgot about her grueling assignments!
…
As soon as his thesis fully made by blabbering sentences, mostly being composed by 'uhms'', he sat on his chair, utterly defeated.
In turn, the class all gave him pitiful stares, their previous admiration almost entirely gone…