Gates of Penance-Chapter 30: Trial and error

The threads were white in colour and when he concentrated on them his perception focused into a single direction, but that was it. There was also a single dark grey thread–almost black— with a reddish tinge that pointed down but also to nowhere in particular.

’How strange.’

This of course was his passive ability [Dual Insight]. It seemed that he made quite the impression on a number of people in District Nine, enough for them to remember his name, but the threads were so faint that in time they would soon disappear.

The only thread that interested him was the dark grey thread. This one of course belonged to Alister. Alister knew the most about him so his thread was by far the darkest. He knew most of his abilities and his ambition. However, he didn’t know about his more recent abilities.

Nacht focused on that thread and immediately stopped as he felt that someone had rammed a searing hot knife into his skull.

’I’m not trying that again.’

It made sense in hindsight, Alister was in penance. He could manage to see where Alister was but the strain on his mind would kill him. Needless to say, he won’t try to use his ability on Alister at least until he also enters penance.

Nacht gazed down at his once reliable weapon turned into his punishment. Ironically enough, he looked at the black saber like he was seeing a ghost.

With a sigh he activated his rune. In contrast to the enlightened he had seen before, his rune didn’t glow outward from his upper back, instead it glowed a lightless black inwards into his body.

Nacht felt his feat touch the solid floor and he felt the cold hilt of the death march in his hands.

’It’s manageable.’

To keep his rune active, it depleted his orren at the same rate it took for him to regenerate it. This meant that he could stay in this avatar indefinitely as long as he didn’t run out of orren. The next thing he did was to try and grow wings, as stupid as it sounded.

However, he didn’t know what it was like to have wings or exactly how the internal skeletal structure worked on a human body. So instead of him growing wings, he grew two small limbs that looked like wings which sprouted from his back and tore open his clothes. The limbs were physically useless and they were draining his orren at an alarming rate.

Nacht instantly stopped the transformation and returned back to his original form with a pale look on his face.

’That wasted almost half of my orren!’

Nacht tried a few more smaller changes to his avatar but anything that strayed from his original physical body required a stupidly large amount of orren, even making himself slightly smaller or taller. Nevertheless, it seemed like he wouldn’t be able to shapeshift anytime soon.

He then deactivated his rune to regain the orren he had lost, and to his surprise, the death march also became incorporeal along with him, gaining a unique ghostly quality.

’Huh... would you look at that?’

Nacht then dismissed the death march and felt a new engraving ignite on his core.

He then summoned the [Blood Coin] relic which he had yet to use into his hand which then fell through his form and onto the floor.

With a sigh, Nacht activated his rune and picked the coin back up. On one side the coin was a deep red while the other side was black.

He imbued a small amount of orren into the coin—activating the enchantment—then he flipped it.

It landed red.

Nacht instantly felt a large amount of orren enter his spectral core, however it wasn’t enough to fill his core completely. After all, it was only a mortal grade relic.

He dismissed the relic.

’I think it’s about time I take a look around.’

Nacht used his rune to repair his torn clothes into its original pristine condition—using a negligible amount of orren in the process—and walked towards the exit. He had already taken a quick glance around the cathedral and nothing seemed to interest him.

"You don’t know what you are getting into."

Nacht’s head snapped behind him.

There in torn clothes, white hair, and deep black eyes, stood himself. Well, himself before he became an enlightened.

Nacht was alarmed to say the least.

"What are you?"

The imposter smiled back.

"I am a reflection of your deepest and darkest sins. Does that ring a bell?"

Nacht’s eyes darkened.

He summoned the death march only to see the imposter’s smile widen, then he threw his sword at the apparition and it disappeared. He tried to dismiss the saber back into his core but nothing happened.

It was only then that Nacht realized that unlike other relics, he had to be in physical contact with the death march to dismiss it back into his core since it wasn’t exactly a relic, at least not anymore.

He walked over to the saber and picked it up, dismissing it back into his core.

Nacht looked around and found no sign of the apparition.

"That wasn’t nice of you Nacht! I thought I taught you to be better than this."

Nacht whipped his head back around and instead of himself, this time he saw an older man in well dressed clothes.

Nacht felt the chains of guilt wrap around his heart.

"Get out of my head!"

The apparition of his uncle smiled.

"You know I can’t do that Nacht, I am your punishment remember?"

Nacht gritted his teeth.

"You’re not real."

The man smiled.

"Oh I’m real alright. As real as every despicable sin you have ever committed in your disgusting life. Truly, how can you live with yourself after what you did? What you did to me?"

Nacht snarled.

His punishment, posing as his uncle, shook its head in amusement.

Nacht closed his eyes and wished for the ghostly apparition to be gone, hoping for this all to be a dream.

He opened his eyes.

"Boo!"

Nacht flinched.

The apparition threw its head back and started to laugh except this time it had changed back into his own body.

"You can’t get rid of me that easily."