Chapter 9: Traitor
Soon Leon hd returned with the four students. When Alex saw them he frowned immediately. Looking at the four, three girls and one boy, their eyes were constantly drifting around in circles. Their faces were pale and they had a creepy smile on their face. The four still seemed to be humming.
Alex immediately pushed his Observer skill from a passive state and began to see the spiritual auras on the four, and he immediately frowned even further. The corruption seemed to have formed a noose around the necks of the four and Alex could see that certain parts of their brain had signs of being infiltrated by the corruption.
He frowned. They had clearly been affected by corruption, however, it was slightly different from that of the piano. It was much weaker, even if it showed similar characteristics.
Delilah frowned as she saw the four as well. They clearly seemed mentally unsound. She asked them about their actions, but only got one answer.
"Music is the praise to the Lord."
"We are forming a circle to praise His deified image of music."
"Music is love. Music is life."
Alex shook his head. This was a clear case of heavy corruption. He quickly called in Black Matter.
A few minutes later, police arrived on the scene and calmly escorted all students and teachers out of the campus, including Delilah. Members from Black Matter appeared and detained the four individuals.
After a sweep, several awakened had arrived on the scene to interrogate the four. The interrogators were from the 'Official' Extraordinary characteristic.
Meanwhile, Alex quietly walked through the emptied school. From the window, he saw his confused sister, who was walking back home. He walked towards the music room, to examine the situation.
From observing the four, Alex had discovered that the corruption was much much weaker and different than the one on him. From this he could surmise that the four were corrupted by some other artifact related to the same group as the piano.
Artifacts were transformed Extraordinary Characteristics from Extraordinaries who died. Alex suspected that the Piano "The Moonlight Sonata" was once an extremely high level Extraordinary along the 'Musician' sequence. If his guess was right, this new artifact must be a remnant of one of the Piano's mental slaves.
Yet, the corruption in the piano seemed so mysterious. Was the Extraordinary from whom the Piano emerged corrupted? What was it about the musician path that corrupts the mind in such a terrifying manner?
Alex looked through the music room and didn't find anything out of the ordinary at all. None of the objects showed any signs of corruption through his spiritual vision.
Reading the information about the four students, Alex received a call from Melissa. "...Your car is still parked near the school."
Alex sighed. "I am still at your school. You don't worry, I'll come home later, you can go home."
As he cut the call, he thought about the details. The four had never been sighted in the music room. Students who had seen them sneaking around after school often found them playing with pet dogs.
The four had clearly been parasitized by a low level artifact. 'Musician' Extraordinary sequence would suggest a higher probability of an object that corresponds with the characteristic, some kind of musical instrument.
"The boys keep saying they received the gift of knowledge from the Lord. Who do they mean by the Lord? The artifact that corrupted them, or the piano?" Alex kept thinking.
However, at that moment, Alex suddenly was surprised in shock. He remembered a detail in the file. The four spent almost all their post school time, playing with a large number of pet dogs.
"An artifact that is related to the 'Musician' pathway. But Musician is only the first step... the four are seen talking to dogs..." Alex quickly runs back to the investigation area and looks into the belongings of the four individuals while the members of Black Matter watched.
"Did he find the cause already? He didn't interact much with the four." One of the awakened said.
Alex suddenly found the object he was looking for. A dog whistle. As he looked at it with his spiritual vision he could barely see hints of corruption. However, the moment he touched the whistle, a voice spoke up in his head.
"I acknowledge the superior." The voice spoke within his mind.
Alex didn't show his surprise. He kept violently rummaging through the objects in the belongings as they he were still looking for something, while his mind cooled down.
He immediately understood that the voice was from the artifact. It was actually a sentient artifact.
"What are your abilities?" Alex asked in a stern voice. He immediately guessed that the high level of corruption in his body caused the whistle to identify himself as a superior. This also validated his guess that the whistle is a remnant of a member of the Sonata Troopers.
"I have two abilities. Once is to create a feeling of devotion for the Lord at a target. The other is to spread the Lord's pain and burdens to understand his sacrifice for our sake."
Alex immediately deduced what he meant. One ability created intense devotion towards the 'Moonlight Sonata' and the other was to spread corruption.
"Who have been affected by these abilities?" Alex asked.
"I tried to show the true way to humans, however, due to my restrictions, I could only create the devotional music that could be heard and affect dogs. Only the dogs and the four individuals who touched me managed to become slaves of the great Lord." The voice said with regret.
Alex turned serious. The four showed slight signs of corruption, but that was they could not really hear the dog whistle's sounds, but only affected by blowing into it. However, the most affected were the dogs.
But then Alex remembered seeing a strand of corruption trying circling Melissa, trying to enter. Was it failing because this object was a dog whistle?
Alex immediately got up. "These four have been corrupted by this dog whistle. It is an artifact formed from the remnant of a Sonata Trooper. Be careful, it is sentient and..."
Alex explained what he learned and the Black Matter immediately took action. Three individuals immediately took hold of the dog whistle and began sealing it using Extraordinary powers.
However, Alex heard a voice just before the sealing. "Betrayer..."
Alex's heart chilled. The other Black Matter awakened had already left the room to capture the potential dogs who were affected. At that moment, Alex received a phone call. It was Melissa.
"Alex... huff... save me... I'm in trouble." Melissa spoke out of breath, extreme panic in her voice. At the same time, Alex could hear a loud boom and a shriek from Melissa.
Alex immediately had a mental picture from the echoey voice and the slam that Melissa had hid herself in a closed space.
Alex calmed her down. "Calm down. Don't be scared. Tell me where you are." He tried to say as gently as possible.
Melissa spoke in intermittent sobs. "I'm at Aunt Belinda's convenience store... huff... A..a dog turned into a monster and began killing people on the street.... huff... I ran into the convenience store and locked myself in...BANG..." Alex heard her shriek again in panic.
At this moment, Alex had already run downstairs and left the school. He immediately took his car and rushed to the location while constantly being on the phone.
"Don't panic Melon, I'm coming." He said, however it did little to sooth his sister's fear as the dog turned monster was banging the door.
Soon, Alex arrived at the street and his heart turned cold. He saw an incredible amount of blood shed, at least twenty people seemed to be killed as human remains were splattered all over the road.
Alex saw a huge four legged monster that showed signs of once being a dog. Now it was a chaotic mess as teeth were growing at awkward parts of its large body and blood seemed to be spreading, Alex clearly saw that the dog had been completely corrupted very heavily. The dog had momentarily stopped trying to smash the anti theft glass door of the convenience store, Melissa was behind and turned to see a whirring car.
Alex didn't stop and simply accelerated the car to maximum speed, ramming it into the dog with maximum impact. Immediately, the airbags were deployed and Alex felt like his chest was smashed. However, the car had terribly injured the dog.
Alex crawled out of the car. He felt the pain of broken ribs and his forehead had burst open and was bleeding. Melissa saw what happened from behind the glass door and was stunned. She recognized Alex's car and then saw Alex crawl out of the crash.
However the dog suddenly pushed the car away. It then began howling in a weird chaotic, but harmonious variation, that made anyone who heard it extremely dizzy. Alex smiled bitterly as he felt slight dizziness but then immediately regained control. This how was clearly a low level variation of the piano's deathly melody, but Alex was long used to resisting the real thing in his dreams.
Alex took out his sanctioned gun from his upholstery, and unlocked it. He had only six sanctioned bullets, but none of those bullets were ordinary.
The monstrous dog's eyes turned murderous and tried to stand up, but the car's impact had injured it heavily. Alex point its gun at the dog and shot. The dog was not stupid, it clearly jumped aside in desperation, trying to dodge the bullet.
However, when it jumped right, its chest exploded in a huge blood mist. The impact of the bullet was incredible. However, what was more shocking was that the bullet had found the target. Ofcourse, it was 'Observer', with it Alex could easily predict the dog's move and shot at where it would land.
Alex didn't stop, as he limped forward, shooting again. Once again'a huge chunk of meat on the dog exploded and the dog had a huge hole right through its body. The dog looked murderous, but the pain didn't let it move, and yet the next shot blasted the dog's face, causing the remaining torso with a hole crumble.
At that moment, the heavy corruption in the dog suddenly formed a humanoid smoke projection and pounced towards Alex, however, Alex shot another bullet.
"Light." He said in a deadpanned and calm manner.
The bullet hit the smoke and exploded into a bright light engulfing the smoke. There was a loud shriek that shattered all the glasses on the street,including the one behind which Melissa watch everything happen.
Then the smoke dissipated. The violence had ended. However Alex didn't calm down. He quickly called Dark Matter before he slumped and sat down on the road, exhaustion and pain coursing through his body. Minutes later the entire area was cordoned off and surrounded by people in black combat suits.
Melissa had run to Alex, crying heavy tears and snot asking if he was okay. Alex nodded and told her to calm down.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
-- Power
stone