Chapter 17: All Pathways (Part I)

Following the streets to East Borough, Ethan also divined if there was too much danger in killing the woman. After trying many different ways of divining with the coin, he came to the conclusion it wasn't dangerous at all.

Even then he still maintained his disguise and stealthily approached while staying in the shadows.

The moment he deduced the woman might be a Secrets Supplicant that was trying to advance, he immediately thought of a plan to kill her and steal the characteristic.

Initially, he would continuously come to that gathering and try to get as much information as possible, slowly devising a plan that could bring him success.

However, when he saw that the woman didn't leave the place before him, he decided to try to track her down.

He would use one of the shadowy corners with no light to conceal his hand and nimbly pick a strand of hair. After that, he would get close to the woman and allow the strand of hair to float into her robe.

This way, he would be able to track the strand of hair using divination and quickly find the woman.

The whole plan went as smoothly as ever, thanks to his many Beyonder abilities.

As he kept using his cane to locate his lost strand of hair, he came to the front of an abandoned building in East Borough, it seemed like a place homeless people would gather in the night to sleep.

Concealing his body in the shadows and entering the building, he was able to quickly locate the woman from before.

She was sitting on a black leather sofa in the middle of the first floor, seemingly unafraid any homeless person would try to rob her.

Taking a look at the woman, Ethan realized she was concocting a potion. Looking around, he didn't see anyone else other than the woman.

'Did she use some method to make the people that would stay in this place leave? Interesting…' As he approached her in the shadows, he made his body as light as a feather so as to make no noises at all.

As he approached the woman, he saw her suddenly turn back, seemingly afraid of something. After the sudden turning, he saw the woman touching her left temple, activating her Spirit Vision.

Realizing what she was trying to do, he quickly conjured a dart of flames and threw it at her. Not giving her any time to react.

Before the woman could try to understand what was happening, the flames pierced her skull, silently seizing her life.

With her lifeless body tumbling to the ground, he left the shadows and walked in front of the cauldron she was using to concoct her potion.

The potion was nearly complete already, it just needed some more mixing and it would be ready for the taking.

'How unfortunate, she already concocted the whole potion. It'll be difficult to store it properly.' Waiting for the woman's characteristic to form, he finished the potion and put it in one of his sealed glass jars.

'It'll have become one with the jar in a few days at most.' With him thinking of different solutions to solve this problem, the woman's characteristic finally formed.

Storing the glass jar inside his suitcase, he picked the glistening piece of skin that appeared from the woman's corpse and directly ate it.

As Ethan experienced another torrent of information, he suddenly felt a strong malice in his mind. It was very powerful, beyond anything he had ever experienced.

But when he finished receiving the memories and powers from the characteristic, the malicious feeling suddenly disappeared. The only thing left was the woman's- Jessica's mental imprint.

As he looked at the glistening piece of bloody skin he threw up, he couldn't help but think where that strong malicious intent came from.

'It had such depraved nature… The malice in that intent wasn't even directed at me and I felt it. Is this the mental imprint from some god?' Up to this point, he had never felt anything similar from the characteristics he acquired.

The only thing that could compare was the fact that there was something he could not absorb from all characteristics, hence the reason he always throws them up.

'I wasn't able to absorb that malice too… Maybe it's something related to the parts I can't absorb in the characteristics and potions?' While thinking that, he put the characteristic inside another sealed glass jar and started leaving the abandoned building.

The powers he got as a Secrets Supplicant were just a very strong spirituality and spiritual sense. Ethan could also feel some hidden existences from a very far distance from him now.

Other than that, he also received a lot of knowledge of different honorific names, all ominous in meaning and seemingly very dangerous.

'Jessica's method of making the homeless people leave the building was from a ritualistic spell she bought before. It has the power to guide a common person's subconscious thoughts into following the orders of the ritual user.' The ritual was not very complex in nature and had a very weak effect, similar to that of an Arbiter.

'It's completely useless to me, as I'm already an Arbiter anyways. Well, with my current spirituality, I could cast my cursed fire a total of twenty times before I need to stop. Today's gains are very good.'

Walking back to his home in North Borough, he didn't forget to use his Curse of Interference in the abandoned building's first floor, so as to prevent him from being tracked down.

'My flames will consume her body completely. Then, when the morning comes, the tramps will see a nice metal cauldron and use it to keep themselves warm. It could be said there's no way for me to be tracked at all in this situation.'

When he got to his house once more, Ethan decided to rest for some time. He would wait until the next wild Beyonder gathering came to try and kill the Hunter and Planter.

After getting the woman's memories, he realized she had certain contacts with a man suspected to be a Monster. Thinking about this, he took a bath and went to bed once more.

He would pay that man a visit tomorrow, as knew where he lived from the woman's memories.

…

The following day, he took a carriage and went to the other side of East Borough.

He was going to pay the Monster man a visit, and see if he really was one.

If he were, Ethan could just kill him and take his characteristic. The reason he thought this wasn't because his extreme levels of arrogance were returning, or that the cage of temperance's mental imprint was weakening.

It was from the fact the man was interned in a mental asylum in East Borough. That's the only reason Ethan suspected the man was a Monster.

The woman had gotten to know that man when she was still a common human being. He was her mentor and friend when she became a Beyonder.

However, after some time, he started losing more and more of his sanity. Until he just broke down into madness.

Now, he lived the rest of his days in his sealed room, far from everyone else.

After getting to the shanty mental asylum, he easily climbed one of the windows and entered a bathroom on the second floor.

As Ethan made his way to the man's room, he avoided any of the staff of the asylum by using his incredibly keen instincts and divination.

Nearing the man's room, he could see his appearance through the solid glass window on the door.

He had a very haggard appearance overall. A middle-aged man with brown curly hair and green eyes, wearing a white linen shirt. He was holding his head and muttering incomprehensible things.

Using his long fingernails to lockpick the strong metal door, he was able to easily access the room.

The man didn't even look at him and kept rumbling insanities to himself, "Death is not the end… Life is not the beginning… They will pay for it…"

As he approached the man, he looked at him with his piercing green eyes for a few seconds and opened his mouth to say to him, "Do you wish to die?"

The man suddenly stopped his constant rumblings.

He looked at Ethan with completely unfocused eyes, seemingly trying to understand who was talking to him at the moment.

Then, he lowered his head once more, putting his hands to hold his face, and - "Sob"

Started to profusely cry.

Looking at the person in front of him with his calm eyes, he asked him once more, "Do you not wish to cease your suffering?"

*Sob Sob

"If you want to, I shall help you do it."

*Sob "I don't deserve-" *Sob "I don't deserve this…"

Ethan's voice seemed to have an indescribable charm to it, "No you don't."

"Leave everything then." Like a hypnotizing melody.

"I'll help you get rid of your problems." Devoid of anything but calm.

"No more madness. No more suffering." Full of good will.

"I shall take that burden from you." But still cold, uncaring, and unfeeling.

*Sob Sniff

As he said those words, Ethan saw the man slowly nod his head. With this, he put his palm on top of the man's head. Burning his entire body with his cursed fire.

With the man's body completely corroded and becoming ashes in just a few seconds, he waited for the Beyonder characteristic to form.

The words he said to the man just now with his Arbiter powers weren't because he felt pity for his state. But because it could make the insanity of the mental imprint he would soon absorb to diminish to high degrees.

When seeing that man, Ethan completely understood his state by using his Spirit Vision. His mind was in chaos after seeing things he shouldn't with his constant spiritual perception.

He also seemed to be experiencing some kind of psychological trauma from the words he uttered.

Taking all of this into consideration, he decided to calm his mind before killing him and eating his characteristic. This way, Ethan could completely mitigate the strong psychological problems that would come with the characteristic.

After the characteristic completely formed, he saw a golden heart, full of white strings that formed wheels on it.

Looking at the characteristic, he divined its Sequence before taking it. He found out it was just a Sequence 9 characteristic.

As he ate the characteristic, all the memories of the man, Yuri, came flooding his mind.

His life was very tragic overall. He became a Monster after an encounter with a dying member of the Life School of Thought. After that, he also tried to become one of its members, but was stopped by some corrupt people in their midst. This led him to become a wild Beyonder and live in fear of the corrupt members coming to take his life.

He got to meet a woman that he liked, going as far as having a child with her. But their lives were lost after some of the people he was afraid of came after him.

Then, as his spiritual senses are always active, he once perceived a terrible monster near him and almost went insane. This only amplified the great trauma he already had and made him slowly start losing his sanity.

It was then that he met Jessica, becoming friends with her. But he quickly lost the rest of his sanity in the meantime. Choosing to stay in a terrible mental asylum in East Borough for the constant fear of being hunted down.

The mental imprint of Yuri in Ethan's mind had a strong desire for revenge, probably thanks to the Unwinged Angel potion's strong corruptive powers.

But other than that, there didn't seem to be any other psychological problems.

'Maybe I was being too cautious. There's no reason for Gluttony to absorb the obvious mental problems of the mental imprints. And even if it did, Sloth would probably cleanse it of any.' Noting it down as a new experience, he used his Curse of Interference and quickly left the asylum.

The powers he received from the characteristic could be seen as a double-edged sword.

While he now had a strong power of premonition and sense of danger, his spiritual perception became stupidly pronounced.

He could not help it at all, it was almost like having his Spirit Vision, in a very weakened form, active at all times. With the difference being that this one didn't consume any spirituality.

'I need to find a way to create some sealing glasses. It's far too risky to go anywhere with this power unsealed.'

He followed the path back to his house and left East Borough.