The Seeker | Volume 2

Upon hearing Raymond's voice, I wasn't scared. I was actually quite annoyed with the current situation. 

"I can't maintain my avatar's spiritual connection for a long period of time, so I'll make this quick." Raymond suddenly said as he crossed his leg over the other. "I already told you about my current ambitions of retrieving the slate, achieving Order 0 and resurrecting "him".

"But you never told me who "him" is." I rolled my eyes, wiping my eyes. Raymond suddenly chuckled and snapped his fingers through Isaiah's avatar. The environment around is dissipated and we ended up inside Raymond's mindscape; with the infinite ceiling and infinite expanse with gray and white fog.

"Khorvath." He clarified, leaning back on his high-backed chair, the depravity sigil glowing dimly. "That angel I keep hearing about?" I asked. Raymond nodded slowly, before snapping his fingers again. 

The illusory and blurry image of red glass like fragments appeared, floating and ebbing gently in the air around his seat. "Within these fragments contain my memories, Apocalypse." 

He suddenly tapped one, and the illusory scene of Raymond and Khorvath played out. Khorvath was about 9 feet tall with fiery red hair and a stubble; carrying a large spear tainted in mystical, dark energy.

"That's Khorvath. He was one of my allies in the previous epoch. Unfortunately, his desire and ambitions for love ended up with his death and him destroying humanity out of his own anger and regret." Raymond explained, staring into the scene playing inside the illusory fragment.

I watched with interest as the scene played out. Inside the air, which was covered in a thick layer of fog, ash, and fire, illusory cracks appeared on the surface of the world, threatening to tear it to shreds.

Khorvath and Raymond looked up at the fractures, their expressions not changing as if this was an everyday occurrence for the 2 angels. Behind them stood 2 more figures, each with long hair of black and white. I didn't get a clear view of them, but they looked similar to the people I'd often visualized whilst reading a novel about Chinese culture. 

All of a sudden, a large surge of dark energy shot through the fragment, attempting to engulf Khorvath, Raymond, and the 2 blurry figures. Khorvath let out a low roar, causing "his" red colored robe to flare up. The robe connected to the dark energy, causing the darkness to swell up and transform again.

The darkness finally took shape, sticking out its limbs, head, and eyes, turning into a shadowy female figure that seemed to be no longer composed of shadows, but rather of regular matter. Suddenly, Raymond, who was sitting outside the fragment clasped his hand over the fragment before I could clearly see the woman. 

"Is there someone you don't want me seeing?" I asked. Raymond fell silent for a few moments as if listening for something. He suddenly sighed and nodded. "Yes. consider yourself extremely lucky you didn't see "her" all that well." His voice was solemn as he spoke, but also seemed to have a tiny edge of caution laced within it. 

"Is there a particular reason you don't want me seeing 'her"? Raymond nodded silently, before snapping his fingers again and descending back into the physical plane. We were now back into the base, and the air and environment were as still and silent as we had left it.

"That entity is mighty and powerful. I won't even tell you her name." Raymond said, looking straight at me. This sounded awfully similar to the implications of what Aaron had previously taught about entities in the cosmos. 

I'd never actually seen one before; the only possible entity I've encountered was Maxwell whilst inside of Aaron's body, and The Umbridge. "Then why can you see "her" and not suffer physical, mental or spiritual consequences?" I asked, my eyes narrowing slightly as I looked at the black haired angel with puzzlement.

Raymond huffed. "It was merely a historical projection played through my memories. If it wouldn't have harmed you I would've shown you the whole thing. Memories are a powerful thing inside this world, they can either make you or destroy you." 

"At the level of an Order 2 angel, I've grown to resist losing control a lot more than you. You're the Apocalypse; the deity who will wreck the stars. It's honestly dumbfounding how you haven't succumbed to your own emotions and suffered the same implications as "him."

"You think I want to destroy the world? I want to protect it and everyone on it, not become what the devils and demons of this strange world need me to do." I spoke in annoyance, the venom practically leaving my mouth with every word I spoke.

Raymond sighed and said with a smile. "That's why I need "him" instead now." 

"I need to resurrect Khorvath so that I could merge with him and achieve my own pinnacle and break the shackles of what that entity had done with me." Raymond said.

"I'm guessing this is something you just came up with? You finally took the time to notice my mental state and decided I wasn't the right candidate to suit your needs. At Least I know I'm someone who extends outside of your indifferent philosophy?" I said as I crossed my arms.

The Apocalypse sigil on my forehead glowed dimly as I looked at Raymond, who was slowly beginning to turn back into Isaiah Walls's avatar state. Illusory thin lines began to drill out of Isaiah's body as if he were suddenly a puppet.

"I look forward to our next talk, Apocalypse," Raymond said, his voice slowly taking Isaiah's form. Isaiah Walls suddenly looked in a daze; staring at the ceiling with a little drool running down his face and onto his chin.

He suddenly snapped awake as he met my gaze, flinching a little at my sudden intrusion. "H-hello, Isaac." He suddenly said, sighing in relief.

"Hello, Isaiah," I responded neutrally. He suddenly looked away from me and towards the book that sat on the coffee table, Sara's Diary. It didn't take an idiot to tell that this was still a portion of Raymond's body inside of Isaiah's avatar. This wasn't the last time that Raymond had mentally taken over Isaiah, but because Raymond was currently headed to retrieve the slate from The Western Lands, it wasn't a false possibility that his connection could be easily severed. 

I suddenly took Isaiah by the arm and transported him into my mental protection. When we ended up inside the throne room Isaiah's expression changed drastically, beyond human comprehension. The flesh on his face began to melt and distort as if being exposed to the hot sun for too much time.

All of his skin began to melt away; revealing not flesh and tissue underneath, but wooden bones. The body of Isaiah Walls suddenly fell limp, the wooden appendages clattering against the stone floor with a loud, lethargic clatter. 

"Strange. It's not a resurrected corpse, but it looks like a puppet of some sort, a wooden one." I thought as I leaned down and graced my hand against the wooden skeletons' features, feeling the hard, grainy surface against my fingertips.

On the chest of the skeleton where the rib cage was, there was a heart also made of wood, beating slowly. When I grabbed the heart and held it in my hand, it had a sigil on it; the concealment sigil, one of the sigils that Raymond had temporarily engraved onto his chair when telling me his plan a few weeks ago. 

"Was he using Concealment characteristics to hide this behind a layer of fake skin? He did absorb a lot of them, but how he exactly got Isaiah Wall's younger projection is mysterious." 

On the skull's wide forehead was another sigil, the Depravity sigil. When I noticed it the symbol was glowing a bright purple. When Raymond used his powers; usually the energy was faint and illusory, but the fact that it was glowing this bright might be a clear symbol he was using a lot of his strength to keep the connection between him and his avatar intact long enough to talk to me.

Suddenly, I noticed another thing strangely sticking out of the skull's left eye. I took it out, it was a rolled up piece of paper. When I unfurled the paper my eyes widened as I read the words on it, written in black ink. 

"Upon detection, it will be destroyed." The skeleton suddenly burst like a balloon, sending the wooden pieces all across the thorne room. "Clever bastard, he implanted this rule of self-destruction so that I wouldn't be able to recreate it for later." 

Due to the fact that this was a spiritual object in a physical body, I wouldn't be able to recreate it probably until I'm in a higher Order. I approached all the wooden pieces and waved my hand. Suddenly, all the pieces of wood that were scattered across the throne room disappeared, turning into a thin, illusory red mist.

The tips of my horns glowed a dim red throughout this process, and I began to feel extremely tired after doing that. Usually when my horns glowed that faint crimson was an indication that I either exerted too much strength or I was needed somewhere by The Umbridge. Whenever any of my comrades noticed it I always seemed to shake it off before entering my room and entering the after-life to accommodate his needs.

But I could certainly tell it was fatigue at the given moment, so I used the last of my energy to descend back into the physical plane before collapsing onto the couch, falling into a slumber.