"Yes, I am," Eric answered Max's question while staring in the mirror, and upon Max's arrival, he had already started to feel calmer and more at peace, comforted simply by the familiar presence beside him.
"What exactly did you do to get this close to losing control? I have never seen you like this before. Tell me." Max asked, his expression dark.
Eric kept his eyes on the mirror for a few seconds longer, watching the stranger looking back at him, before he lowered his gaze to the running water. His voice, when it came, was quieter than usual.
"I realised what type of person I am and came face to face with myself."
He let the water run over his fingers for a moment, as if it could wash away what he was about to say next.
"While I was accepting myself, I started to become cold and emotionless. I didn't want to lose myself and become a cold statue." His grip tightened slightly on the edge of the sink. "I want to still be someone with emotions and a personality. I still want to feel others and experience the world."
He paused there, and something in his shoulders sank, just slightly, as the admission cost him more than the words themselves suggested.
"So, I tried to distract myself, but I made a mistake and started to act differently from myself, pushing myself away."
Eric let out a breath that was almost a laugh, but there was no humor in it.
"Mixed with the recent stress we have been under due to the multiple enemies around us, our vulnerable position, and the meeting with the Trapper, it allowed the subconsciousness of my Aura to take over and almost succeed in taking over my Domain of Emotions and World of Consciousness and Subconsciousness."
For a moment he said nothing at all, and the only sound in the room was the water still running between his fingers. When he finally looked up and met Max's eyes in the mirror, he offered something close to a smile, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"It's good that we are experienced in meditation and can calm ourselves."
"For now," he added, softer than everything before it, "I will be fine."
Max listened with a worried face and let out a small breath before he spoke. "I think we should find a therapist from the Mind Pathway. Maybe Visie could do it, or we could just get a relic from that pathway instead. It's honestly been long overdue." As he said it, the grey bubble floating beside him drifted back toward his shoulder and sank into his body, absorbed without a sound.
Eric considered this for a moment before answering, and when he laughed, it came easily, without any strain behind it. "You're right, and honestly, you don't have to worry about things like that with a mindset like yours, but I'm always in danger of it in a way you're not. Still, a relic alone won't be enough. We really do need a proper therapist. Haha, it's almost funny how ignorant I was about the purpose of the Therapist sub-pathway of the Mind Pathway back when I was still an Auri Nova. Now I finally understand why it matters." He looked back at Max with a smile, and it was a genuine one, with nothing fake behind it.
Max met his eyes for only a moment before looking away, guilt written plainly across his face. "I'm sorry you have to carry all this stress while I go around being happy and half-ignorant of what we're actually dealing with."
Eric shook his head, wanting to ease the weight Max seemed to be carrying. "There's nothing to apologize for. We decided a long time ago that I'd be the brain and you'd be the brawn. As long as we keep supporting each other along the way, none of this is more than a rock to kick out of our path."
Max said nothing to that. He only looked further away, his hands curling into fists at his sides, until Eric crossed the space between them and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Enough sulking. Now come, let's test our very first Rank 0 relic."
At the mention of the relic, Max's expression shifted at once. His guilty, downcast eyes lit up as he remembered they finally had something to test.
Eric smiled at him, and together they left the bathroom and made their way into the living room. Eric raised his right arm into the air and stopped only when his hand reached above his head.
"What are you doing?" Max asked, his brows furrowed in confusion.
Just then, A rift in space opened again, just as it had back in the bathroom, and the same thick golden hand emerged from within it, its huge claws sharp as knives; the Imperator's Cross rested in its grip as it waited for Eric to take it. Eric reached out and took the earring, and the moment he did, the clawed hand withdrew into the rift before sealing itself shut a few seconds later. Eric turned his attention to the earring in his palm, glanced once at Max, and took a slow, deep breath.
He closed his eyes. Golden liquid rose from his hands and seeped into the cold silver surface of the earring, and almost immediately he felt thousands of eyes surrounding him, all staring back with an intensity he couldn't ignore. Some looked angry, some excited, some sad, and others simply confused.
Eric only then understood that he was being given a choice, that he could call forward any one of these Angel Spirits, and he found he could judge their rank at a glance, since the higher a Spirit's rank, the brighter it shone. Directly above his head hung one so bright it rivalled the sun itself, larger and more magnificent than every other presence in the space.
"A Supernova-level Angel Spirit," Eric thought, grateful that he was only viewing it through the relic. Had he laid eyes on something of that level in the waking world, he had no doubt it would have twisted him into a monster on the spot.
He looked further and realised there was no true Supernova-level Spirit bound within the relic after all. If he ever wanted one, he would have to hunt it down himself, assuming he crossed paths with such a being and had grown strong enough to survive the encounter. He set the thought aside for later and kept searching instead for something closer to his own rank, something he could actually work with.
His eyes eventually settled on a Spirit tucked into a corner, its glow neither blinding nor faint, carrying an amiable warmth and a gaze that felt older and steadier than the rest. Eric reached out his left hand, and the Spirit rose and drifted toward him without hesitation.
Back in the waking world, Eric opened his eyes to find the Angel Spirit already standing before him.
It was a human-shaped Angel Spirit with three pairs of wings folded behind its back, its body cast entirely in gold. Its eyes were pupil-less, its expression unreadable, yet everything about its bearing suggested the calm patience of someone far older and wiser than it appeared. Smaller eyes of every colour opened and closed across its body in a slow, constant rhythm.
Max stared at it, completely transfixed, since he had never seen an Angel Spirit in the flesh before and was thrilled to finally witness one. He had always heard they kept human forms most of the time, only shifting into something far more fearsome when provoked or when hunting down curse spirits, demons, and devils, and that whether they leaned aggressive or gentle toward humans depended entirely on the nature of the Spirit itself.
The Angel Spirit slowly opened its eyes and blinked as it looked around, noticing Eric's staring and Max's intent gaze. The Angel Spirit put its right hand on its chest and bowed to both of them.
Eric returned the bow, and Max followed suit. After bowing, Eric decided to speak first to break the silent atmosphere.
"Hello, respected Angel. May we know your name?" Eric asked in a respectful tone.
The Angel Spirit finally opened its mouth, and its voice, when it came, carried an ethereal quality, less like sound and more like something felt through the chest. "My name is Uriel. I am a Lysi Nova-level Angel Spirit, specialised in exorcising curse spirits, undead wanderers, demons, and devils. We Angel Spirits have no gender, but you may address me using male pronouns."
"That's exactly what we need. Can you—" Max started, but he never finished the thought. Uriel's eyes had already sharpened, cutting toward Eric's bedroom, where Ruby lay sleeping, and in the space of a blink he was simply gone. He reappeared a second later with something writhing in his left hand, a small blob of black flesh with bulging eyes and two stubby limbs that ended in something closer to feet than hands, its whole body twitching in a way that made it hard to look at directly, as though it belonged more to a nightmare than to the room around it.
"This is the curse spirit that has been troubling your wife these past few days," Uriel said, holding it up for Eric to see. "The Church has kept it heavily restrained; otherwise, a creature this weak would have died long ago."
He closed his fist around its head. It burst apart in a soundless flash of golden flame, and when the light faded, there was nothing left behind, not even ash.
Max let out a low whistle, clearly impressed by how little the moment had seemed to cost Uriel, who looked as unbothered afterward as he had before. Eric turned to him with a small smile of his own. "Do you want an Angel Spirit as well?"
Max rubbed his chin, considering it for a moment. "I don't think I need one exactly, but I wouldn't mind something low-rank that could keep the area around me from getting wrecked whenever I fight. Every punch and kick I throw ends up taking out half the surroundings with it. Not that I lose sleep over it, but it does sting a little afterward."
Eric looked to Uriel. "Do you have someone in mind who'd suit him?"
"I do," Uriel said, and drifted towards the earring. He pressed his index finger to its surface and called out.
In just a moment later, a small, round-cheeked Angel Spirit tumbled out into the open air, looking utterly overwhelmed by everything around her. She began to drop before she'd even fully arrived, and Max reacted on instinct, catching her in one hand before she hit the floor. He slowly rose and looked down at her like a giant and grinned.
She stared back up at him and let out a shriek of pure terror, a sound so high and small it somehow made her seem even cuter rather than more alarming. She looked seconds away from crying when Uriel swept in behind her and brushed one wing gently over her head, and slowly, her trembling eased.
"Forgive her," Uriel said, glancing between the two of them. "Her name is Pixie. She's an Auri Nova-level Spirit, and as her size might suggest, she was once a fairy before being caught in the radius of a Goodness Pathway Walker's advancement ritual, which transformed her into what she is now. She's timid, and it takes her time to warm up to anyone, but she's more than capable when it comes to barriers and protection. I promise you won't regret keeping her close, Mr. Max. She only seems frightened of you at first. Underneath that, she's caring, even sweet, once she trusts you." He paused for a few seconds as he gazed at Pixie before turning to Max and Eric. "I'll only ask one thing of you both. Keep her away from violence and blood, and look after her."
"Even if she doesn't do a thing, I'll still watch out for her," Max said, reaching out to pinch her cheek. "Feels like a fun challenge, honestly. She's such a little cutie."
"Please don't touch me," Pixie said at once, swatting his hand away with both of her much smaller ones, her voice still high but firm enough to make the point. Max, for all his bluster, knew where a line was when someone drew it, and he withdrew his hand without complaint, settling her onto his shoulder instead and leaving her be.
"So tell me, Uriel," Eric said, curiosity getting the better of him, "if the Church of Serenity hadn't been handling the relic's negative effects, what would I have had to sacrifice?"
Uriel turned his head toward him, unhurried. "You would not have had to sacrifice anything, Mr. Eric."
Eric opened his mouth to press further, but Uriel was already continuing. "Normally, every use of the earring demands something true be given up in return, though what exactly depends heavily on what the relic is being asked to do. Summoning a Spirit close to your own rank would never call for something as drastic as a limb, so the price would likely be small, a nail, perhaps, or a few strands of hair, nothing that wouldn't grow back in time. It's only at the higher levels that the sacrifices start to grow strange and permanent. Still, I wouldn't spend much time worrying over it. What I'd suggest instead is that you do as many good deeds as you can, and let them fill the relic, so that when battle comes, you're never left without blessings to draw on."
Eric leaned back into the sofa, turning the words over. "So the old saying holds even for a Rank 0 relic, then. You only ever learn what something truly is by using it." He said it half to himself, more thought than statement, but it settled something in him all the same.
Uriel nodded, and Max, with Pixie on his left shoulder, sat down on the sofa. They were not worried about Ruby waking up and finding them sitting with angels since normal humans can't see Angel Spirits so long as the Angel Spirit doesn't allow it.
Once again it was Uriel who spoke first, and the way he kept stepping into that role, it almost seemed like he'd decided to take over Eric's habit of steering the conversation. "Sir Eric, Sir Max, I'd suggest you both get some rest now. We'll keep watch while you sleep, and tomorrow the two of you will meet the Trapper. There's no need to worry over it. Even if he tries something, there's little real damage he could do. I have a brother within the earring who, despite holding only a Lysi Nova rank, is remarkably skilled with dimensional abilities, and he'll be able to offer plenty of support if it's needed. Divine Karma will also be watching over the meeting. Between the three of us, everything should balance out, and no one will be pushed into taking a drastic action they'd come to regret."
Eric crossed his arms and gave Uriel a sidelong look. "That's reassuring, I suppose, but how exactly do you know all this?"
"Forgive the intrusion, Mr. Eric," Uriel said, meeting his gaze without flinching. "My sister has a gift for reading and holding memories, and she looked through yours while you slept. There's no cause for concern. I only know what's necessary to help you, and she will have already let go of most of what she saw. Prying into someone's memories, into the moments that matter to them, is a grave sin among us. We Angel Spirits would never cross that line."
"You're saying an awful lot for someone who's just trying to justify himself," Eric said, an edge creeping into his voice.
Uriel dipped his head. "My apologies. That's an old habit of mine rearing up again. If there's anything I can do to make it right, you need only ask."
"Your Father has already promised me a great deal of help," Eric added after a pause. "You needn't worry yourself over the rest."
A yawn cut through the quiet before Eric could respond, long and unmistakable, and it hadn't come from him.
It had been Max all along. Unlike Eric, he was no late-night owl, and the yawn that escaped him now was proof enough of that. He got to his feet, gave a lazy wave to Eric and Uriel, and started toward the wall that led back to his room. The grey bubble slipped from his right shoulder as he moved, but before he could take more than a step, Uriel's voice stopped him. "Mr. Max, if you would wait just a moment."
"Huh?" Max blinked back at him, eyes heavy with sleep. "What's up?"
Uriel drifted closer instead of answering right away, his gaze settling on Max's right abdomen. His throat worked once, twice, a flicker of something like dread crossing his face before he steadied himself. He lifted his right hand and laid it gently against Max's stomach, then closed his eyes, reaching inward to sense whatever lay beneath.
Pixie watched from nearby, her small face tight with worry. Sweat began to bead along Uriel's brow. In the space behind his closed eyes, he found it: a dark, coiled mass sitting low in Max's abdomen, rimmed in a thin red light. He reached toward it carefully, cautiously, and the instant his awareness brushed against it, the red lining split open into two burning eyes and a wide, jagged smile, and the whole thing lunged.
Uriel's eyes snapped open, and he wrenched his hand back, but it was already too late. The black flame had caught hold of his arm, and it was spreading.
"Ahh!" The scream tore out of him as he collapsed to his knees, hands clutching at his head. Black cracks split across his golden body, spreading and deepening by the second, swallowing the gold beneath them. His once-white eyes bled to a burning red. In moments, he would be lost entirely, turned into something corrupted beyond recognition.
For a breath, none of them could move. The room seemed to hold itself still, the air gone thick and airless, as though even sound had drawn back to watch what would happen next.
Then it broke all at once. Pixie's scream tore through the silence, high and raw, shattering whatever stillness remained. Max didn't think; he simply moved, his purple liquid flaring to life around him as he threw himself toward Uriel, arms already reaching. Behind him, Eric was pressing his golden liquid back into the earring with shaking hands, pouring everything he had into it, desperate for anything it might give back in return.
It was the earring that answered first. A pulse of white light broke from its surface, sudden and blinding, and from within it drifted a small golden orb of light, gentle in a way that felt almost out of place against the chaos of the moment. It settled over Uriel slowly, softly, like snow falling without weight. The cracks along his body stilled the instant it touched him. The black veins that had been spreading through his gold began to recede, reluctant, fighting the light every inch of the way, but retreating all the same.
No one dared speak while it happened. Pixie had already lifted off from Max's shoulder, flying to Uriel's side in a panic too large for her small frame, hovering close as though her presence alone might help. Uriel remained on his knees through it all, sweat running freely down his face, his breathing ragged and uneven. Max knelt beside him, guilt written openly across his face, his hands hovering uselessly, unsure of what to do with them now that the danger had passed. Eric stood a little apart, the shock still fresh in his eyes, though his expression had already smoothed back into its usual unreadable calm.
It was several long moments before Uriel finally rose to his feet. He looked around at the three of them and offered a smile, though it was clear he was working hard to wear it, more concerned with easing their worry than his own.
"What just happened?" Max asked, still crouched where he'd knelt.
Uriel didn't answer the question directly. Instead, he studied Max for a moment and said, "You carry a strong affinity for curse spirits, demons, and devils, Sir Max. It might serve you well to find a relic of your own and hunt them." Then he turned toward the earring still resting in Eric's palm and bowed low. "Thank you for your help, Brother Lucias."
Eric blinked, caught off guard. "Lucias. That's the Supernova-level Spirit inside the earring?"
Uriel simply nodded.
"Are you okay?" Max asked, and there was no mistaking the guilt sitting behind the question, plain in his voice and in the way he couldn't quite meet Uriel's eyes.
Uriel offered him a smile, though it came out a little crooked, a little forced. "Yes, I am, Mr. Max. There's truly no need to worry. This was my own fault, for inspecting you as carelessly as I did."
"But you were only trying to help me." Max's expression sank further at that, the guilt only settling deeper. Uriel shook his head gently.
"Sacrifice is simply part of what it means to be an Angel Spirit. We help because it satisfies something in us, not out of obligation, and certainly not because we expect anything in return. There's no reason for you to carry guilt over it. If anything, it will only weigh on you for nothing."
Max considered that for a moment, then shook his own head. "It's not that simple for me. Whatever I feel, I show it fully. If I bottle it up instead and pretend it isn't there, that's when I start losing control of myself."
"I see," Uriel said, something thoughtful passing behind his eyes. "Then I'll remember that, for next time."
Max turned his attention to Pixie then, who had drifted a short distance away, hovering near Uriel's shoulder and watching the two of them with wide, uncertain eyes. She had gone quiet since the corruption, her earlier fear from before seeming to have folded into something more careful, more searching, as though she were still deciding what to make of everything she'd just witnessed. Max managed a small, guilty smile in her direction. "Maybe it's better if you're not around me. I wouldn't want the same thing happening to you... Whatever that was."
Eric, watching from the side, half expected her to seize the excuse and put as much distance between herself and Max as she could. She was timid by nature, and what she'd just seen would have been more than enough reason for anyone, let alone someone so easily frightened, to want nothing more to do with him.
But Pixie only studied Max a moment longer, tilting her head as though turning something over in her mind, and something in her expression softened. Slowly, she drifted closer, hesitating once before landing lightly on his shoulder. She pressed a small hand to his cheek, and when she finally spoke, her voice had lost its earlier shrillness. "I think I judged too quickly before. I'm sorry for that. I wasn't sure what kind of person you were at first, but I see now that you're an honest one, and I find I don't mind honest people. So let's stay together instead, and look after each other. Besides, if anyone's to blame for what happened, it's Brother Uriel, for being so careless with his inspection in the first place."
Max blinked, clearly not having expected that answer, but a grin crept onto his face anyway. "Aren't you worried you'd end up corrupted too, like he almost did?"
"Not particularly," Pixie said, some of her earlier composure returning as she settled more comfortably onto his shoulder. "I can weather corruption far better than Brother Uriel ever could, and we still have Brother Lucias watching over us from within the earring. Even without that, I'd rather take the risk than turn away from a soul as sincere as yours."
Max laughed at that, warm and unguarded, and reached up to pinch her cheek again, earning himself an indignant huff from her that he seemed entirely unbothered by. Still smiling, he turned toward the wall, his purple liquid shifting into its familiar grey bubble and slipping free from his shoulder, and stepped through into his room.
In the living room, only Eric and Uriel remained. The silence that settled between them was different from before, no longer heavy with fear, but Eric found that he had no questions left in him, not tonight. Whatever answers Uriel could offer would keep until morning. He simply nodded toward the earring as Uriel returned to it without protest, folding back into the light with the same quiet grace he'd carried since the moment he first appeared.
Eric closed his fingers around the earring and slipped it into his pocket, feeling its familiar weight settle against him, no longer just metal now but something closer to a promise. He rose from the sofa, and the living room felt strangely large around him in the stillness that followed, the kind of quiet that only exists in the hours when everyone else in the world has already gone to sleep.
He made his way to his bedroom and eased the door open. Ruby lay exactly as he'd left her, her face soft and untroubled, entirely unaware of everything that had unfolded just beyond her door. He stood there a moment longer than he needed to, just watching her breathe, letting that small, ordinary sight steady something in his chest that the events of the night had left unsettled.
He crossed to the window instead of the bed, drawn there without quite deciding to be. The city stretched out below in scattered lights, and above it the sky held its usual scatter of stars, indifferent to everything that had almost gone wrong only minutes ago. Eric let his eyes trace the horizon, and for the first time all night, allowed himself to simply exist for a moment without needing to hold anything together. Uriel's near corruption. Pixie's sudden warmth toward Max. The name Lucias, spoken with such reverence, such history behind it, as though it belonged to someone Uriel owed far more than gratitude.
There would be time to think it all through. Just not tonight.
He finally pulled himself away from the window and lay down beside Ruby, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight, the ceiling above him swallowed in shadow. His mind, usually restless even in the quiet hours, felt strangely settled now, worn down by everything the night had asked of it.
Tomorrow, he would meet the Trapper.
He had done everything within his power to prepare for it, gathered every ally he could, called on every resource available to him, and yet as sleep finally pulled him under, one thought lingered stubbornly at the edge of his mind, refusing to let him rest quite as easily as he wanted to believe he could.
"Tomorrow will decide our fate."
He still had no idea what the Trapper truly wanted from him, and somewhere deep down, a part of him suspected that whatever it was, it would change everything that came after.