The shards slowly orbited Solaris's arm.
Embers' brown eyes widened slightly in shock and possible confusion. He outstretched his arm and began to speak.
"You have a demon mark?"
Ember said, pointing to the shards.
"If that's what this is called, then I guess so. Did the tattoo never strike you as odd? You seem to know what it is."
Solaris calmly asked, raising an eyebrow, his green eyes shined in confusion.
"I had just assumed it was a tattoo from before I met you, so I never asked. It showed no signs of being a mark, and we couldn't guess what it could be when it would take shape, and I've never seen one so dark before. How did you get it?"
"I don't really know how I got it. I've had it since middle school, which is why my nickname WAS Shard at the time, and what do you mean by never seen one so dark before?"
Ember moved his arm to touch the floating shards and opened his mouth to speak.
"Well, we had no real point to tell you before this, but if you have one, then now is better than ever."
As his sentence came to an end, his hand reached the shards, and he touched the edge of it, in hopes of grabbing the small fragment.
As his finger reached the edge, he moved down, pushing, yet the shard did not move; it remained orbiting Solaris ' arm. He began to place his fingers around the shard before pulling, and as he did, the edge of the shard immediately sliced his fingers open, gushing blood onto the floor.
"AGAH! DAMN IT!"
Moments later, the two found themselves in Sami's office. She wasn't back yet, but they did their best to wrap the wound, or at least stop the bleeding. The whole time, Ember was cursing and swearing in anger, because of this rage, Solaris was forced to either ask Cedric for an answer about the shards.
showing the old man the shards, his face lit up with excitement.
It seems he is really intrigued with these "demon marks."
The man talked for hours about the ins and outs of the marks, how they appear, as well as how to remove them, and how to assess the power and durability of the marks, as well as the new classification of demons
He ended by showing the mark he himself had; it was a basic mark and was barely visible on his skin
All it did was summon a small blade onto his wrist.
***
After the conversation ended, Solaris found himself in his room laying on his bed.
After the new discoveries, including the marks, Solaris began to recall all the information of the past few weeks to the forefront, or at least the weeks before his fight with the demon.
First demons, due to my fight, Cedric told me that they recategorized the demons into six classes, naming them after the seven sins, only excluding the sin of envy, the "wrath" demon, a demon specializing in direct combat, then the "sloth", a demon specializing in range and defensive support, and after that, there's "pride" from what theyve gathered having only fought one they have lots of armor covering their body making them the toughest to take down not to mention that they seemingly never stop attacking, next theres "gluttony", they are the flying ones, who eat everything even corpses, then greed, they seem to be tactical geniuses with a hording problem seeming to use chains as there weapon, as well as the most common to show up, and finally the one i fought the damned "lust" demon it seemed to be able to change its form to another and uses the claws.
nodding to himself, he recalled all the memories of Cedric's long conversation.
Second, the "demon marks" from his info, there's only one real way to obtain the marks, it's to directly destroy the demons' cores with exramicy. This must be how most of them got theirs, but he also said it's not guaranteed to get one of them; in fact, he said it was incredibly rare. Despite this, they've gained much information about the marks, for starters, the color, which can be white, grey, or black, with hues of each: white, which is support, grey is defence, and black is for attack. The hues of each depend on the effectiveness of each, the darker, the more powerful and durable, which is why that giant cut his fingers.
Solaris smiled darkly, laughing at the giant's exaggerated reaction to such a small injury.
After that, the marks seemingly form to the killers' souls or at least something similar, I think Cedric said "nova"?which is also what exramicy and the marks use to activate. Okay, I think that's all?
But this doesn't answer enough questions. First, why do I have a mark? What is the mark from? He said most of the marks seemingly resemble the demons they killed. What could these even represent? Maybe sloth or maybe pride? I'm not sure, and if that being inside me is responsible, then how long have I had it, and why have I never seen a demon before if I have? If I have had it my whole life, then what could it possibly be?
"so many questions and not enough answers"
Solaris spoke softly, shaking his head in disappointment. sitting up, Solaris recalled one of the last things Cedric had told him, how to remove the marks.
All you have to do is summon them and never recall them back under the skin. In fact, my sword Rami and most of the weapons in the armory are from many other hunters. He named one specifically that brought the most, Singulus.
"So that guy again. Just who is he?"