"Thank you for showing up, Saint Silver" a government Ascended bowed slightly at Silver's arrival.
"No problem" Silver gave a casual reply.
On the surface, she was one of the government's regular Saints, but in reality, she was only doing minute jobs for them out of boredom.
The proof of that was the little Ariel that had followed her hand in hand.
Merlin had managed to get her a part-time work with the government, and the process was rather smooth, after all Transcendents weren't exactly things you could bargain with, each of them was a valuable resource of their own.
After the process had been completed, a few days later, they had called in, the message was that a category three nightmare gate had opened in a park.
Merlin decided to drop her off at the gate point, but Ariel was determined to follow along, even with all the explanations that it would be deadly, She did not give in.
As such, Merlin left Ariel in her hands, in reality, out of all of them, Ariel was actually the strongest in rank and class, and although she was a child, according to Merlin, she was an almost unkillable one.
That made the three of them similar, She couldn't die because of her flaw, Ariel couldn't die because of her abilities, and Merlin couldn't die because of Ariel's abilities.
A family indeed.
After Merlin had dropped her off, he had left on the premise of wanting to prepare something for their return.
So she was now here with a little child and a nightmare gate that would soon start pouring out countless nightmare creatures.
She had a very bad impression of these gates, after all it had been the catastrophe that had taken everything from her, so she would make sure nobody would suffer from that tragedy.
..
.
But… the creatures coming out from the gate were—
"Sister Silver… Why are the monsters all weak?" Ariel asked in an innocent voice, earning her a few stares from the nearby Awakeneds and Ascendeds.
But just as she said, the creatures coming out of the gate were mere Fallen rank, this was something that she wouldn't even bother with when she was in the Forest of Civilth, but now these people looked like they were facing their end.
She took a breath and answered Ariel's question.
"It's probably because they're scared of you"
The answer was one that would settle the curiosity of a child, but the other government people weren't taking it that way.
'Damn it… we're fighting for our lives here and you're playing house with a child, who even does that…'
Silver sighed and stretched her hand towards the horde of nightmare creatures, and immediately the ground rose into metal spikes impaling all of them.
She was worried such a scene wouldn't be good for a child like Ariel, but she was wrong, the little girl was smiling and clapping like she'd seen a show.
"That's amazing… you're almost as cool as big brother" Ariel chided.
'Almost as cool…' her eyes twitched slightly.
While diverting her attention to keep removing old spikes and impaling new nightmare creatures that flowed out from the gate, she turned to Ariel.
"Listen Ari… big sister is cooler than big brother, big brother is not strong like me, so he's not cooler, understand?"
Ariel thought for a while then nodded happily.
"Big sister Silver is the strongest… when brother fought, he was dirty and tired, but sister Silver is not even touching them… so big sister is the coolest"
"Good good…" she smiled.
'Merlin is going to cry out when he hears this' she chuckled inwardly.
Ariel's logic was a flawed one since Merlin had been an Awakened at the time, and was also fighting a war, but what did that matter to a child, as long as she says 1+1 is 11 then that's what she'll go by.
Honestly, it worked in her favor, with this she'd have something to say to Merlin when he decides to start acting up.
As she rounded up her thoughts, a massive wave of pressure poured out of the nightmare gate, from it came a Corrupted Monster.
The Monster was equal to her in rank, but she was a class above it, despite it being almost as strong, she wasn't bothered in the slightest, after all, she knew what it's like to be corrupted, all the actions the beast was making was simply based on mindless instinct and the constant echo calling for destruction in its mind.
"Oh… that one is strong" Ariel who was not at all bothered by the pressure sounded happy at a new challenger.
Her quippy voice caused the surrounding government officials to turn in surprise, they had just been celebrating that Silver was doing their jobs when the Corrupted Monster shook them out of their joy with its pressure, and now this child was out here talking like she wasn't feeling the tension in the air.
'Honestly… is that really a child?'
"Sister Silver… will you kill it?" Ariel asked.
She sighed and shook her head.
"No… your big brother said that he needed it for something"
She immediately raised her hands, the ground rose up into chains that bound the Corrupted Monster, she also made the ground like sinking sand, except just liquid metal, as its limbs went low, she immediately hardened the surface, locking them in place, for added security, the ground rose up to form a cage around it.
The Corrupted Monster was locked in place.
"Now we just have to call Merlin" she said calmly, ignoring the multiple blank stares she was receiving.
Before she even spoke, Ariel was already dialing the number on her communicator. Merlin had given her a communicator so she would interact with the outside world in his words.
Ever since she got it, Ariel had taken a liking to it, and had spent extensive amounts of time using it herself despite Merlin's warning of not growing up right.
Since then, the communicator could as well be called Ariel's,so as she said to inform Merlin, the little one was already hopping to it.
"Hello big brother…" Ariel's voice sounded.
…
Merlin laid down on the chair, he had already prepared the food that Silver and Ariel were going to have when they returned, and now all he had to do was wait for them to finish, then he would pick them up.
Ring…
Ring…
Just as he was about to actually start resting, his communicator rang out.
He picked up the phone and saw the caller.
"I'm guessing they're done… thank the gods I prepared the food early" he heaved a sigh of relief and accepted the call.
"Hello big brother…" Ariel's voice rang out from the speaker.
"Hey Ari, what's up?" He asked.
"Nothing, it's just that Sister Silver left a big monster here for you" Ariel sounded happy.
He sighed and stood up from the chair. He had indeed told her to leave the strongest nightmare creature for him, not because of any grand reason, he just wanted to kill it inside the Spirit World so that its spirit could get a new home.
For a while, he had been piling up the Spirit World with spirits, after all, he was supposed to be the great ruler above the Spirit World, but if he didn't have Spirits, what was he supposed to rule?
The Spirit World was now filled with all kinds of creatures, of different class, and rank ranging from Awakened to Transcendent.
Inside, a hierarchy had already been unanimously put in place, he stood at the top, the Transcendents followed, regardless of class, and then Ascended, and finally the Awakeneds, a few times, Ascended devoured Awakeneds each other to grow stronger, and same went with the Awakeneds, but the Transcendents had no such needs, well there weren't much of them anyway, but that was the general order of the Spirit World.
Whenever he showed up, the weaker creatures would hide themselves, leaving only those who had guts, and Transcendents, but personally, he had no time to be playing with them, so he just let them figure it out themselves. If he had time, he would check if resurrection was possible by infusing the spirit with a body, but for now, he just wanted to go get their new addition.
"I'll be right there…" he answered and immediately used travel to appear at their location, the first thing he saw was the Corrupted Monster, locked with three different levels of metal, he pitied the poor creature inwardly.
Not only did its first appearance land it in prison, it was about to be hauled off to a place where it'd be ganged up against, and beaten to death, and that wasn't even the end, after its spirit separates, it would probably be bullied by those who came before it.
'Hope the poor guy doesn't drop the soap…'
He turned around and met the crowd of Ascendeds and Awakeneds that had just been made useless by Silver.
"Hey there…" he waved to Silver who stood by the side.
"Hey…" Ariel waved back excitedly, she rushed forward into his arms.
He picked her up and walked towards Silver, as he neared, one of the government Ascendeds walked to him.
"Master Jayson… Saint Silver said you would be in charge of dealing with the nightmare creature, would you need any help?" The Ascended, Walker asked.
He shook his head, "thank you Master Walker, but I'm fine, it's nothing difficult for me…"
'And if I needed help, did you think I'd ask you when Silver, a Saint, is right here?' he completed inwardly.
"Okay… I'll notify Master Jet" Walker nodded and left.
In terms of authority, the only person above him was Master Jet, and other Saints, it was something Saint Cor had decided, but he didn't mind, he was still polite to everyone, even though he hardly saw them, he was usually on lone deployments, any nightmare gate below category three could be cleared by him easily, so he usually went alone, plus it saved the government from deploying their people that were busy with other things.
After Walker left, he turned to Ariel.
"So… how was your day?"
She gave him a deadpan look, "is this the place and time to be asking about that?"
He turned to the still struggling Corrupted Monster, then shrugged.
"My bad… well I'm going to hurry up, I've already prepared what to eat"
He tried to put Ariel down, but she clung to his neck.
"I want to see too…" she wailed.
"Sigh… fine then" he sighed and pulled out an ice cream from his dimension ring, handed it to Silver and held her shoulder as he teleported to the side of the Corrupted Monster, he placed his free hand on its body and they all disappeared into the Spirit World, the essence drain was a bit more, after all he was moving three Transcendent creatures, but it didn't affect him much.
As he appeared in the Spirit World, he immediately let go of the Monster, leaving it floating into oblivion, the other Spirits nearby eyes with hunger, but none of them made a move because he was around, that was the effect of being the top of the hierarchy.
"So… what now?" Ariel asked expectingly.
He turned to her and stroked her head.
"Now we go home and eat"
"Aw… that's so uncool" she pouted.
"What were you expecting… that they'll battle it out?" He asked.
"Well yeah…" She answered in a low voice.
He chuckled, "well that's not something I'll show to a little girl like you"
"See… not cool" Silver added softly while eating her ice cream.
Ariel, as if remembering something, nodded profoundly and said.
"That's right… Sister Silver is the coolest"
Merlin that was about to leave the Spirit World felt his body stiffen as he turned to Ariel.
"Am I not supposed to be the coolest? How did it become Silvy?"
"Brother is still the second coolest" Ariel patted his head, but somehow that just made him feel worse.
'Fine… you and I can play that game' he smiled inwardly.
The next moment, he let go of Silver's shoulder and immediately left the Spirit World with Ariel.
'Go on a little time out Silvy…'
As he appeared back home, he immediately felt an eerie chill crawl up his spine, it was at that moment, he knew he fucked up.
'I'm dead…'
He immediately put Ariel on the chair and patted her head.
"Ari… when Silvy comes back, try not to let her kill me, and I'll get you a new toy… okay?"
"Toy… yay!" Ariel cheered.
He only hoped she got his message as he immediately went back to the Spirit World, As he appeared, Silver's golden eyes immediately locked to him.
"You have guts…" She had a smile that felt wrong.
His intuition only whispered one sentence.
'You're thoroughly fucked…'
He chuckled nervously, "I was gone for less than a second… you're going to take it easy on me right?"
"What do you think?" She tilted her head slightly.
"What if I use ice cream?"
"Heh…"
He sighed and accepted his fate, he could only rely on Ariel for survival, hopefully she would still remember.
He placed his hand on her shoulder, choosing to ignore her burning glare. He immediately took her out of the Spirit World, and they appeared at their house.
The moment they appeared, Ariel rushed up to Silver.
"Sister… brother cannot die" she sounded totally serious, like she completed a very brave task.
'Your choice of words aren't really much of a help tho…' he sighed as he accepted the fact that his luck had run out.
Silver nodded understandingly with a smile.
"Don't worry little one… I know"
'That sounds scarier than dying in my book'
Ariel nodded happily.
"Yay… brother I did it, you'll get me a new toy right?"
"Yes Ari… I'll even let you pick it yourself" he smiled at her, for her smile, he would overcome any and all tribulations.
"Can we eat first…" he opted for a temporary truce, one last meal before he would meet the gods.
"Sure" Silver shrugged.
He smiled and went into the kitchen, he served the food and they ate gracefully, and unlike he expected, Silver didn't pursue the matter from earlier, they just spent the rest of the day normally, but he knew too much to trust that she had let him go scott free.
He could feel it in his bones… She was plotting.