Finally, Raven turned to the real priority: uncovering the truth about his family's demise.
This was unfamiliar territory for him. Any information that is important is likely buried deep and well hidden. With no idea where to start, he chose one side of the building and began tearing through everything.
Fortunately, his tracking skills made the process easier. It allowed him to see footprints glowing faintly on the floor, marking where people had walked. Raven used it to find hidden spots—places the mafia had used to stash things that wouldn't occur to most.
…
"Why the hell do these footprints stop at a dead end?"
Scratching his head, Raven muttered the question aloud. Not that anyone was there to hear it.
'Let's see where this leads.'
Using only a fraction of his strength so he wouldn't destroy the whole structure, he pressed against the wall. As expected, it crumbled easily, revealing a hidden compartment.
"Damn, so well hidden."
Raven whispered sarcastically. He already knew, whatever he was searching for would be inside this room.
The air was different here. No dust on the surfaces, no stale smell of neglect. Instead, a faint tang of ink and leather clung to the walls. The place was spotless, eerily clean, with not a speck of dust.
Clearly, it had been in regular use. The documents scattered across the desk suggested the last person here had been doing serious work before Raven ended them.
He combed through the papers but didn't find what he needed. Then he turned to the drawers in an old wooden desk.
'It has to be here!'
Frustration was building, but he pushed through it, flipping through file after file. His breathing grew heavier the deeper he went, his hands tightening on every sheet as if he could tear the truth out of them by force.
And finally, there it was. Buried deep under a stack of documents was a file with the name of his father: Dietrich Dmitry.
He pulled it out, cleared space on the desk with a swipe of his hand, and laid it down.
Nothing else mattered now, just this.
For a moment, his fingers hesitated on the cover. After years of rage and doubt, the truth was here, just one step away. His chest felt tighter than it should have.
With hands that trembled ever so slightly, he opened the file. Inside was everything—from his father's place of birth to his schooling and family history. As he read, Raven felt himself drawing closer to the truth.
Then came a section that looked mundane, until he realised it was a murder notice for his father.
The reason behind it? To understand that, you'd need to know his father's job. Dietrich had been a journalist for a major broadcasting company.
Not the flashiest career, but it paid decently and wasn't as demanding as many others that were available to him.
Things only turned dark when a new prime minister came into power and overhauled the country's inner workings. Whatever they were doing, it was a secret from the public…and from the world.
But it was obvious that massive amounts of money were being funnelled somewhere.
This was about the time when there was a massive downshift in the state of the country. It started off with the gradual degradation of the country's infrastructure, but at the time, it was slow enough to be barely noticeable.
However, as it dragged on, hospitals closed down in rural areas. Teachers went unpaid for months. Public transit systems stalled, literally rusting on their tracks.
Secrets that big never stay hidden for long, especially not from someone like Dietrich, who lived and breathed the world of information. He started digging, and that curiosity ended up costing him everything.
The report didn't mention exactly what he had uncovered. It didn't have to. What mattered was that it was dangerous. So dangerous that someone had made the call to eliminate him and his family, just in case he had shared anything with them.
The mafia wasn't told what the secret was. They were just given a target and paid handsomely to carry it out.
But there was one clue left.
A name.
Alexey Ivanov. The man who had ordered Dietrich's execution.
A member of Russia's federal cabinet, close to both the prime minister and president. A man with enough political power to bend the law, even break it, to suit his needs.
Whatever Raven's father had discovered, it was important enough to get a high-ranking government official involved. Raven kept reading. With some additional digging, he found more details.
His parents and younger brother had been found almost a week after their murder. A neighbour had finally noticed something was wrong when the house stayed quiet for too long.
The case initially appeared massive, but it was quickly buried. Any investigation into the "missing child", Raven, was minimal at best. The government clearly didn't want this to get out.
Eventually, even the news agency Dietrich worked for was shut down. Any lawsuits or complaints that followed were swept away and forgotten. The whole truth was buried along with the victims.
'So it wasn't chance. Not bad luck. Not the wrong door. They killed him because he was too good at his job. And they killed me because I was his son.'
'I swear, I'll kill them, all of those f***ers.'
Reading it made Raven furious. He had to physically restrain himself from breaking into the Kremlin and bringing down hell on everyone there.
'Sure, some uninvolved people may die, but as if any of these people were innocent.'
But emotion alone couldn't drive him. The government still held unknown powers. They may have failed to recruit many awakened, but that didn't mean they had none.
'I could just go destroy them now, but if they were to have a whole team of high-level awakened as well as bombs and other extremely powerful weapons, I'm not completely sure if I'd come out unscathed.'
'Haah, no need to risk it yet'
'I'll go as soon as I'm sure.'
So Raven took a breath and set that plan aside, for now. First, he had to grow even stronger.
That meant entering a gate. And to do that, he had to find one, preferably nearby.
Luckily, that wouldn't be hard. There were more than enough to go around, and with the nation's forces stretched thin, he'd have no competition.
It was perfect.
Raven planned to enter the gate the very next morning. He was too drained tonight, too much had happened. And since no one had cleared a gate yet, there was no need to rush.
In truth, most nations were still scrambling to form official teams. They needed to collaborate with existing awakened groups, or guilds. The streets outside already echoed with that chaos — sirens that hadn't stopped in hours, trucks rushing past carrying soldiers and supplies, civilians whispering at every corner about where the next gate might appear.
Raven stood by the window and let his Awareness stretch out. At the very edge of his senses, something pulsed faintly against the night sky — a wrongness hanging above the city like a wound.
He watched it for a long time.
'Tomorrow. That's where it begins.'