The adrenaline of the hunt faded, leaving Ethan in the wrecked conference room, surrounded by silence and the terrified stares of the investors. The only evidence of the Gluttony-soul was a pile of expensive, empty fabric on the marble floor.
His power usage was terrifyingly effective. He felt clean, almost supernaturally focused, a terrible clarity that came from absorbing the corrupted energy. But he couldn't linger. The mortals were recovering.
He turned to the trembling financiers. He used his presence, delivering a silent, telepathic command a subtle ripple of controlled fear. It wasn't mind control, but the terror he radiated was enough to reshape their immediate memories, planting a simple, mundane explanation: a seizure, an arrest, a heart attack. Anything but the truth. He was leveraging the fear the divine already instilled in mortals.
One of the investors pointed a shaky finger at him, eyes wide with residual terror. "Who"
Ethan didn't answer. He simply scooped up the glutton's tailored suit; it still held the keys to his mortal life and he strode out, vanishing into the maze of the city before anyone could raise a true alarm. His footsteps were silent, efficient. He was learning how to move without a heartbeat, how to leverage the infernal chill that now clung to him.
The keys led him to a high-rise condominium two districts away, another artefact of Solomon Reed's rapacious existence. The apartment was sterile, minimalist, and utterly isolated. Ethan smashed the man's burner phones, wiped his computer, and settled in. This wasn't a home; it was a tactical blind spot, funded by the stolen wealth of the damned.
In the bathroom, he stripped off the ruined trench coat and his own charred paramedic shirt. He ran a hand over the sigil. It was now a deep, velvety black etched into his skin, faintly radiant with residual red.
He studied his reflection. The golden rings in his eyes hadn't receded. They were a permanent warning. He was no longer the flawed man who sought atonement, but the weapon who pursued justice, fueled by the sin he was meant to abhor.
He felt the Infernal Resonance still humming within him as a siren song of power and terrible efficiency. He had been so focused, so right during the hunt. The need for that feeling, the urge to silence the next monstrous echo, was a genuine physical craving. Lucien hadn't lied; the fire was addictive. The more he saved, the darker he would become.
He had died saving one life. He had been resurrected to end others. The scales were already hopelessly unbalanced.
He took out the few personal effects he had kept in his uniform pocket: his paramedic ID, a worn photo of his deceased parents, and the small, tarnished silver cross.
He stared at the ID Ethan Vale, Paramedic. That man was a ghost. He took the ID, snapped it cleanly in half, and dropped the pieces in the toilet.
He moved to the small, tarnished silver cross. It felt cold against his fingers, strangely inert. It was just a piece of metal. He tossed the cross into the garbage disposal. No more crutches. No more pretending.
The Watcher
Miles away, in a quiet, forgotten chapel tucked between towering modern buildings, Father Morian was preparing for the morning Mass. He was a man of the cloth, nearing seventy, with a face mapped by quiet devotion. He was completely blind.
Morian had no eyes, but he saw the world through the subtle currents of spiritual energy the bright, steady white glow of prayer, the thin, grey threads of mundane sin, and the pure, desolate black of true infernal power.
As he knelt, the air around him suddenly shivered. The usual faint black shadows of the city's background corruption the demons of Lust and Greed that never ventured close were instantly suppressed by a devastating, alien spike of energy a spiritual earthquake.
It was Wrath. Pure, annihilating, righteous fury, but cold and controlled. Not the chaos of a rampant fiend, but the precise, devastating power of a system.
Morian's body stiffened. His sightless eyes snapped open, looking toward the Financial District. He hadn't felt a signature this strong, this devastatingly organised, since the great purges centuries ago.
"A new gate," he whispered, his aged voice cracking. "Someone opened a door, and they sent… a weapon."
The familiar low-level demonic presence had scattered, panicked by the new authority. The new entity, whatever it was, was carrying the scent of the Ninth Gate Lucien's domain and it was walking the earth.
Morian rose slowly, his hands instinctively reaching for the blessed oils on the altar. He was just an old, blind priest, but he had a duty to defend the thin line between this world and the infernal. He felt the cold pressure of the abyss pressing against the walls of his little church. He had to prepare.
The balance is shattered.
Back in the apartment, Ethan felt the faint, subtle tremor of the priest's sudden awareness, a minor spiritual ripple in the vast ocean of the city. His senses were sharpening, making him aware of those who could 'see' him.
He walked to the window, looking out over the silent, unsuspecting city. The golden rings in his eyes were the colour of molten iron now. He was a ghost in the machine, an infernal agent walking among mortals, tasked with a dark form of order.
He had a pulse of fire, a heart of shadow, and the addictive hunger for the hunt. The bargain was complete.
Ethan Vale is dead, he thought, pulling a clean shirt over the burning sigil. The Emissary lives.
He was ready for his next mission, ready to hunt the forbidden miracles and the escaped souls, ready to see where the fire would take him. The man he tried to save was gone, consumed by the very act of his survival.