The sterile apartment, bought with the Gluttony-soul's ill-got gains, should have been a sanctuary. Instead, it was a cage.
Two days had passed since Ethan's first kill, and the Infernal Resonance had not faded. The power was a low, insistent burn beneath the sigil, constantly demanding fuel. He found himself pacing, running his fingers over the black-red mark, battling a craving that transcended hunger or lust, a craving for competence, for the terrifying clarity that came with wielding destructive force.
This internal struggle led to the first unpredictable manifestation of his expanded power set. He wasn't trying to use Wrath. But when the apartment's incessant air conditioning unit began to grate on his newly acute senses, a new power flared.
He only focused on the sound, wishing it were gone. The gold rings in his eyes brightened, and the atmosphere in the small room shifted. The noise didn't cease; it was abruptly sucked into a single, crushing silence. The sound waves, the ambient light reflecting off the chrome, the low energetic hum of the building it all collapsed, absorbed into his body through the sigil.
Minor Gluttony. Not of sustenance, but of the environment itself.
He gasped, the sudden sensory deprivation almost as painful as the overload. He hadn't commanded it. The power was leaking, manifesting based on his subconscious desires. Wrath was fire; Gluttony was consumption. He was no longer just the Emissary of Vengeance; he was also, partially, the Emissary of Insatiable Hunger. The idea terrified him more than the fire.
The silence shattered as abruptly as it arrived. The air conditioner sputtered back to its annoying rhythm.
"A lovely demonstration of self-mastery, Emissary." Lucien's voice was slick in his mind. "Now, perform for an audience. An anomaly has been detected. A burst of unauthorised, self-serving divine energy, near the Basilica on 14th Street. Investigate. It may be an escaped soul, or a forbidden miracle. Either way, it soils the contract."
Lucien didn't elaborate. He didn't have to. Ethan was a weapon, pointed and loaded.
He covered the sigil and stepped into the night.
Hostile Territory
The Basilica was an ancient stone behemoth, surrounded by towering modern glass that seemed to actively lean away from it. As Ethan approached, his Sin Perception went oddly silent.
He didn't see the usual tapestry of red echoes, or even the familiar grey of mortal self-interest. The entire area around the church pulsed with an aggressive, blinding white.
It wasn't a comforting light; it was antiseptic, aggressively pure. It felt like a spiritual barrier, and the Hellfire in his chest recoiled, protesting the proximity. The feeling was akin to a static shock against the sigil.
He paused near the wrought-iron gates, forcing himself to walk closer. The power resisted, whispering warnings of purification and erasure. He was Hell's agent, and this was hostile territory.
The moment he stepped onto the blighted grass, the large oak doors of the chapel swung inward, not with human force, but with a silent, heavy motion.
Standing silhouetted against the internal gloom was the source of the resistance: Father Morian. The old priest was slight, dressed in simple robes, clutching a heavy iron censer that smoked not with incense, but with something sharp and bitter: blessed oils.
Morian's head snapped up. His eyes, completely covered by opaque cataracts, were focused directly on Ethan's chest.
"I expected you," the priest said, his voice quiet, steady, and utterly without fear. "The stench of the Pit is fresh. You leave a spiritual wake like a burnt corpse, Emissary."
He froze, instantly recognising the threat. This man couldn't see, but he saw.
"You're mistaken, Father," Ethan tried, keeping his voice neutral.
"I am not," Morian countered, taking one deliberate step forward. "I have heard the whispers of the Nine for decades. Their power is chaotic, reckless. But you… You carry the mark of order. The cold geometry of Lucien's penmanship. You are Hell's blade, not its beast."
The priest raised the censer. The smoke thickened, now burning with an intense, invisible heat that did not harm Ethan's skin, but went straight for the spiritual core of the sigil.
It was an attempted exorcism. A pure, distilled burst of cleansing energy aimed at purging the infernal mark.
Ethan staggered back, a grunt escaping his lips. The sigil screamed not with the pleasurable pain of activation, but with the cold, obliterating ache of being unmade. He felt his animated body momentarily flicker, the flame inside struggling against the blinding, aggressive holiness.
Defend yourself. Do not let the mark be purged.
Ethan had no holy water, no cross, and no prayer. He only had the fire. But he couldn't use Hellfire here.
He focused on the Wrath within him, the defensive, destructive impulse, and turned it inward, creating a shield of pure shadow energy around the mark. It wasn't an attack; it was a desperate, spiritual brace.
The sigil pulsed, devouring the energy of the blessed smoke into his new power core, nullifying the attack, turning the cleansing energy into inert spiritual ash.
Morian stumbled, his concentration broken by the sudden resistance. He hadn't expected the Emissary to resist purity with such terrifying, disciplined force.
"You use its power to block the Light," Morian murmured, his voice laced with sorrow. "You are a living contradiction, fueled by what should consume you."
Ethan seized the momentary lapse. He lunged forward, not to strike, but to bypass. He needed distance. He pushed past the priest, the brief contact sending a shudder through Morian's thin frame.
He didn't stop until he was a block away, tearing himself out of the perimeter of the church's aggressive purity. The feeling of being 'seen' by the blind man was unnerving and a vulnerability he couldn't afford.
He leaned against a brick wall, heartlessly calm without a pulse, forcing the shaking out of his limbs. He had faced a true counter-force, a human who was plugged into the power of the Divine.
Father Morian was not just a priest. He was a watchman, a sentinel. His lack of physical sight was his greatest asset, allowing him to perceive the truth of the infernal mark where others saw only a man.
Ethan rubbed the sigil. It was still hot, still angry. His first mission to investigate a 'miracle' had turned into his first confrontation with the opposition. And he had just confirmed his terrible new reality: the world was far more complicated than simple good and evil, and the people fighting on the side of light were often armed with weapons just as potent as his own.
He needed to learn control. Fast.