CH 5: Exousia*

[*Some R-18 elements*]

In a building in downtown Los Angeles…

"Here's the reports from all the squads out on missions, sir."

In a large office, a man sat with white hair and a sharp beard of the same color. On his desk was a stack of papers handed to him by his assistant, a man with glasses and dark brown, combed hair.

"Doug's squad has failed to report back, however," The man with glasses said with a worried expression.

"Doug's squad?" The bearded man asked with an authoritative voice. "That idiot didn't report back? Wasn't he just checking out a disturbance?"

Glasses man nodded. "Yes, everything should have been fine, but they have yet to report back."

"Heh, they're probably just playing around again. They'll report back by morning, don't worry."

The bearded man skimmed through the stack of papers and handed them back to his assistant. "I'll be wrapping up for the night, you can go home, Marcus."

Marcus took the papers and nodded. "Then I'll take my leave. Goodnight, sir."

"Goodnight."

Marcus walked out of the office and the bearded man sighed in exhaustion.

After some minutes passed in silence.

"Why am I stuck in here when Doug and his squad get to play around?" He asked to no one in particular.

"You can play with me. I'm sure we'll have a great time," a voice said.

"Heh, like I can play around while being the head of the West Coast division."

The bearded man laughed at the voice's comment. But, something was off.

'Didn't Marcus leave? Who is that?'

Before the man could react, a pitch-black tendril wrapped around his neck and lifted him out of his chair and into the air.

"Arghh–"

The bearded man choked and couldn't breathe under the strength of the tendril of darkness.

"Kyran Blake, head of the west coast division of Guidance. Awakened the ability to use essence at 32 years old and joined Guidance shortly after. You increased your power and you were promoted many times until you landed this job. I heard the pay is pretty good."

"Arghhh. W-Who are you?!" Kyran struggled to ask under the grip of the tendril. He had never seen anything like this before.

*Sigh*

The tendril holding the man in the air turned his body until he faced the window to his office. Before the window stood a silhouette of a man. The light from the surrounding buildings and the darkness in the office made it hard to make out the man's features.

"It doesn't matter who I am. I am here to ask your opinion on something, Kyran."

The tendril of darkness holding Kyran's neck loosened, allowing the man to talk more easily.

But instead of responding, Kyran's body glowed blue and he reached up to rip the tendril apart. He grabbed onto it and pulled with his enhanced strength, but it didn't budge a single bit.

"Your actions are meaningless," the silhouette said. "Answer my question."

Seeing his resistance was pointless, the blue glow around Kyran subsided. He looked toward the man and his eyes flashed briefly. However, his inquiry skill failed, causing a slight backlash and giving him a painful headache.

"ArgHH!" He groaned.

"What did I say? Answer my question," the man repeated.

"Okay! Okay!" Kyran shouted, barely holding back the urge to groan from the pain. "I'll do whatever you want!"

"That wasn't so hard, now was it?"

The man walked closer to the suspended body of Kyran, who could make out more details of the silhouette as he approached. He had glowing amethyst eyes that seemed to pierce Kyran's very being. His face was perfectly structured and his skin was very pale. Around the man's body, tendrils of darkness fluctuated and pulsed, almost as if they had a heartbeat.

"Now," the man said once he walked toward Kyran. "I want to ask your opinion on something. If I wanted to completely destroy Guidance, what should I do?"

Kyran was baffled by the man's question. "D-Destroy Guidance? T-That isn't possible! You can't destroy it!"

*Sigh*

"Marcus said the same thing," he said to himself.

Hearing his assistant's name, Kyran's face paled. "W-What did you do to Marcus? Is he okay? What did you do to h–"

The tendril holding Kyran's neck tensed and the man's body fell on the floor, his head still within the tendril's grasp. The pitch-black tendril then dropped the severed head and returned to its state of encircling Rylen's body.

"Devour."

The countless tendrils surrounding Rylen shot out at the corpse and engulfed it in darkness.

"Harvest."

Due to the strength of the white-haired man, a large surge of energy entered Rylen's body but was quickly subdued and assimilated within him within seconds. The man's extensive knowledge flooded into Rylen's head and he scanned through his memories.

"Interesting… This man wasn't useless after all."

Rylen turned around toward the window and confidently walked straight at it. The black tendrils, which had finished with Kyran's body, engulfed Rylen in complete darkness and his body phased through the window completely and he continued to walk in thin air outside the building.

…

"You want to destroy Guidance? Pfft! That's impossible! You're insan–"

*Shleck*

*Thump*

Another headless body fell to the floor.

Rylen, who was standing in the mansion home of one of the division heads of Guidance, sighed.

"Another one said the same thing. I guess I need to go higher on the ladder of authority in this organization."

…

"Do you like that, dear?" asked a seductive voice.

"Your mouth is amazing, Felricia," said a man in a weak voice. "I can't get enough of it."

On a lavish bed in the bedroom of a very lofty mansion sat a couple. They sat on the bed naked with the woman laying with her head near the man's lap as he sat with his back leaning against the headrest.

*Shlurppp*

The woman bent over with a charming smile and engulfed the man's rob with her mouth.

"Ahhh… That feels great, honey. Keep going."

*Shrlurp*

*Shrulp*

*SHHlurp*

"Ughh!"

The man convulsed as he grabbed the head of the woman and pushed her further into his crotch.

*Gggrg*

The woman's mouth filled with a sticky, white substance and she greedily swallowed every bit she could.

*Plop*

Felricia raised her head and the man's rod fell out of her mouth with a wet, popping sound.

The man panted in exhaustion, his chest heaving up and down after his orgasm.

Felricia smiled seductively seeing her husband so pleased by her fellatio. "How was it, honey?"

"Heh heh, I can't live without it," the man said in an exhausted voice.

"You're not done are you?" Felricia said with a pouting expression. "We only just started."

The man caught his breath and looked back at his lovely wife. "Of course not. I can't leave my wife unsatisfied, now can I?"

Felricia chuckled and began to crawl toward her husband. "Oh? Confident now? Last time, you barely lasted five min–"

Suddenly, a black pocket opened beneath the man's wife and she fell through before either of them could react. The pocket closed as soon as Felricia disappeared, leaving the man alone in his room.

"Fel!" The man yelled in shock as he placed his hands on the spot she disappeared. "Fel!"

A very bright blue aura surrounded the man and he stood vigilant on his bed without any clothes on.

"Vincent Charsguard," a voice said from the corner of the room. "You are a very hard man to find. Took a couple of subordinates to find where you live."

A man walked out into the light from the corner. Countless black tendrils completely covered his body, leaving a trail behind him as he walked forward. He looked like a mummy with pitch-black bandages wrapped around him. None of his features could be discerned except for his eyes. His bright amethyst eyes nearly paralyzed Vincent with their malevolence.

"YOU BASTARD!" Vincent screamed as he launched himself at the mysterious man at an imperceptible speed. "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY WIFE!!!"

As Vincent reached the man and swung to punch him, he completely passed through him and ended up colliding with the wall behind him and destroying it.

*BOOM*

After the dust settled the man's voice rang out. "Wow, continental leaders are very powerful, indeed. I didn't see much of your strength from your subordinates' memories, so I was curious."

Vincent stood up with a furious expression. "What… did… you… do… with... my... wife..."

He slowly walked toward the dark figure. The blue glow surrounding Vincent's body continued to get brighter and brighter.

"Are you some kind of light bulb?" The figure asked in a carefree manner.

Vincent brought up his first as he neared the man and swung with all his might.

*WHOOSH*

His fist passed through the violet-eyed figure and caused the surrounding air to be pushed back violently, shaking the bright chandelier hanging from the ceiling and pushing the king-sized bed to the opposite wall.

Vincent clenched his fist in frustration. 'Why can't I hit this bastard?!'

"I want to ask your opinion on something, Vincent," the man said.

Vincent narrowed his eyes. "Tell me what you did to my wife and then I'll think about it."

"Oh, your wife?" The man raised his hand to his chin and thought. "I don't really know what happens to someone when they enter there." He turned to Vincent and his eyes arched upwards, indicating he was smiling. "But I do know that they never return."

Vincent's eyes flashed in fury and his body began to glow brighter than the sun. "YOU WILL PAY, YOU BAS–"

All the light emitting from Vincent suddenly vanished and the blue glow around him broke into pieces.

"Alright, that's enough with the light show," the figure said with a bored tone.

A black tendril whipped out from the many surrounding the man and before Vincent could react, ensnared his neck and lifted him into the air.

"ARGHH!"

Vincent tried to yell in pain and anger but his neck was strangled.

"I'm getting quite bored of doing this over and over, so you will be the last one I ask this to. If I wanted to completely destroy Guidance, what should I do?"

Upon the mention of destroying Guidance, Vincent's anger and agony was replaced entirely with fear.

Rylen frowned. Usually when he asked this question to someone they looked at him like he was an idiot or laughed at him and said it wasn't possible. But this man was different. He was scared. Not scared of Rylen but scared of something else.

"Does this have to do with Exousia? I have heard of that place but I don't have much information about it," Rylen said with a curious expression.

Vincent's expression only turned worse at the mention of that place. The tendril around his neck loosened, letting him speak more freely. "You… You have no idea what you are talking about, boy. Guidance is way more than just some organization that you can destroy."

"Hmm? How so?" Rylen asked. "Aren't you one of the seven leaders of Guidance? If I kill all of you guys, won't the organization be finished?"

"Hah! Me? A leader? I am nothing but a small pawn being moved however they want. They are beings beyond our comprehension. If you want to completely destroy Guidance, you'll have to destroy reality itself. Don't make me laugh. You are an ant they can step on any time they feel like it. No, an ant is a lot more powerful than you in their eyes. You are just dust in the wind, boy. Your confidence is nothing but ignorance!"

Having the freedom to breathe, Vincent spat at Rylen, which of course passed through him.

Rylen was deep in thought about Vincent's words. "Reality itself…" He muttered. "That sounds like a great plan. If nothing existed at all then that wouldn't have happened."

Vincent, who was struggling in the grasp of Rylen's black tendril, was unaware of Rylen's words.

Suddenly, the tendril tensed and Vincent's head was severed from his body.

*Thump*

"Devour," said Rylen, still deep in thought.

Unlike before, where all the tendrils around him had to be used for Devour, Rylen only had to use one. Over the past few weeks, he has been traveling all around the world and killing the heads of Guidance. In that time, his control and mastery of the Abyssal Shroud has increased exponentially. By just controlling the shroud within him, he can become intangible and invisible. He can even access the Abyss directly through Abyssal Storage.

The concept of his intangibility and invisibility comes from the properties of the shroud. The abyssal shroud has the property of absence of anything, even reality. By coating himself in the shroud, he can let anything pass through, even light and gravity.

"Harvest,"

Energy unlike anything he felt before was assimilated within Rylen. Vincent's memories passed through him as well and Rylen couldn't help but smile.

"I guess there is only one way to go from here," Rylen said with excitement.

"Time to go to Exousia."