The Seraphic System
Chapter: 14
Notice: I've started up a pa/ t reon with four chapters in advance, details at the bottom of the chapter if you're interested I'll keep posting regardless
(The Heist)
I watched intently as the black-haired man wearing a blue casual suit looked around before using some sort of magic recognition to unlock the gate in front of him, which was accessed by a side entrance meant to be tucked away.
The main gate was made to impress visitors, while this small one was made to stay out of sight. It was also from what I had learnt the entrance all guards came in and out from.
Currently, I'm waiting for the opportunity to slip into the mansion undetected. I've been observing for an hour already. I had chosen this exact time to attempt my little heist due to the storm and the darkness of night making it much easier to move around.
It had been two weeks since I had made the rather bold decision to inject myself with divine poison, despite it looking like I was simply taking a risk. I was pretty sure my regeneration and poison immunity would overcome it.
The illusions and emotional attacks were just a bit much, which was mostly why I was feeling a bit sluggish and high. I winced as I thought about how I had hit Adheer in the balls.
I couldn't help it, I didn't have the patience to deal with him at that moment, and it seemed logical at the time, it did work in shutting him up. I had gone back to Shanu the next day and we had further planned the heist out.
Now here I was, in an all-black attire with only the white mask standing out. Funnily enough, I probably looked terrifying to any normal human. Just a dude with a creepy white mask staring at a mansion for hours.
Hopefully, I could wrap this up quickly and without any hitch in the plan, Shanu had ordered me to simply flee if I was caught, which was a kind gesture. I would make sure to remember it.
I admit it was a nice change, I think being in that forest for so long only being able to stew around in the pain of past events had briefly made me lose a core part of my personality. I had adapted to the familiar forest's way of thinking.
Hunt or be hunted, I didn't necessarily feel bad for the creatures and beings I killed, but I know I went around handling them in a brutish and idiotic way.
I had made an enemy of the devils who were no doubt searching for me now, and I also realised that killing those goblins was a lost opportunity. They weren't strong, but they could have made for good subordinates.
There was also the issue with my last download, which I had chosen after gaining Mastermind Maven. I had been split between getting something to improve my regeneration since I had picked the movie version of Deadpool.
This means that while the regeneration was good, it wasn't as good as it could be. The actual Deadpool character simply would have taken too much time and at that point, I had felt a bit vulnerable.
I had ended up delaying it in favour of gaining a skill that would allow me to move around more freely, there were a lot of characters that could perform it, but those were mostly spells.
Which I was pretty sure would go under the sub-skills section. I had chosen a fairly tame character in terms of pure power, but someone who could create a portal. The Skeleton Lord himself, Momonga or Satoru Suzuki.
Initially, I considered choosing Kurogiri from My Hero Academia since he appeared relatively weak, but I recall his ability came with the drawback of transforming most of his body into black mist or something like that anyway.
I was also interested in what types of spells the skele-dude had. They were pretty versatile from what I had seen, and I was pretty sure Momonga had something like seven hundred spells.
Meaning, I had barely even seen a quarter of them when I used to watch the anime. Damn it, I should have read the manga too. I was getting down to it before my brain got blown out by a bullet.
Hopefully, his download won't take too long. It had been over two weeks since I had started the download process. While I wasn't sure of Momonga's exact power level, some of the attacks he cast placed him in the ultimate class.
Though that could just be the spells themselves, it was hard to tell what Momonga's actual strength alone was, since it could just be a case of a high-class being with super overpowered spells.
Either way, it had been taking two weeks, so I was assuming the system counted a lot of these spells as high potential.
Ah, well, moving on from the details of my current download and back to the task at hand. Glancing around briefly, I sent out a subtle pulse of mana, careful not to trigger the mansion's defences, to scan for anyone nearby.
The only response I got was a few normal humans running around with umbrellas, presumably trying to return home after work. No signs of any magical beings nearby though.
Just as the gate was about to close completely behind the man who had carelessly let it swing shut without considering potential intruders, I slipped in silently, avoiding contact with the gate itself.
I didn't know if any sort of magical alarm would go off if an unidentified signature touched the gate, especially since I had my aura-concealing mask on, but I didn't feel the need to test it if I didn't have to.
Finally, beyond the walls that I had been forced to stare at for the past few weeks, I was greeted by a spacious backyard filled with various types of flowers and plants.
I was in.
I immediately noticed that the rain had suddenly stopped pouring down on me. Although the mist and darkness remained, the rain itself had stopped or more precisely It wasn't raining inside the barriers.
A quick glance and I could still see the clouds with raindrops pouring outside. Did that mean the rain was being created by Namara? He was called the tempest deva after all.
Wait, don't tell me this guy was pulling a Nagato and could sense beings through the rain or something. I was briefly worried about my presence being immediately noticed and prepared to escape.
After a few tense minutes of silence nothing happened, maybe my mask concealed me from it? It was plausible considering it did erase any aura a normal being would create, especially with mana.
After more moments of silence, I calmed down, that was probably the case, but I would have to remain cautious just in case. I'm pretty certain that either the mask worked well or I was overthinking the whole Nagato wannabe thing.
I looked around and spotted the man in the casual blue suit as he made his way towards the mansion, exchanging greetings with other guards along the way.
I had only seen the actual mansion itself from the roofs of houses I had perched on.
The whole place was covered by decently high walls which had barriers on them, meaning I couldn't simply jump over and break through, not without being detected at least.
I snuck forward, using the wild plant life as cover while sneaking closer to the back patio of the mansion. All the main entrances were heavily watched by the security who were patrolling around in droves.
Just as I had observed from atop the buildings I had been spying from, five squads of ten guards. I waited and finally saw the various squads begin walking across the large estate.
The patrol routine had started, meaning there would be less of them inside. I still couldn't go through any of the entrances on the ground floor since they were still being heavily guarded.
The best entrance I had found so far was a side door into the large, dreary mansion that had only two guards, I observed as I slowly made my way around, looking for the best way to enter.
I could incapacitate them, but then there was the risk they were found by the various patrols walking around.
I'm sure two guards absent from their posts would be noticed fairly quickly. Glancing up at the large balcony on the top floor of the three-story mansion, I grinned as I spotted the absence of anyone there.
With light steps, I hopped up onto the ledge of the second floor and flung myself upwards. I could have simply jumped straight up, but that would have caused noise.
I landed quietly on the ledge of the roof. I was about to hop onto the balcony floor before I paused, narrowing my eyes in thought, I took out a golden coin and tossed it in front of me.
It went unheeded until suddenly, it bounced off an invisible force field, briefly, it shimmered before going back to being invisible. Holy shit, I don't know how I had known something was wrong, it just felt off.
This wasn't ideal, I looked around and spotted a large window, jumping and using one arm to hang over it, I gently reached down and tried to open it.
The window didn't budge, and I noticed it was locked from the inside. Fuck. I took a look through the glass, making sure that nobody was in sight before continuing.
Hooking my legs to get a better grip. I pulled at the frame and watched as it slowly bent. Huh, seems like while they warded the walls for extra durability, they forgot about the windows.
Works for me, I guess.
I slowly bent the lock until it made a quiet snap, wincing a bit. I looked around and nothing happened. This was stressful, couldn't I just blow it up and call it a day? I took the entirety of the window frame out slowly and carefully.
I entered backwards, causing the window frame to clink shut as I yanked it in, ensuring it would be jammed. I'm sure it will be noticed eventually, but by then I shall be long gone.
The atmosphere was oddly sombre inside, I pulled out the map and located exactly where I was. I was on the third level and the stairs were on the other side of the mansion, I sighed.
Alright, let's get this over with. It was annoying. I couldn't simply use magic or chakra even, since the wards weren't only designed to pick up on magic, according to Shanu anyway. I stretched my hearing to try to hear if anyone was near me and stuck to the shadows.
The moonlight shined ominously through the insane amount of windows. Casting shadows everywhere. I had no clue why anyone would want to live here. I heard mumbling and became silent.
Two guards came from around the corner and walked right past me.
"I just don't get why I have to work for five days while Rudra works for three. It's not fair." The one on the left whined.
A Ping entered my ears and I glanced over to see a screen appear. My download has been completed. The guard started talking again, so I quickly swiped the screen away so I could look over it properly later.
"I told you, Aarav, you're a stronger mage and the Lord commanded us to be on high alert since that other assassin tried to infiltrate this place." The man who was named Rudra replied exasperatedly.
Aarav crossed his arms and scowled.
"Why do we even need to come up here and investigate what hit the barrier? According to Masjid, it was smaller than a bird. It was probably some bug or something." Aarav said annoyed.
I froze, I'm glad I didn't foolishly walk into the barrier without checking. I would have been caught before even breaching the mansion. I continued and didn't bother listening to them any further.
They shouldn't be able to notice anything wrong with the window at a casual glance, so I should be fine for now. Nonetheless, I wanted to get this done quickly.
Following the map through a couple more corridors and passing a few guards along the way, I finally found the stairs. There was a bit of a problem though since the stairs were massive and held no place to hide.
The stairs were lit up with lights unlike the various corridors I had been masking myself in, but the main issue was that three guards were engaged in conversation at the bottom, which led to the second floor.
Appraisal was quickly used on the three of them.
{Name: Vikram}
{Title: Servant of namara}
{Race: Human}
{Power level: 3230}
{Name: Karan}
{Title: Servant of namara}
{Race: Human}
{Power level: 4400}
{Name: Aadi}
{Title: Servant of namara}
{Race: Human}
{Power level: 4226}
Two high-class beings and one mid-class. I guess this couldn't be avoided, slipping down. I ran behind the first guard at full speed before the other two could even react. I harshly uppercut him.
Goodnight.
The guard himself simply fell unconscious and put up no resistance as he was stored in my inventory. The eyes of the other two widened slowly, but before they could react, the guy on the left received a punch to the rib, causing him to keel over.
The other guard was struck with a nasty hook to his chin, rendering him unconscious like his friend, easily folding. He joined his friend in my inventory, and the last guard shortly followed.
This happened somehow with barely a sound. I wasn't exactly a skilled melee fighter and I only knew the basics of fighting, I probably could have dealt with that much faster if I knew a fighting style, but I could look into that later.
I'm going to have to dispose of these guys somewhere, what happens after that isn't my problem. Glancing back down at the map, I nodded. The room I suspected where the weapon was being held was located on the second floor.
So I wouldn't need to go to the ground floor at least. The other problem was, for some reason, this floor was designed like a fucking maze. Looking at what had to be at least a few hundred different paths, I groaned.
I hadn't paid much attention to it before, but while there was only one entrance into the large room I had seen, which was presumably a treasury of some sort, there were also hundreds of hallways intertwining around it.
I rubbed my forehead in annoyance. A tick I had developed.
If I didn't have the map, I'd probably be fucked. It appeared that there was a single specific path I needed to follow. Otherwise, I risked getting lost in the maze of corridors, which would be less than ideal.
Thus, I began carefully navigating through the maze-like corridors.
-{Gabriel}-
Gabriel sighed softly as wrote another letter. It had been a few weeks since she had found out that the mystery angel was somehow in India. Ever since then, she had been contacting the Indian supernatural administration for limited access to retrieve them.
Unfortunately, true to the rumours surrounding the supernatural administration of India, they were not inviting at all. She had sent over a dozen letters, and even requesting a meeting was a challenge.
Gabriel was currently residing in the Blessed Virgin Mary Cathedral in Kathmandu, Nepal, using it as a residence until she could bring her lost kin home. Not many in the church knew of her mission, but those who did believed she was going too far for one angel alone.
It was to be expected on Gabriel's end, Humans didn't understand valuing one not by their usefulness or power.
All the angels in existence were in heaven, safe, with the exception of a few who had been sent out to guard important locations. Gabriel didn't want any of her kin to suffer anymore in the cruel world left behind in her father's death.
She loved humans and believed in kindness, but she understood how cruel the world could be and the thought of sleeping while a new member of her race suffered made her feel sick.
Tucking a strand of her curly silky blonde hair behind her ear, she finished off the letter.
She wasn't one to give up so easily.
-{Kai}-
One thing I had become certain of was that this floor was designed to be a maze, every corridor was identical, and I'm pretty sure all the walls were enhanced with magic so you couldn't simply bust your way through.
I could probably destroy the walls with a bit of effort at my current power level. However, doing so would only draw unwanted attention from Namara and result in a massive battle, which defeated the purpose of being stealthy.
I turned another corner and finally made it into a long corridor leading to a massive set of double doors. The map says this should be the room.
The corridor itself leading to the two doors was dark, which gave it a creepy look. It was noticeably a bit different from all the others, too.
That was until I took a step forward and torches lit up rather dramatically.
"That's not ominous," I muttered. Must be some sort of motion-activated magic.
I hadn't been able to plan this far without much more information about what lay inside this deep within the mansion. So I was mostly winging it and praying for the best.
Hopefully, it didn't enter heaven's system or Michael's ears, I'm sure he would be confused as to why an angel was in India and why said angel was currently trying to steal from a Deva.
Even if said Deva was apparently a dick.
Warily, taking another step forward, I kept my guard up as I got closer to the door. I was ready to pack my shit and bounce at the sight of any perceived angry Deva.
Making it in front of the door, I frowned.
So far, Namara's mansion had appeared to be relatively well defended, with defences put in place rendering most entry points inaccessible.
The outer walls were shielded by barriers so no one could jump over, and various magic formations were preventing any use of mana and chakra. At the same time, an army of guards patrolled around.
Even the balcony had been covered by a barrier, and the golden coin I had thrown at it had instantly drawn the attention of the guards. The only reason I could enter was due to my mask.
Taking all of this information, I refused to believe that a room hidden by a maze covering the entire second floor didn't have some sort of defence. The thing is, I simply couldn't identify what it was.
I took out another golden coin I had left over from the treasure the goblins had so graciously donated to me when I visited their city. I chucked the coin at the harmless-looking doors. I watched as the coin suddenly combusted.
The gold melted as a small ball of fire sparked and expanded outward from the impact. I guess my suspicions were correct.
Good thing I kidnapped the guards.
Pulling one of the guards' bodies out of my inventory, the body simply flopped to the ground uselessly as I gazed down at him.
He should know something, right? Maybe a warning of why people shouldn't enter?
Now, how should I go about doing this?
"Appraisal"
{Name: Vikram}
{Title: Servant of namara}
{Race: Human}
{Power level: 3230}
I had purposefully chosen the weakest of the three since he would be easier to handle. I raised my hand and bitch slapped his face, he instantly shot up and looked around before scrambling back.
"Yo." I waved.
Probably not the best first impression, maybe I should try being more intimidating?
He raised his hand, and before he could start whatever bullshit he was inevitably going to try to start, I shot towards him and planted my fist deeply in his stomach.
The guard who was named Vikram knelt and wheezed. I knelt with him and looked him in the eyes.
"I'm going to need you to tell me how to get past these doors," I commanded. I leaned forward and breached his personal space to make him nervous.
He looked uncertain before smirking.
"Why should I? You won't be able to progress any further without me." Vikram replied, looking amused at my current predicament.
I sighed and nodded in agreement, which made him smugly stare at me.
"I guess I'll have to ask the other guards and see if they're more willing to play ball. Since you're useless, there's no reason to keep you around" I said while grabbing him by his neck and walking over to the doors.
His expression shifted as he realised what was happening, and flames ignited in his hands. I swiftly seized his wrist and snapped it, eliciting a sharp cry of agony and extinguishing the fireball before he started casting.
"Wait wait wait" Vikram cried out.
I didn't stop, if I gave him time to think he would probably come up with some bullshit. By adding the mounting pressure, he would spill quickly.
"T-there's a code that is used to open the doors." He shouted.
Bingo.
I wasn't too concerned with the noise, since we were so deep into the mansion that no one would be able to hear from the other floors.
Pausing, I regarded him.
"What's the code?" I asked calmly.
Vikram shook his head frantically.
"I don't know, man." He replied, and I continued pushing his head closer towards the door.
"I seriously don't know! Only the high-class beings are entrusted with it." He added quickly.
I glared, why was everything so complicated? Knocking him out again and storing his body back inside my inventory. I summoned the other guard's body.
"Appraisal"
{Name: Aadi}
{Title: Servant of Namara}
{Race: Human}
{Power level: 4226}
Ok, slightly more troublesome to deal with. Repeating the same process with Aadi he woke up. Unlike the other guard, I had to instantly avoid a fist to the face as the high-class guard Aadi was already on his feet.
Rolling my eyes, I instantly slammed his back to the wall, making him grunt in pain, my hand clasped around his neck before he could put up a defence. The value of stats became much higher when you reached the ultimate class.
Meaning I had him outclassed even without the usage of any skills.
"You-" he started.
"Listen here, I've had enough of you and your colleague's shit, use the code and open these doors, or I'm simply going to keep disposing of every one of you until someone feels a bit more cooperative," I spoke coldly, which seemed to have its intended effect.
Aadi scowls at me with hatred, and I simply raise an eyebrow at his attitude. He slowly walked to the wall with me right behind him, ready to incapacitate him if he tried anything.
A strange magic panel came alive from the wall with different symbols I didn't recognise. He reluctantly typed on the symbols. The doors opened, and I was greeted with a golden glow.
I barely acknowledged Aadi as I knocked him out and stored him in my inventory. Gold was neatly packed into bars, while glass cases showed different items which, I assumed, were magical.
This was a true treasury, the other had mainly been gold, but this had a variety of magical items. It was to be expected, after all, Namara was thousands of years old.
Finally, I stepped forward and immediately regretted it as a magical array formed under me.
I sighed.
"Fuck."
A pulse of magic exploded out and alarms immediately rang, blaring from everywhere.
Shit, shit, shit!
I knew I couldn't waste time looking for the tempest chakrams so I started stuffing everything into my inventory with reckless abandon.
There was too much though, literal mountains of gold that simply kept going even as I loaded thousands of coins into my inventory. I had an estimated five minutes, and that was assuming guards weren't patrolling the maze.
I disregarded the overwhelming pile of golden coins for now and focused on the glass cases containing magical items. I shattered the glass, each case triggering another surge of magical energy that blew outwards.
Each shattered glass case triggered a magical alarm, confirming my suspicion that they were all equipped with such security measures.
A few minutes went by as I looted the treasure room or whatever it was of everything I could, while also searching for the Tempest Chakrams. I paused when I heard a distant shout.
Peaking my head from behind a pile of gold, I saw dozens of guards running come pouring out from around the corner. Damn it, all that work just to get caught out by a simple trick.
I guess it was good practice. The guy at the front raised his arm and a bolt of lightning crackled, it shot to the gold I was peaking my head from and sent the coins scattering everywhere in an explosion of force.
Opening my palm, a condensed light bomb formed and shot out, the guards all realised the incoming danger since they all channelled mana into a large barrier that formed in front of them.
The ball exploded, sending them skidding back as I frantically searched for the Tempest Chakrams. I didn't want a prolonged fight, if I could find the weapons, I would be able to make my escape before Namara found out I was stealing his weapon.
Searching around, I had to focus my attention on the guards themselves again as their numbers kept rapidly expanding. The leader in the front tapped his ring and all the guards replicated him.
Armour suddenly formed over the casual suits they wore, and spears were suddenly held tightly in their grip. I admit, it looked pretty badass. It was annoying, though.
The guy in the front pointed his spear and the other followed before a massive torrent of fire was unleashed from all of them, combing to make a giant eruption.
That was slightly more problematic, so many high-class beings acting together even if they were mostly low-high class or mid-high class could match an ultimate class attack.
Slamming my hands down, roots erupted up the entrance and formed a solid wooden wall. I wanted to try to save my mana since I relied on it the most. I added a few more layers of wooden walls for good measure.
The river of fire struck, causing the building to tremble from the impact. Cracks appeared, but the wooden wall put up a good fight as it attempted to absorb mana from the attack.
I was forced to send more chakra to reinforce the wooden wall.
Waiting for the fire to stop, the wooden wall dropped at my command and I instantly formed three light disks that tore through the air and hit against their barrier in quick succession.
The first one caused a small crack, while the second one made fractures appear all over the barrier. The last one smashed through and instantly carved through the group, killing a lot of them in the process.
I didn't wait for them to recover before sending dozens of lost mana costs short rods into their group. Piercing through dozens and leaving them scattered. The leader got up and sent a thrust of mana from his spear.
It was easily blocked, but a few others began to rise, and more guards appeared from around the corner, prompting me to roll my eyes.
They all attacked together with surprising teamwork. Two of them, who were high class, summoned a massive body of water, which put out much of the fire still burning in the now-ruined hallway.
Another three channelled lightning into it, causing the water to take on a strange glow, while the other two summoned tendrils of mana that shot at me.
Annoying.
Summoning a holy light bomb, I hurled it up to the ceiling of the hallway. The explosion instantly collapsed most of it in front of me. For good measure, I used a large amount of my chakra to summon wooden walls to seal it up.
Like I said, while I had learned how to enjoy a fight, since, realistically, who wouldn't when you turned from normal to a magic wielder, I wanted to find the weapons and leave immediately.
Not wasting any more time, I increased my search for the Tempest Chakrams.
-{?}-
Deep below the surface of the water, two serpentine eyes opened with a snap, lazily surveying their surroundings before snapping to a certain location. This titanic beast opened its maw full of sharp teeth.
Suddenly, the rest of its serpent body appeared from the depths as it began swimming up rapidly. It exploded out of the water and towered up, the humans who saw it screamed as the surrounding storm intensified by multiple magnitudes.
Thunder and lightning rained chaos around its large form while it looked at the scene with apathy. Its body slithered out of the water and into the beach, its eyes set on a mansion far in the distance.
The titanic serpent slithered its way over, crushing buildings and humans alike in its path, as it didn't bother to avoid any obstacle.
Huge eyes leading down with boredom, its tail lifted.
{Kai}
I had found them, sitting on one of the golden piles, I ran towards it. The two circular blades sat almost inconspicuously. I reached my hand out. Finally, I could store these in my inventory and leave.
My hopes were shattered as I suddenly found a large serpentine tail crushing my face. Flying outside and through several walls, I looked around confused, only to gawk at the giant serpent staring at me.
'Appraisal'
{Name: Namara}
{Title: The Tempest}
{Race: Deva}
{Power level: 12000}
Oh.
-END-
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