Grand Ascension-Chapter 113: Pact-Bound Seer
"Where were you?" Danielle asked, almost shouting at him.
"Team Leader I..." ๐๐ง๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐๐ซ๐๐ธ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐.๐ฌ๐ค๐ถ
"It does not matter where you were." She reprimanded. "You were meant to observe me and how I work."
Makun stopped talking, he knew she was right, But something felt off, and he needed answers.
"Anyways, there was nothing here, it is exactly as the detailed report said." Danielle walked away from House 22. "The kid disappeared a week ago at one of those ghost houses after losing sight of his parents. She knows nothing more."
"Hah!" She sighed, exasperated. "We have to patrol tonight. Search for spiritual residue again, all throughout the town."
"Team Leader." Makun called. He had been vexed at how she had spoken earlier, but there was nothing he could do.
At least not now. He was new at the MIO, new member of Team 7, all he could do was shut up and hope they succeeded.
The faster he accomplished his missions, the faster he could move up ranks. At that point, he would not tolerate such disrespect.
"Speak!" Danielle said, annoyed.
"Something feels off." He started. "I feel like they have a role in Yohanโs disappearance."
Danielle looked at him, holding herself from scolding him more. A play in your only kidโs disappearance? That was nonsense. The Mrs. Jones she had seen had really been grieving.
However, as a team leader she still had to hear him out.
"Why do you think so?" She asked. "I saw nothing wrong with her. Even after activating my spirit eyes and looking at her blood circulation, there was nothing wrong."
Is that something possible? Makun thought. He had never known spirit eyes could be used in such a way. But that did not matter right now.
"Everything is too perfect. The house, the kitchen, the closet, and overall, the kidโs room." He paused. "If there was a kid here, he probably had been poorly treated." He concluded.
"And?" She asked.
"They played a role in his disappearance." Makun added. They were already 5 minutes away from House 22. Sunset was almost there.
"Nonsense." She sighed. "First of all, you left my side to sneak around the house, and now you are saying the house was too clean?"
"If a kid is not present for a whole week, how are toys and furniture gonna get disorganized?" She walked faster. "Forget them. Let us move."
Makun could only shake his head. He looked at the house one last time and followed her.
...
Makun sat in the SUV, thinking about Yohanโs room and how out of order it felt.
He had been in seven different foster care homes, and each of them was hell, he had been beaten, tortured, abused emotionally and had lived through things no one could think of.
However, Whenever they had a visit, everything had to be perfect, his clothes, his room, the house, they even took care of the different marks on his body.
If the inspectors saw even one scratch on him, they would receive no money, and no further support from the state, which was basically why they had taken him in.
How could he, who had lived through all this, not recognise the atmosphere.
He had difficulty linking the atmosphere emitted by the house to the disappearances, but he was sure they were connected.
"What happened to you? Heyooo!!! Rookie!" Ray called out, hoping to get Makunโs attention, but in vain. "Leader, did he see a ghost?" He asked, hoping Danielle could clear his doubts.
"Is he okay Dani, did anything bad happen?" Sarah asked as well.
However, Danielle just shook her head, ignoring Ray. "What did you guys find?"
After House 22, they had patrolled somewhat around town, and through the earpiece, she had contacted Ray and Sarah.
The sun was setting down, they had to do a briefing, and decide how to move forward.
"Nothing, Not even a single drop of spiritual residue was detected by the orb." Sarah said, exasperated.
They had spent the whole day walking through the crowd, questioning strangers, observing places... However, nothing was out of the ordinary.
Similar to the observation Makun had, they felt everything was perfect.
"Something is odd, Dani." Ray said. "I got that feeling, the spirits, I do not know. When we usually go on missions, there is usually something odd, a practitioner we bump into, some weird shit happening. But here? Nothing." He paused. "You are not gonna tell me there are no mystics in Old Town Spring."
Makun came out of his reverie, his attention grabbed by Rayโs words.
By now he had guessed Ray was a seer, He had no idea about the different subroutes of the seer route but he knew Rayโs intuition was good.
He had got the fact that he was going to surprise Danielle during their spar right, and had almost guessed the time of the duel.
It was a different kind of seeing when it came to Zuri, but he had very powerful intuition.
If he said something was odd, then something was really odd.
Makun knew it, Sarah knew it and Danielle knew it.
"How to proceed?" Makun asked, his voice quiet, His earlier observation had been rejected by Danielle, He was still pissed, but had to go with the flow.
"Ray, perform a reading." She said, "After that, I decide."
The SUV got tense, Ray closed his eyes, quietly charging Ashe throughout his body.
He was a pact-bound seer, what were pact-bound seers? A pact-bound seer was a practitioner who had entered into a formal spiritual agreement with an entity, a force, or a being from the deep.
That meant that unlike a seer, similar to Zuri who developed their perception of reality through personal readings and comprehensions, a pact-bound seer like Raymond accelerated and amplified their abilities by binding their spiritual frequency to an external source of power.
This subroute was quite powerful, but had downsides, and it was heavily reliant on the tier and grade as access to different layers of the deep was decided by your tier.
As an apprentice, Ray had access to the outer layer of the deep, there he had entered a contract with some spirits who could perceive through the present.
Right now, As he circulated his Ashe, he actively created a link with those spirits, and they depending on the difficulty of the ask and their ability would show him scenes of different probabilities.
Rayโs breathing slowed, his hands rested on his knees, palms facing upward. The Ashe within him began to hum, a low vibration that Makun could almost feel through the seats.
"Oh spirits! OH! Soelw mekimr zag." he started chanting in tongues.
A practice commonly used by exorcists.
BANG
His Ashe heavily concentrated at the top of his head like a crown. His eyes remained closed, but beneath the lids, Makun could see movement.
Rapid, erratic movement. His eyes moved so rapidly, as if Ray was watching something unfold at impossible speed.
The air in the SUV were unusual, Sarah shifted uncomfortably she could not get used to the atmosphere of the readings. Danielle remained still, watching, like usual she barely reacted, except for when she nagged.
A thin trail of blood began to drip from Rayโs left nostril, his eyes snapped open, bloodshot, staring at something none of them could see
"Well?" Danielle asked.
Ray wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand, "Shit! These damn spirits are being cryptic as usual."
How does one perceive the future? Makun wondered
The answer lay in understanding that the future did not exist as a single line. It existed as an infinite web of probabilities, branching and collapsing with every choice, every action, every breath taken by every living thing.
A seer did not see the future. A seer saw between futures.
But could Ray have access to all those web of probabilities, the answer was no.
The deep had layers.
And Ray as a third-grade apprentice had access to the outer layer of the deep, Which meant connection with entities from that layer.
The spirits residing there were stronger than those residing at the outermost layer, however in the grand scheme they were still considered very weak, even those who specialised in the exploration of reality, as such, they were entities that could perceive limited branches of probability.
This meant a practitioner like Ray using them could perceive probabilities within a narrow window, perhaps twelve to forty-eight hours into the future. But even within that window, the spirits showed him fragments, not certainties.
Flashes of what might happen if certain choices were made, and even that was uncertain as people could mess with it.
Therefore, the more specific the question, the harder the spirits had to work, and the greater the cost.
"What did you see?" Sarah pressed, urging an answer out of him.
Ray rubbed his temples, grimacing. "I saw flashes, Nothing clear." He paused. "It was mostly dark. But one thing is sure, to have answers, we must separate." He sighed. "If not, we fail the mission."
They all looked at Danielle, awaiting her decision.
