Hunting for pockets of negativity was not as straightforward as tracking beasts in the grasslands. For one, distances didn’t quite work the same way in the ether, and things often seemed wonky when viewed through the layers of reality.

  Now, that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. Nick had a significant advantage thanks to [Empyrean Intuition], and he’d been keeping a wary eye on the city’s emotional balance throughout his nightly patrol, which made it easy to spot when things didn’t quite match the pattern he’d identified as Alluria’s standard.

  After skewering the third minor spirit with the Dagger of Akas, however, he was forced to reckon with the fact that he was being a bit too jumpy.

  A low hum sounded from his hip, and he rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know you are perfectly content chasing down every wisp of resentment in this city, but we’re not getting anywhere like this.”

  The docks had been his first target, considering the kind of people who lived there, but either the soldiers had done a very good job maintaining peace, or the purge of gangsters had actually worked for once, because they turned out to be surprisingly infertile.

  Nick moved away and toward the temples, feeling wary of encountering a priest, but knowing that if there was one place where negative emotions would have festered, it was there.

  He avoided Ulter’s temple not only because it was still crowded with knights and mages trying to sort out the remnants of the ritual and what the Circle had been attempting, but also because he was heading straight for Sashara’s.

  Some might think a place with a lot of death would be worse off than one where most victims of the frenzy had been stopped before they could kill each other, but Nick had already done much of the work of dispersing the negativity at Ulter’s hall, so he doubted he’d find anything there.

  The only other option is the cells, and I’m trying to stay low-key for now. I will check them out before the night ends, but I doubt there’s anything there.

  He came to a stop on a rooftop a few hundred feet from the temple’s grounds and took a moment to focus his mystical sight.

  As always, the feeling of being close to a domain made his skin buzz, a sensation only heightened by knowing who owned it.

  The eddies of the ether swirled more rapidly here, and it was clear that, despite Sashara’s presence and intervention, it would take some time before they fully settled, but he was surprised to find that no large clump of negativity remained, despite this being his first time here since the massacre.

  That meant either of two things. The domain, or the priests themselves, could already have dispersed the negativity. It was quite a feat, considering the frenzy that had happened just days before, but he supposed it was possible with enough power and effort, even if he doubted that was the case.

  Sashara’s priests seem to be quite powerful fighters, but they lack the subtlety needed to calm passions. Rather, I would have expected things to get worse with their intervention.

  The other possible cause was more unsettling. “A higher level spirit was born, and it’s hiding.”

  It wasn’t necessarily a tragedy; depending on the spirit's type, the situation could range from mildly annoying, in the case of a manifestation of despair, to decisively problematic if the anger had festered into one of the more violent emanations.

  Yet the obvious lack of such corruption made him suspect he was dealing with a more subtle kind, which, although better for the city overall, made things more complicated for him.

  “Now, where are you?” Nick muttered, expanding his search in all directions. His experience of being blasted by the demons’ anti-reality effect had strengthened his senses, so he wasn’t worried about being overwhelmed if he encountered the spirit like he almost did with a [Phobos], but he remained cautious since his prey was showing more signs of intelligence than he expected for a young being.

  It might not be a new birth at all. If I’m dealing with an older thing, one that has had time to develop subtlety, and just happened to come across the flood of emotions triggered by the attack, then everything would make sense again.

  Nick wasn’t yet ready to discard all other options, but several inconsistencies would align if that were the case.

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  For the first time in a while, he narrowed his focus instead of widening it. [Empyrean Intuition] was a highly versatile spell, enabling him to do anything from sense emotions to divine the purpose behind enchantments. However, its strongest ability was navigating the ether, and when he let go of his earthly connection, unmooring his mind from reality, his sight expanded by an order of magnitude.

  “Where aaaare youuu?” Nick sang, voice warping oddly as the lack of air in the ether altered how it echoed.

  Something shifted in the distance, and he had to hold back a grin. Most spirits knew better than to manifest openly, since leaving the ether would significantly reduce their powers and attract those who could disperse them into basic emotions. However, those born of resentment, or at least those who had fed on it heavily, often reacted with anger to even minor provocations.

  Nick stepping openly into the ether and making his presence known was as much a challenge as any of these things could understand.

  Still, it didn’t attack, and Nick nodded. “Not so stupid, then, are we? Good, I wouldn’t want this to be over quite so soon. I have a few things I want to try.”

  With Sashara’s domain so close, he wouldn’t try to set up a ritual, even if he suspected she wouldn’t really care about his use of technically forbidden magic, given how nasty some of her own spells were.

  But that didn’t mean he had to restrict himself. Instead, it was a great opportunity to try something he hadn’t yet had the chance to use.

  Ever since he discovered that curse magic was nothing but a permanent, uniquely negative form of spiritual magic, Nick had been fascinated by the possibilities.

  He wasn’t foolish enough to start summoning that much anger and hatred himself, and playing with dangerous, cursed artifacts while the city was bubbling with turmoil wasn't a good idea either, but if a spirit made of a very similar composition to that of a curse just so happened to wander by him... Well, who was he to say no to fate?

  “Come on out, I promise I’m not going to hurt you. Much, at least. I think. You might suffer quite a bit, actually. I’m not sure how horrible this will be, but I’m sure you’ll appreciate that pushing the boundaries of magic comes with a price.” He rambled, injecting as much mockery and ridicule in his voice as possible.

  Normally, young spirits couldn’t understand human language or its nuances, but if his assessment was correct and this was an older being that had gobbled up the leftover resentments, then it should understand, and, more importantly, it should have very little restraint, given the feast of negative emotions it had gorged itself on.

  Again, something moved around him, hidden by the currents of the ether, but closer.

  If Nick believed this to be truly dangerous, now would be an ideal time to cast [Territory] and begin altering the local environment to make it more hostile to such a negative spirit. However, if he did that, things might end too quickly. While he was sure his prey was actually quite powerful, he was equally convinced it lacked finesse and control, which should make it fairly easy to cleanse once he decided to end things.

  Still, he surreptitiously withdrew an ofuda from his ring and tucked it into the inner lining of his coat. Just in case it turns out to be more than I bargained for.

  With the bare minimum of preparations complete, Nick started setting up his actual test, bringing up [Vitality Drain]’s spellform and beginning his modifications. What are negative emotions if not a spirit’s vitality? This should work with a few tweaks, and I happen to have a glutton at my side who won’t mind feeding off the excess before it can overwhelm me.

  The ether churned angrily as something big approached.

  Nick had to admit that this spirit had perfected its intimidation tactics. If he were just a priest or another spirit, he would be trembling with anxiety and fear by now. With every moment that the spirit didn’t appear but made its presence felt, those feelings should have intensified and fed it, swelling its power even further.

  Unluckily for it, he was Nicholas Crowley, Occultist and dealer of the darkest magics. This small display did nothing but give him time to prepare.

  Finally, the spirit broke through the eddies, lunging at him from behind with rows upon rows of serrated teeth.

  Nick wasted no time releasing his newest iteration, clapping his hands together and opening a hungry void within his soul.

  Because that was what [Vitality Drain] truly was—a significant increase in the soul’s internal gravity, using mana to create a false mass that pulled everything around it, drawing in anything with significant enough spiritual weight. At least, that was the new version he referred to as [Call of the Void].

  A bit pretentious, maybe, but it felt very appropriate, especially as the shark-like spirit with a thousand tiny tentacles and even more eyes that had just tried to take a bite out of him roared in anger and pain as its very being was torn apart under the massive suction he had just begun.

  “That’s what’s possible when you ignore every safety standard and push your soul through every kind of stress imaginable, from demonic summoning to fighting the World itself, and ritual interference!” He shouted, feeling the negative emotions that had warped the river spirit—because that was what it was, despite its currently grotesque appearance—break apart.

  [Call of the Void] alone wouldn’t be enough to kill it, however, because despite coming from a powerful skill like [Vitality Drain], and benefiting from both his significantly stronger-than-usual soul and what he was pretty sure was his Charisma, for some reason, it was still a young spell, full of kinks and idiosyncrasies, and this spirit, though maddened, was old and powerful.

  It lunged again, the ether quaking in its wake, and although Nick avoided the bite that would have torn him in two, the stalks and barbed tentacles attached to it weren’t so easy to dodge.

  Fortunately, he had anticipated that possibility beforehand, and the ofuda infused with the power of [Crest of the Thunderbird] blossomed into existence like a small sun, shielding his spiritual form from harm and causing the corrupted spirit to screech away from its divine power.

  Nick fully exploited the situation, amplifying his influence by redirecting the anger and hatred directed at him back onto itself, essentially transforming his soul into an unstoppable black hole.

  The spirit seemed to realize it couldn’t escape, because it stopped struggling and screeched before lunging again, this time without regard for its own safety.

  Nick let it, trusting in his seal work to protect him, and the moment the rows of blackened teeth closed around his midsection, he smiled, slamming his dagger into where its brain should have been, and focusing [Call of the Void] there.

  Ugh, I got too used to fighting demons and earning extra experience. This hardly feels worth it.

  “I have to say, that was a most unorthodox exorcism, but I’m not one to complain when things get done.”