The Sinner Hunting System-Chapter 68: There is no Escape

Raphael was quiet for a moment.

"So you came all this way just to hand me an invitation. The name really does suit you, has anyone ever told you that you sound like a fortune teller running a street stall?"

The Prophet smiled slightly. He wasn’t provoked.

He leaned back against the window frame with the ease of someone who has nowhere else to be.

"There’s no point trying to irritate me. It won’t help your situation."

He tilted his head.

"What I came to say is simple, the D-Brotherhood isn’t a monolith. Any organization large enough to have members will have disagreements.

On the specific question of what to do about you, for instance, opinions vary. The invitation I’ve extended only has practical value if you survive today."

Raphael read the subtext clearly enough. The Brotherhood had originally wanted him dead.

This particular member had reconsidered. The others apparently hadn’t received the update.

The Prophet glanced at the fate-lines on Raphael’s palm again and gave a small, satisfied nod.

"As for the mark I’ve placed, when you decide you’re ready, you can use it to contact me."

Raphael looked at his wrist. He smiled without warmth.

"That mark isn’t just an invitation, is it."

The Prophet said nothing. He gestured toward it instead, a small, open-handed motion, with the quiet certainty of someone who already knows the answer to the question he’s not asking.

Where does he get the confidence that I can read this?

If I didn’t have the System, I’d have no way to examine something like this at all.

Raphael pushed the thought aside.

Given the gap in whatever they were each capable of, arguing about the terms seemed premature. He sank his awareness into the mark.

[Fate Mark — Enhanced.]

[Description: Given by Hunter No. 9, the Prophet.]

[Effect: You will always encounter remarkable people, witness remarkable events, and be drawn into remarkable situations.

Your fate is not destined to be ordinary. Your fate is destined to walk alongside danger.]

Hunter No. 9.

Raphael stared at that for a moment. Then his mouth twitched.

"So. You talk about respecting other people’s destinies. And then you do this to mine."

The Prophet raised one finger and wagged it gently, the gesture of a teacher correcting a common misconception.

"This is an enhancement mark, not an imposition. Consider, when you encounter a witch, without this mark, there’s a fifty percent chance you become meaningfully connected to her fate and a fifty percent chance you pass each other without consequence. What I’ve done is shift that to ninety-nine to one."

He paused.

"But the precondition is that you encounter the witch in the first place. That opportunity comes from your own fate, your own particular path through the world.

I haven’t given you something that wasn’t already yours. I’ve simply ensured you don’t miss the chances your own destiny generates."

Raphael had no immediate response to this. Arguing with someone who operated in this particular register tended to be the least productive use of available time.

The Prophet looked past him.

"It seems our time is up. I won’t keep you."

His expression carried something that might have been genuine interest.

"Hunter No. 13, I hope that when the end comes, you’re standing on the right side of it."

Raphael registered the approaching presence at the same moment.

Whatever was coming, it wasn’t the local police.

The Prophet brought his hands together softly. His body came apart, not collapsing, not dissolving, but separating into sheets, each one blank and white, drifting down to settle across the floor like scattered paper.

Raphael crouched over the nearest paper. Turned it over. Plain white, both sides, no trace of anything.

"Some kind of double technique."

He straightened, the unanswered questions cycling through his mind, the Brotherhood’s actual objective, what Hunter No. 9 meant, what the end referred to, but there was no time to sit with any of them.

A formless shadow had already entered the building and was moving toward him.

"A ghost? No... that arcane signature is—!"

He made a decision in the same second he recognized it.

He didn’t react. He let the semi-transparent shape close the distance and pass into him.

The cold was immediate and total, not Rick’s cold, which had been deep but manageable.

This went into the bone marrow, through the marrow, into something underneath that.

Within two seconds his entire body had seized up, the motor functions stuttering like a mechanism that had been run without lubrication, every voluntary movement arriving late and incomplete.

[Analyzing... Complete.]

[Lv4: Malevolent Spirit.]

[Cardinal Sin: Invidia.]

[Classification: Demon.]

Lv4 possession. Not remotely comparable to what a Lv2 wraith could do.

He was still upright, still capable of movement, but the body was running at perhaps a third of its normal responsiveness. He activated the Wraith Form. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

In the same fraction of a second, a shadow crossed him from the side. A black blade caught the light and swept clean across his neck.

"Done?"

He could see the attacker clearly now, a bald man, one arm, a heavy cleaver that had seen use, a black cloak hanging from his shoulders.

The voice had come from the cloak itself, not the man.

The man turned the blade over and looked at it.

"No. Wrong feel."

Correct. Raphael had completed the Wraith Form transition, and a blade moving through an incorporeal body produced no resistance worth describing.

This wasn’t the first time he’d used the ability under pressure, the speed of the switch was nothing like it had been at the beginning.

One eyeblink, start to finish.

Without a host, the Malevolent Spirit had no choice but to manifest.

It hovered where Raphael had been standing and watched him drift backward, a small, sunken figure, the body narrow and underdeveloped, the kind of form that looked like it had never had enough of anything.

Raphael considered his resources. He dropped back into physical form at a safe distance.

Better to conserve the Wraith Form for when it was genuinely necessary.

He kept his eyes deliberately unfocused, projecting the particular carelessness of someone who hadn’t finished assessing the threat yet.

"Leading with a combination kill? I’m flattered." He let his gaze move across the room without urgency. "One spirit capable of possession, one close-combat specialist with a cleaver, and one..."

He looked at the cloak.

"You. I didn’t notice you until just now. Concealment ability, I’d assume."

He was counting while he talked. Their positioning. Their sightlines.

What they were blocking and what they weren’t.

None of them moved to close. They held the exit, nothing more.

There’s a three enemies already here.

The moment the thought completed, he activated the Wraith Form again and pushed upward.

The floor dropped away beneath him, not crumbled, dropped, a section of it descending cleanly into darkness, a pit that had been excavated without a sound while his attention had been on the other three.

A second later would have been too late.

From the pit below, something large and armored moved.

Slow, deliberate, the sound of it against the excavated rock carrying upward like a geological event finding its voice.

[Analyzing... Complete.]

[Lv5: Earth Dragon.]

[Cardinal Sin: Acedia.]

[Classification: Demon.]