82 Developmen (1/2)

”Look,” Nine said, exposing a part of the body.

On the collarbone area of the body in front of her, there was a black circle with a cross and a swirling design wrapped around the cross. Just looking at it gave one the chills.

”What is that?” Jasper asked. He had never seen those before. Stunned, he went over to the other bodies and checked.

Sure enough, there were the same marks in various places.

”What did you do?” the Vampire prince asked curiously. He had not seen Nine do anything, and he was absolutely certain that those marks hadn't been there before.

Nine hummed. ”It wasn't that these marks weren't here before, but rather, they had been inlaid with a function that causes people to overlook them. Below a certain threshold, the people who look at it will just have their eyes slide over it as if they had already looked at the place when in fact, they were actually overlooking it.”

”I see. So now that you've pointed it out, it no longer affects our subconscious,” Seyton said, peering at the marks curiously.

Nine ignored them, focusing on the marks. Just by looking at it, one could tell that it wasn't anything good. The mark drew in the darker parts of the darkness element. The parts that most people didn't dare to use lest they lose their sanity.

These were the kinds of marks that heretics used to mark their possessions. What astounded her was that Jasper had managed to collect so many of these bodies without whoever was making them notice.

”Judging by the rate you collected them, these were abandoned. The darkness element in these markings are keeping them 'alive' so to speak, but since they do not contain a soul, they aren't able to move.”

They were trying to reproduce the results of necromancy, but these were all failed products. Nine carefully sunk her magic into the rune, realizing that the style being used here was very similar to the markings left in the little alcove where she found Mephisto.

”So that's what they want to do,” Nine murmured, puzzling the rest. Though she didn't know about their motives, she could roughly guess what they were about to unleash upon the world.

Nine quickly ordered Mephisto to get her minions to infiltrate the elves and look for more information.

Mephisto made a clicking noise as she complied, happy to be of use to her Master. Rainier emerged from the interspatial bracelet himself and crawled up to Nine's shoulder. Mephisto quickly crawled on top of Rainier, sitting on top of him like a queen on a throne. Rainier wobbled to try and throw off Mephisto, but she lay flat on him, defending her position.

Nine ignored their antics. Cute though they may be, she should bring Jasper into the fold as well. Her instincts were once again telling her that she should rope him in.

”Jasper,” Nine said gently, using the Vampiric charm to her advantage. ”You'll help us stop a worldwide catastrophe, right?” she said.

The words worked itself into Jasper's brain, but he felt like he couldn't understand them. Just hearing Nine's voice alone was so compelling that he felt like he would obey every order that was spoken to him in that voice alone.

”Yeah,” Jasper said without thinking.

Nine smirked at him. Too easy. She didn't even have to use any more of her charm.

Prince Jasper broke out of the trance he had been put in, stunned. He leaned towards Seyton and whispered to him. ”Is it just me, or do I feel like I've sold my soul to the devil?”

Seyton looked at his brother with a mock sympathetic look. ”Don't worry, brother. All it involves is a lifetime of servitude.”