Thief

Avi's fears and anxiety proved unnecessary. Ramiel made it to the other side of the barrier without much trouble. Except, perhaps, for a minor incident in which contradictory common sense quantities of mana particles fell on his head. The energy was so dense that it almost suffocated him. The mana stuck to his skin like annoying glue.

Ramiel could find it literally everywhere, in his nose in his ears in his hair, and even in places where it shouldn't have access. For the first time, the former hunter felt overwhelmed by the energy that was usually on his side. It was an unexpected change that made him realize how small he was in the perspective of the universe.

Ramiel was the only one to suffer unpleasant consequences. The condemned Hunter and Avi passed through the barrier without any problems. Fortunately, Ramiel kept his cool and quickly found a solution. With the help of internal mana and the destructive power of the element of darkness, he burned the unwanted energy particles. He then created a thin membrane around himself, the surface of which sizzled from time to time.

To Ramiel's surprise, it took him longer than he thought to get through the barrier. As soon as he made it to the other side, he was struck by the strong and intensified presence of something he had sensed before. At first, he was confused.

The atmosphere was rich with something he knew very well. He was sure he used it on a daily basis. To say more, he was constantly in contact with it. The ignorance drove him into a frenzy. The lack of answers only made it worse.

Ramiel looked around like a fool looking for clues, but nothing caught his eye.

Come on... it can't be that difficult. I know you're out there somewhere. - Ramiel groaned in his mind, searching for anything. The strange feeling grew stronger as time passed, unnerving him even more. A part of his soul even trembled with excitement, throwing him off balance even more.

Ramiel knew himself better than anyone else. The reactions and subconscious cues his body was giving him meant he had the answer right under his nose.

Ramiel sighed losing all hope. He had been standing like a fool for ten minutes, looking for something that didn't exist. Even Avi began to question his sanity and just then, there was a breakthrough.

Coincidentally, he turned to the Condemned Hunter and experienced a daze.

" How could I have been so stupid... ". - Ramiel groaned under his breath. Suddenly, everything became clear to him. The unfathomable and inaccessible arcana of knowledge, stood before him, laughing at the short-sightedness and stupidity, presented by him.

Ramiel already knew why he was drawn to the unique presence in the atmosphere. It would have been strange if he had felt nothing. The air around him was rich with an element of condemnation. It took him some time to realize this, but Ramiel couldn't be surprised.

Although this element had supposedly always been with him and was the basis of his favorite spells, Ramiel had only recently become aware of its presence. He wasn't even sure where it came from or how to properly identify it. When he used it, it came to him naturally, which made the problem even worse

Ramiel was able to get a vague idea of it thanks to the creatures the dungeon had granted him. Whenever he was near them, he felt a strange connection to them, and the aura around them was marked by the faint presence of something familiar. At first, he paid more attention to this phenomenon, but over time it faded and became something normal.

All in all, Ramiel has always been able to sense the element of condemnation, but he has never been able to define it correctly. Everything changed a while ago. Certain cogs in his mind jumped into the right place, revealing a seam of knowledge and secrets.

This wasn't the first time something similar had happened. Each time, something changed in Ramiel, and the previously inaccessible knowledge stayed with him forever. It would be better to explain this using the example of spells or skills.

When learning a new spell, we don't always understand all the mechanisms behind it. Our mind performs them subconsciously, and the knowledge gained in the process is forever engraved in our consciousness. Only when the time is right, or the level of our understanding is high enough, do we experience enlightenment, during which everything becomes simple for us, or at least we understand it.

This is more obvious during the creation of a new spell. Then many things remain shrouded in mystery, and success depends largely on our senses and intuition.

Ramiel experienced something similar many times. After all, he was a genius among geniuses. Thanks to his flexibility, understanding, and sensitivity to mana, he was able to create new and complicated spells in the midst of battle.

A great example of this is the recent incident in the Forest of Night Rippers. Ramiel was pinned against the wall there. He had to get to Caera and Asme quickly, and the distance between them only made it more difficult. Not to mention the Night Deuce, who was hot on his heels.

In a nutshell, Ramiel showed his genius and extensive knowledge by creating a previously unseen spell under pressure. It was dangerous. He had only the initial outline of the knowledge and the theory behind it. The rest was taken care of by his mind and superhuman senses. Ramiel didn't even know until the end how he did it, but part of the knowledge stayed with him forever, only he didn't have access to it. The rest came in the form of improving his understanding of the lightning element.

(A/N To my death, I forgot to update this element. I will fix this error and edit the relevant chapter. I will let you know about it when I do. )

" Are you all right? " - Avi took notice of Ramiel's strange state. He was mostly standing and looking around, as if searching for something, occasionally mumbling something under his breath. This worried her and she could no longer ignore him.

Maybe going through the barrier had harmed him? - Various thoughts and hypotheses popped up in her head. Some were worse than others. With each passing moment, Avi became more and more panicked, but Ramiel stepped in just in time to stop the hysteria.

He had a brief conversation with the bond, during which he shared his findings and thoughts. Avi felt herself relax back. Ramiel simply acted like Ramiel again, additionally giving her a few more reasons to worry.

With everything back on track, Ramiel was finally able to focus on what was important and what he had come here for.

His gaze swept around the interior of the cave, and fine threads of mana, helped him survey the area. The space under the barrier was vast. In size, it resembled two baseball fields. At a central point under the dome, stood an object that seemed to be the only attraction here.

Ramiel moved lazily towards it, observing the fauna closely. Every now and then he encountered faint traces of plants that caught his attention. The deeper he went, the more he came into contact with them.

Most of them were flowers he had never had the pleasure of interacting with. Even Avi knew almost nothing about them, which further aroused his thirst for knowledge.

On the surface, these flowers looked simple. Their snow-white petals fading to velvety black formed a calyx that was narrow at the base and the top. The whole thing was complemented by a short stem with fragile and twisted leaves. But you can't judge a book by its cover.

The mysterious flowers turned out to be one of the sources of the element of condemnation. They were a reactor, only instead of energy, they produced an element shrouded in mystery. Closer inspection of one of them revealed barely visible mana pathways inside the petals. They resembled a delayed spider web, which Ramiel found beautiful.

His sensitivity to mana didn't miss a single detail. It was within the petals, that the refinement process was taking place. Mana, under the influence of unknown processes and mechanisms, was acquiring the value of the element of condemnation.

This was just the beginning of the surprises. Flowers had an incredible effect on the environment. As Ramiel inevitably discovered. After coming into closer contact with them, a sudden but vague sense of guilt came over him. The conscience he thought he had killed long ago rose from the dead.

The former hunter began to be haunted anew by the demons of the past. Images of brutal scenes he committed in the past were revived in his mind to get to where he is today.

For a split second, Ramiel's heart plunged into grief. This was perfectly mirrored by the flow of mana inside his body. Nevertheless, guilt was quickly replaced by indifference and arrogance, caused by a lack of empathy and a sense of superiority over others.

A brazen smile crept under Ramiel's nose, and his eyes took on a cool yet sharp and contemptuous expression. Ramiel even went so far as to let out a short, ironic laugh.

" Pathetic. " - Ramiel sneered. "If you want to break me, you have to try harder. "

Ramiel's path to power was littered with piles of corpses. Most of them were undoubtedly monsters, but a smaller portion were humans. Ramiel was merciless. Men, women, old teenagers, even children. All were dead in his eyes if they posed a threat to him or those close to him.

Something as trivial as short-term guilt couldn't break him. He had already learned to ignore it. He had to adapt to survive. Otherwise, he would end up with his veins slit in an alley or hanging lifeless from a tree branch.

Based on the past, many might call Ramiel a cold-blooded monster, and they would be right. However, everything he did, he did to survive. And he wouldn't hesitate to repeat it one more time.

Avi felt the same way about their bond. Guilt suddenly attacked her. But in her case, it was a shadow of Ramiel's experience.

The fairy had had a relatively short existence in this world. For most of her life, she had rested shamelessly on the head of the Bond. She hadn't lived or experienced anything she might regret. Except, perhaps, for one incident when, in a moment of weakness, she doubted Ramiel. That incident became a stain on her honor

The couple sensed each other's troubled emotions. Ramiel was the first to break the despondent silence

" You... feel it too? Don't you? " - Ramiel was worried about Avi. Unlike him, she was innocent. She didn't have the baggage of experience or a strong psyche to suggest how to handle a similar situation. How badly she had endured their longer separations only confirmed the man's hypothesis.

The concern contained in Ramiel's voice moved Avi, intensifying her guilt even more.

" Mhm... " - Avi murmured quietly, fixing her gaze on a random point in the distance. The fairy couldn't look at Ramiel, even though she was sitting on his head. It was beyond her strength.

" If you want... you can talk to me about it. " - Ramiel tried to help. He was afraid that it was his memories that caused Avi's current state. However, there was nothing he could do. He even felt helpless. Unfortunately, the fairy had inherited everything wrong with him, including his stubbornness and tendency to deal with his own problems alone.

" It's nothing... You don't have to worry. I'll be fine. " - Avi tried to sound confident and adopted a fake smile.

" You know where to find me if you need me. " - Ramiel added after a short thought but got no answer. He wanted to add something else but refrained in time. If Avi wanted it, he had no right to interfere, when the time was right, she would tell him everything herself.

The rest of the travel was done in silence. The mood wasn't suitable for trivial conversations. The fairy remained nailed down, pretending that everything was fine, and the former hunter nipped in the bud any feelings.

Meanwhile, Ramiel secured a dozen flowers in the ring. You never know when they might come in handy. Who knows, they might even open up new avenues of evolution for him. After all, the Abyss usually provides him with what he can use the most.

Unique flowers weren't the only representatives of nature that Ramiel encountered. On his way to the center of the dome, he found small bushes. The only thing remarkable about them were the pomegranate-shaped fruits from Earth.

However, their similarities ended with their appearance. Like the flowers, the fruits found by Ramiel emanated a strong presence of the element of condemnation. The former hunter didn't think long before eating one of them. It was bitter, but the flesh was no different from the pomegranate fruit from Earth. Aside from the mild and temporarily increased presence of the element of condemnation in his stomach, Ramiel felt no significant change.

The lack of results visible at first glance didn't stop him, from stealing a few of them. One never knows what they might be of use to him.

In addition to shrubs and flowers, Ramiel came across a few leafless trees. Their trunks were fragile and thin and twisted... The diameter of the largest specimen didn't exceed twenty centimeters at most. Some of the trees were larger and some were smaller, but the top of all of them reached about eye level for Ramiel.

From one of the delicate branches, Ramiel plucked a bud of young green twigs twisted into a neat ball. They provided cover for a small wood-like husk that was most likely the seed of a unique tree. The man wasn't sure, but the condensed element of damnation inside confirmed his prediction. As you might guess, Ramiel took it with him.