Morvathos was flying around the city, his figure wrapped in a black vortex of mist. The night air recoiled around him, hissing as if it recognized what drifted through its currents.
He was searching for his next victim, and soon enough, he found one. A man and a woman, both bound in marriage to others, entwined in betrayal.
But before he acted, he paused. He had to know whether their spouses were truly innocent, or whether they, too, permitted such acts. He did not wish to make a mistake and rip souls undeserving of his judgement.
Nowadays, people of Earth practiced strange philosophies and delusions masked as freedom. Spouses slept with others outside their vows and even cloaked it in names like open marriage ,polyamory and what not.
They bragged of it, wore it like a badge of pride. To Morvathos, it was madness. Humans had no boundaries, no reverence for what was sacred. They hollowed out their own sanctity and called it liberation.
He drifted down before an office building. It wasn't late; the windows still glowed with exhausted workers inside. On the fifth floor, he found the husband of the cheating woman.
The man was unremarkable in form, yet there was a dignity about him. His build was decent, above average, though fatigue clung to his face like a shadow.
His eyes were ringed with dark circles, yet still fixed intently on the glowing screen before him. Fingers clicked across the keyboard with a stubborn discipline.
Morvathos narrowed his gaze and activated the Eyes of Death. His breath caught. The man lit up before him, wrapped in pure golden radiance.
'A Tier-2 Karmic Virtue...'
Even hardened killers rarely reached the Tier-2 Karmic Sin. Keeping the fact in mind that Virtue is harder to accumulate the Sin. Accumulation of Sin is greater in ratio compared to Virtue. And despite that, it is hard for one to accumulate Sin enough to reach Tier-2. Heck, even the serial rapist Morvathos killed had Sin Accumulation barely reaching Tier-2.
Yet this man, this weary office worker glowed with karmic virtue in full bloom.
'How many countless acts of kindness had this man performed to amass such purity?'
Morvathos searched deeper. He scoured the man's past for even a flicker of cruelty or neglect toward his wife. There was none. He was, in every way that mattered, a saint hidden in mortal guise.
"That woman… Taking advantage of such a man. Unacceptable."
Morvathos clenched his jaw.
His hand gripped hus scythe tight, but he forced himself still. Emotion clouded judgement; he could not afford waste. He had already squandered sin upon the rapist he had tortured. After he killed them, they will suffer in Hell anyway.
He can't waste Sin by torturing them. He needs to earn money and can't afford to waste on petty vengeance that isn't even his.
"Huff~ Alright. Next destination."
With a long breath, he rose from the rooftop and stepped into the air. His body dissolved into mist and shadow. He flowed across the city, carried by currents of dread, until he reached the suburbs.
There, he glimpsed the wife of the cheating man. A housewife. Ordinary, though a faint aura of Low Tier-1 virtue still clung to her spirit, enough to place her above the damned.
Even so, Morvathos could never fathom the mind of a betrayer. To have faith at one's side and still choose deceit? To spit upon devotion with lust? It was a puzzle that reeked of rot.
'Whatever. Not like I can understand human mind just because I want to.'
He did not linger. Mist rose and folded him once more, carrying him to the hotel where the two sinners writhed.
Through the window he drifted, glass parting around him like liquid shadow. Inside, the room reeked of sweat and betrayal.
Flesh tangled, desperate and unashamed. The woman's breath came in ragged moans, her face twisted with a hollow expression of pleasure.
"You two,Having fun while your spouses wait at home?"
Morvathos' voice rasped like dry leaves. His form solidified, scythe gleaming in his grip.
The woman froze mid-motion, her body convulsing as if pleasure had been ripped away in an instant. Morvathos smirked coldly.
He would not grant her the mercy of climax. She did not deserve even that fleeting sweetness before judgment.
The man recoiled and bellowed,
"Who the hell are you?! And how did you come inside?! Who let you in?! Security! Security!"
He leapt toward the bedside phone, his naked body unashamed, primal in its aggression. His fingers stabbed the buttons, desperate.
Nothing answered.
Morvathos let him struggle. The Domain of Death was already sealed. Within it, no sound escaped, no cry pierced the air. The outside world could intrude,but nothing within could leak out.
Their terror was a private covenant now. He used the same ability to deal with that rapist from before.
The woman huddled beneath the sheets, her eyes wide, breath shallow. Morvathos turned his pale mask toward her. His gaze was a blade, and her courage cracked beneath it.
"You, Tell me, was it fun? Cheating on your husband? That kind, oblivious man who breaks himself day after day to provide for you. And this is your answer to his devotion? Another man's bed?"
She shook, lips pressed shut. At last, she drew a shuddering breath and whispered as though to convince herself,
This is just a dream. Play along. Play along.
Then, gathering a sliver of defiance, she looked him in the eyes.
"My husband is kind… stable. But he isn't there. He isn't present for me. And him,"
She glanced at the man still gripping the useless phone, confusion carved across his features.
"He makes me feel alive. Wanted. Something my husband never could."
Morvathos rested the scythe upon his shoulder. Shadows danced along its curved edge, red light seeping like blood into the steel.
"I see,"
He murmured.
The woman swallowed, her voice barely a whisper. She clearly sense something wrong now that her mind had settled from the earlier pleasure.
"Who… who are you?"
Morvathos straightened. His aura flared, black mist spilling from him like smoke from an inferno.
"Me? I am justice that has come to collect the price of your betrayal."
The woman's body trembled, eyes widening with instinctive recognition of death.
"You crave to feel alive? Don't you?"
He said, raising the scythe.
"Then let me send you to a place where there won't even be a single moment where you feel dead."
*Slash~!*
The blade descended in a whisper of finality. Her body arched, then fell limp. No wound marred her flesh, yet her soul was severed, her spark extinguished.
"Huh??"
The man froze in horror, his lips trembling, his denial crumbling in silence. Perhaps he understood, perhaps not. It mattered little.
Morvathos advanced. The man scrambled backward, palms and feet smearing sweat against the carpet. His voice died in his throat. The scythe lifted, fell, and the sinner convulsed in terror before stillness claimed him.
Morvathos exhaled, spinning the scythe idly in his hand.
"Nicely done! The process grows smoother with every soul. Hm~ I'm getting better. I must be born for this. Heh~"
Morvathos felt somewhat delightful after he was done with the cheaters. Their presence irritated him more then he thought. But now that the nuisance was dealt with, he felt at ease.
His mind drifted back to the moment he got the Authority Seal. Basic Scythe Mastery Level One. Paltry at first, but still useful. Divine Laws gave him basic knowledge for scythe and his mastery rose to Level One of Basic Stage. Raising it to Level two would require his own effort... or simply Karmic Coins to buy more Compression.
And for soul reaping purpose, Divine Laws gave him comprehension of two Greater Laws, Death Laws and Soul Laws. Both of their mastery being at Low Tier Law Fragment Stage.
Death Laws corrodes any connection between body and soul while Soul Laws guided him through the extraction without damaging the soul.
Through the compression of Soul Laws,he can pin point the spiritual nodes and temporarily use physical material like weapons to cut them without damaging the flesh.
He looked upon the cooling bodies with neither regret nor sympathy. Cheaters and betrayers deserved nothing less than this end. Unless their reasons held truth and these two had none. Their spouses were better rid of them.
The souls had already been torn free and delivered to the Pit of Karma and Punishment, where Karmic Falmes would burn them to ash.
Coins had begun trickling into his grasp, three already, though barely half an hour had passed.
By his reckoning, refining this cluster would yield a hundred and fifty-nine coins by day's end. The thought made his spirit rise with grim satisfaction.
"Nice! With this momentum, I can probably accumulate enough money within a month or two to fix Spring of Reincarnation and then have money spare for me to use. Hehe~"
Morvathos was feeling better and better with each passing moment.
He left the corpses where they lay. Let the living discover their truth. Let families see what had been hidden behind the lies of hotel walls.
Drifting through the window, Morvathos melted once more into shadow. Mist swept him into the night as he turned toward his next hunt. Somewhere, another soul waited to be weighed and claimed.