The Messenger of Death

"If they are not from the Western continent, then which continent did they hail from?" Katherine questioned.

"After conducting a survey, we found out that majority of them are from the Eastern continent. Rich, wealthy, never faced poverty or any obstacle that money couldn't solve – type of people. I don't know how it was done but they also believe in the god of the Poduct village, Ogun." Gwen answered.

"Ogun is a god of war, iron, and darkness. He grants his devote worshipers the ability to use the darkness element. The more people that worship him, the stronger he gets. The stronger he gets, the more power he grants to his devote worshipers." Janet interjected.

"Does that mean that every believer of his can use the darkness element?" Emma asked.

"No, only his devote worshipers, the extremists," Gwen responded.

"A god? Hearing that makes me wonder why the hell this mission was presented to the students and not the staff of the academy." Alex blurted out.

['So many things doesn't add up.'] He thought.

"That's because the academy is not allowed to intervene in worldly affairs, doing so will break the balance. The same rule applies to other sects and institutions similar to the severance academy.

Only the students of the academy are allowed to intervene." Janet reminded.

"I know that already. My point is that we cannot go against a god. We are just students with average cultivation." Alex said.

"That is true, but the academy isn't asking you to go against their god. Your job is to just investigate, report, and solve the problem here.

With your ability, I don't think that it would be an issue for you. Besides, their god isn't actually in this realm, according to the information that we possess.

Ogun resides in a realm that is sealed off from our own, we cannot go over to that realm and he cannot come over to the lower plain realm.

Even his devote worshipers can only get powers after they have carved his mark on their bones, bypassing the seal on this realm and siphoning his power through his mark." Gwen looked at Alex weirdly as she spoke.

Alex knew that she was referring to what he did when Janet attempted to attack him, distorting space.

"I am not invincible," Alex uttered.

"Neither are we," Gustavo interjected. He too wasn't okay with the idea of going against a god.

A being whose power is able to bypass the Excepto and seal, through their mark is not one to offend. Both Alex and Gustavo knew what it meant, the being called Ogun is either a celestial being or a being higher than the celestials.

"We didn't say that you were." Janet pointed out.

"How sure are you that killing Ogun's devote worshipers won't infuriate him?" Alex questioned.

"We don't know about that, but as I said not long ago. Ogun cannot reach this realm, it doesn't matter if you insult or infuriate the god, he cannot touch you himself." Gwen insisted.

['If he is a Sovereign then we would be dead before we know what hit us.'] Alex reasoned.

"If your team cannot carry out this mission, then you leave us with no option but to report your insubordination to the academy. I hope that you know what the punishment for abandoning a mission that you accepted, halfway through the mission?" Janet said.

"Twice as much merit point that is going to be awarded to your team upon completion of the mission, will be deducted instead." Gwen chipped in.

This made the Seraphim team members hesitate. If that actually happens, they would be owing the academy a lot of merit points. They wanted to earn more so that they could qualify for the continental competition.

Alex could see the conflicted expressions that his teammates were making and he had an idea of what was troubling them.

['Let's just do as they asked. We are to investigate and report, then solve the issue. If we find out that it is too much for us to tackle, then we leave. If we find it hard to leave then we can only rely on the talisman that Nana gave to us.'] Lex suggested.

['I know, but what if this Ogun being is a Sovereign? Even Nana wouldn't be able to deal with him.'] Alex pointed out. ['I would be calling Nana to her death.'] He sighed.

A few minutes had gone by the time Alex came to a conclusion. "Fine, we will do it. But if it looks like it's getting too dangerous, then we would abort the mission, regardless of the punishment. My life and wellbeing are more valuable than the mission." Alex stated.

Hearing his answer, the informants smiled. They were pleased that they accepted the mission.

"We are glad to hear that…" Gwen stood up from her seat and approached the round table the Seraphim team was seated.

When she was beside the table, she brought out a map from her storage ring. This was a very detailed map of the Poduct village.

"These are the areas of focus." Gwen pointed at spots on the map that had been marked with an X.

"Your team will survey these spots, report, and deal with whatever that is happening there." There were 4 spots marked with an X, in total.

Adrian collected the map from Gwen and studied it. "Who do we report to, you girls?" He muttered.

"Yes, you can make the report to me or Janet. We are tasked with informing the academy of your actions."

"And what exactly do we consider wrong or illegal that the Ogun worshipers do? I mean they are just worshipping who they want to worship." Drake asked.

"We heard that they sometimes hold a ritual and sacrifice humans to their god. Some are willing to sacrifice their selves to Ogun and some are not. They make sure to only sacrifice people that have an affinity with the darkness element.

Doesn't matter how little their affinity with the element is, they are suitable candidates, those that do not need the mark to wield the element." Janet stated.

"How do we differentiate between those that are willing and those that are not?" Alex was the one that questioned this time.

"You don't, if you do come across them, stop the ritual anyway possible. They sacrifice those people so that they can be granted more power. They are working with a powerful family, if they obtain more strength, I fear what is going to happen to the Western continent.

According to history, logic and, facts, the weakness of darkness is light. But as we all know, light elemental users are almost as rare as the darkness elemental users. If you happen to engage in battle with one of the extremists of Ogun, the closest thing to light that you can use to battle them is fire. " Gwen explained.

"Alright then, is that all we are to do or is there more?" Alex stood up and he asked.

"That is the main objective for now. Do not let them complete the ritual. By any means necessary, even if it means killing the victims, stop the ritual." Gwen emphasized. "Good luck too." She added.

"Yeah, sure." Alex dismissed her well-wishes with a sarcastic remark. "C'mon guys, let's go. We have a lot of work to do." He ordered as he started to make his way towards the stairs…

Roughly 25 minutes later, after exiting the café, the Seraphim team headed towards the closest marked spot on the map that Adrian collected from Gwen.

The closest marked spot on the map was actually in a desert that was not far from the Poduct village. While they were making their way there, they noticed that there were several architectural structures buried underneath the sands of the desert.

The beauty of the structures had been covered by the sand, despite that, they were still able to tell that the structures under were a sight to behold during their early days. Not long after they reached the spot, they saw a different side of the Poduct village.

A side filled with muscular and tanned people that were dressed in clothes that very much resembled the ones that the academy provided for them as a disguise.

"And here I was, thinking that things couldn't turn worse," Drake muttered at the sight of the barbarians.

They quickly hid behind a tower that its foundation had been buried by the sand, and peeked at the barbarians.

"I guess the academy knew what they were doing when they provided us with a disguise," Adrian whispered.

"You mean bones and cowries. How the hell are we supposed to wear that and fight?" Katherine exclaimed as quietly as she could.

"Adrian, the disguise?" Alex asked.

Without wasting any time, Adrian brought the bag out of his storage pouch.

"Don't tell me that you want to wear it?!" Katherine blurted out.

"Hell no," Alex said.

"Ah, that's good. For a second there, I thought that you were going to wear the bones and cowries." She sighed in relief.

"I'm not going to put it on, but you guys are. I will create a distraction, draw their attention to me, and then the rest of you will blend in with the crowd and search the place.

"Wha!-" Before Katherine blew their cover, Alex covered her mouth with his hand.

"I am not putting that thing on," Katherine whispered, voicing her refusal.

"Then would you prefer to draw their attention instead?" Alex snapped.

"Yes, I would like that very much," Katherine answered in all seriousness and was about to come out from behind the tower, but she was held in her position by Emma.

"Wait, wait. Why don't we just come up with a better plan?" She suggested.

['Well, it is clear that I am not the plan guy.'] Alex rolled his eyes, holding back the urge to facepalm himself...