World Keeper

Chapter 1179: White Out

Scarlet stared down the man that Lena had reported to be the Collector, her divine senses scanning the various smaller figures hovering in the air around them. As she was speaking to the man, she was having Accalia give her reports on all of their identities.

In truth, she clearly hadn’t known much about the man until just recently, possibly even nothing at all. However, as a member of the Greater Pantheon, this wasn’t something that she could reveal. If she appeared before someone that had committed numerous evil deeds, she had to at least pretend that the Greater Pantheon knew about them. Otherwise, it would give people the idea that they could do such things with impunity.

Meanwhile, William gulped thickly, his hands trembling slightly. He was already having trouble with the Red Shadow, but Scarlet had annihilated him easily. Not only that, but she had teleported William with no sign of exertion. Had her mastery of ki become so great that she could manipulate space that freely?

William raised his hands in surrender, having no intention of fighting against a member of the Greater Pantheon. Even if, against all hope, he did manage to secure a victory, all that awaited for him was to be hunted down by the rest of the Greater Pantheon. Or, what he considered arguably worse, the Keeper’s personal executioner.

“Of course, Your Highness.” William said in a placating tone. “I am merely a humble collector. If possible, I like to avoid conflict. If there are members of my collection that you believe were wrongly acquired, I shall naturally release them.”

This was the best that he could do. He felt as if a massive bloodlust was weighing down on his being, something that even the Red Shadow could never hope to compare to. If he resisted here, for even just a moment, he felt as if he would be killed.

Scarlet’s eyes narrowed slightly, before snapping her fingers. Strands of ki spread through the air, wrapping around some of the hovering figures. “The Lost Wanderer. the Lady in Yellow. the White Shadow. Karen Cross. Abel Dowers…” One by one, Scarlet listed off the identities of those that she wrapped in ki, and their figurines vanished from his shelves, appearing hovering around her. For those that had more famous titles, she would use those, while others she would use their real name.

For the most part, William realized that these people were all the more innocent among those in his collection. Though… “The White Shadow?” William looked surprised when that name was called. “Are you certain? I mean no disrespect, but her presence in the world may cause more harm than good. That is why I had collected her in the first place.”

“You only believe such because her power is not fully trained. If she could control it properly, there would be no reason to exclude her. And, I find that I can be a very good teacher.” She said with an almost menacing smile, one that sent chills down the Collector’s spine. She continued listing off names, one after the other.

Eventually, more than a dozen figures were circling around Scarlet, held gently in place by her ki. “These are the figures that you will release in exchange for your life.”

William was well aware that losing these figures would severely diminish his power, as many of them were amongst the most famous of his collection. However, he nodded his head. With a flex of his divinity, the figurines began to glow. “May I depart, Your Highness? They have already been released, and will return to normal in a matter of seconds. However, if I am here when they do, I fear another battle may break out.”

Scarlet simply offered him a nod, retracting her bloodlust. Without hesitation, he took a deep breath, vanishing on the spot with the rest of his collection. Meanwhile, Scarlet stepped back to observe the process of the figures returning to their original appearance.

As William had said, it took less than a minute for all of them to return to their original appearance. Many of them were shell shocked, but this was especially true for a young lycan girl with silver hair. She hugged her arms against herself, releasing a white flash that engulfed the island. Briefly, the other released individuals were stunned, their gazes vacant, while the silver-haired girl quickly began to run away.

However, Scarlet was unfazed by this, her eyes following the girl. Or, more appropriately, the entity behind Scarlet was unfazed by the flash. Her incarnation was briefly stunned as well, but she was still able to maintain control.

Thus, when the girl tore activated a chakra-based teleportation technique, Scarlet appeared on the other side of the technique next to her. This caused her to yelp, stumbling back in shock as another white flash spread out. “H-How?” She asked, eyes wide. She knew that she had activated her unique energy, so nobody at the scene should have been able to move, or even remember her after the fact. Even extremely powerful gods focused on information like Lena were unable to resist her power.

“You’ll need more than that to get away from me.” Scarlet said, though she did send a quite message to Accalia and Bihena to take care of the ones left on the island. “Now, White Shadow, shall we talk?”

The girl trembled for only a moment longer until she heard her title, and her body seemed to instinctively calm down. As if she was trained to respond to the name. “What… do you want?” She asked with a small gulp.

“I want to help you control your power, first and foremost. Though, before that… how much do you remember?” Scarlet asked, not wanting to specify and further bring up bad memories.

“All of it… we were all conscious. Trapped within those doll-like bodies.” The White Shadow crouched down, hugging her knees. “I don’t know how long I was like that… unable to move, to call out to anyone. Just sitting on a shelf with eyes that would never close.”

Scarlet’s lips pursed, and she leaned in to wrap her thin arms around the White Shadow. The touch caused another bright flash, but that didn’t stop Scarlet. “Do you remember Lena? The… Golden Shadow.”

The White Shadow’s eyes flickered at that, and she looked up at Scarlet. “She has a name now?” She asked, a shadow of a smile appearing over her face. “I’m really happy for her. She always used to tell me how she wanted a real name for herself. Is she doing well?”

That made Scarlet hesitate. Lena had told her about how she was the reason that the White Shadow had been captured by the Collector. And yet, here she was, asking if Lena was alright. “Y-Yeah… Lena’s doing great. Do you not resent her..?”

The White Shadow pursed her lips, but shook her head. “N-No… she was my big sis, even if not by blood. I didn’t really want to carry out the order to attack her, but… the elder seemed so certain that she was a danger to everyone. I… I know that she gave me to him. I don’t blame her. She could have killed me a hundred times over in our fight, but her strikes always avoided a lethal blow. Almost like she was trying to recognize me, and part of her remembered who I was.”

“As for giving me to him… I’m not happy… How could I be happy? But I know she did it with good intentions. She couldn’t have remembered my wish. Not fully. But she knew I wanted to be remembered, right?” The White Shadow gave a weak smile as Scarlet stroked her hair.

“Yeah… from what she told me, she thought that giving you to the Collector was the best way to carry out your wish. If you don’t mind, can you tell me more about yourself? I won’t forget you.” Scarlet promised, and the small girl hesitated.

“I am… the daughter of the elder, Monda Grove. My name is Charle Grove. When they were selecting candidates for the Four Shadows program, I was chosen because I was naturally good at concealing my presence.” She explained, lowering her eyes to the ground. “Each shadow had a different training regimen. The Golden… sorry, Lena had to undertake various trials to earn as many divinities as she could. The Red Shadow was sent to battlefields and made to devour the ki of his targets. The Black Shadow was locked in an underground library.”

“Meanwhile, I was injected with an experimental energy core that the ninja clans had been working on. It was supposed to be the ultimate energy for infiltration and assassination. However, it hadn’t been tested yet, so its effects were purely theoretical, assumed from its base structure. That’s why they weren’t able to prepare me for it.”

“After I was injected with the energy, I subconsciously activated it in a moment of pain. Everyone in the room was affected. The scientists, the guards… my father. They all forgot about me. Worse, the identities of the Four Shadows had been expunged from all records, so there was no trace of who I was, aside from the program. My father forgot that I was his daughter. However, he never lost a father’s instincts… he always felt like he had a daughter.”

“Just… there was nobody to help me control my power. Whenever it went off subconsciously, people would forget all about me. So, every time, it was like I was a stranger to him. Meanwhile, Lena was there from the start, and he never forgot her. So, he treated her like she was his adopted daughter. I-It’s not like he ignored me or anything. My father was still always nice to me, too. He just couldn’t remember who I was.”

Scarlet nodded her head at that, stroking Charle’s back gently. “That’s… I feel like saying unfortunate would be an unfortunate understatement.” She muttered softly, though that earned a small chuckle out of Charle.

“Yeah. So… I focused on my missions. Whenever it came to training, I insisted that transcripts were kept, and everything was written down as much as possible, even if I assumed they’d just burn it all later. Do you have any idea how infuriating it is to have the same conversation with someone five times in a single day? Eventually, I just kind of grew numb to it, I guess?” She said with a shrug.

“It’s… kind of funny, really. Vespa thought Lena was such a big threat because she could impersonate anyone. But, I can walk up to someone in a group of people, stab them in the heart, and just walk away. And nobody would ever know that I was there. The only reason Lena got targeted the way she did was because nobody remembered what I could do enough to understand my abilities.”

“Maybe that was my fault, too… Just like how my father still had his paternal instincts, and accepted Lena as his daughter because he kept forgetting me, the higher ups realized that there was a danger in the shadows. But, since they kept forgetting me too, they just assumed that the danger was Lena. I was just a ghost, a title in a file and an emergency contact for missions that needed absolute stealth.”

Scarlet gave another nod, before tilting her head. “If I can ask, why wouldn’t Lena know your name? She can take on the memories of a person that she turns into, after all. And with Lena’s obsession with names, I can’t imagine her refusing to say yours. Especially since she seemed to respect you a lot.”

Charle blinked at that, seeming confused as well. “I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the Forgetting Flash? That’s the name of the energy. I never had a way to really study it in detail, since everyone I tested it with forgot the details of the test… and the person that they were testing with.”

Scarlet pursed her lips, but realized there wouldn’t be an easy way to get an answer for this. “Okay, then. Charle, I have two options for you to control your power. First of all, I could send you to a research facility, where they could make a device capable of either extracting your energy core or restraining it so that you don’t activate it subconsciously.”

Charle’s shoulders trembled at the mention of a research facility, so Scarlet had the distinct impression that she wouldn’t choose that option. “The second option will be more difficult. I will personally train you. I will force you to learn how to control this power and make it your own. After all, I won’t forget about you during the training.”

Charle had a bad feeling about this, but gulped and looked up. “How… would you force me to learn?”

At that, Scarlet’s eyes turned crimson, and the world around them seemed to redden as her smile grew menacing. “Your clans had an old custom dating back to ancient times that I quite liked the name of. It’s very fitting for me, don’t you think? The Trial of Blood.”