The Last Dainv-Chapter 71

The Last Dainv-Chapter 71

Gale climbed up the metal steps of the cramped apartment. Elevator was out of service. This whole place was arranged by the Path, but it's been like that ever since he moved in. A bare bones set up in an aging building on McCowan and Eglinton.
He reached the 6th floor and inserted his key into unit 608. It got stuck. Sometimes, it would just work, and sometimes it needed the usual wiggle-and-twist technique he perfected over the last week.
Entering his unit, he plopped the bag over to his bed that was pushed against the wall to the left. Its gray sheets crumpled loudly, still crisp from the store. A wooden desk sat at the other side of the wall from his bed. On top of it, an old laptop that looked to be almost more than 10 years old, given by Emmerson as a 'donation.' A folding table beside it served as the dining table, and on it, a one stove burner that needed gas canisters to cook. On either side of the table sat two mismatched folding chairs.
He sat down in front of the laptop. It turned on, revealing the pages of nonsense he'd been searching the night before. Blurry photos of people arguing whether the photo had a ghost or not. He couldn't even see the face that people were pointing to in the image.
There had to be something out there that revealed the nature of Aur. A society that big can't possibly just exist in the shadows.
'Supernatural incidents in Toronto 2068,' he typed into the search bar. That was last year. There's got to be something, except there wasn't.
The search results just returned either top 10 lists or people talking about their supernatural experiences. No actual proof, just users telling stories to each other and validating each other or having stupid arguments.
One post talked about the Old Finch Avenue Bridge ghost. There were multiple people that confirmed sightings of a ghost in that post. However, if it's the Aur he knows, such mundanes won't be able to escape an entity like that unharmed. There were also no pictures. Again, another dead end.
Come on. How are people on Aur getting away with their bs? But even no one found about those two kids in the classroom using their… abilities or however they call it in Aur.
A loud sudden bang of a door made him jump out of his seat. In one quick motion, he had the Weber blade out already from the storage box as he took on an offensive stance, looking above him where the bang came from.
Relax, Gale. It was just some idiot closing his door really loud. Probably the idiot who was going through a divorce too.
He could hear everything in the building. Every day became a struggle as he tried to suppress Breath of the Void. At night, it was even harder with people's 'night activities.' Making so much useless noise would've attracted predators out in the open. A quick way to be in the belly of a bear.
There were books that Gale had read before that had superheroes with extreme senses. How did that hero suppress such an ability to live a normal life by day? And in this reality, there was no clear cut villain he could just punch and send to jail. Now it made sense what Emmerson said. He had to keep himself suppressed while going grocery shopping. It was exhausting.
He tried sitting back down on the chair, but sighed as he looked at it. The chair had bent slightly sideways, damaged from the sudden jolt earlier. He tried sitting on it anyways, and surprisingly, it still held itself together. If it fell apart, he could probably just take apart some of the floorboards and make a chair out of them. The Path agents probably wouldn't even notice.
Looking back at his laptop, his browser history showed:
[how to get G.E.D without ID]
[jobs that don't check background]
[ways to make money under the table]
[cash jobs, no ged]
Those were all basically the same keywords, and Gale couldn't think of any other flavour of those sets of words.
In one year, this apartment would be handed back to the Path. They had only rented it out to him for free for a year. He needed to think of a way to get income, but thinking was all he seemed to do lately. About what he went through, what he lost in the 10 years of disappearing, what powers he gained. None of them seemed to lead to 'what to do next,' though.
If someone ever asked him 'how are you', all he can really say is just 'survivin', and that was in the most literal sense possible.
A notification slid into the right side notification bar. Gale didn't need to open it to know that it was another rejection from an online job application. Whatever the reason was, it was easier to think that it was all because of his documentation.
His eyes caught onto the phone beside the laptop. Just one call to end all this misery. A single call to either Carl or Emmerson would give him a way easier life than he could ever imagine. He'd have a routine to follow, probably a training regimen to do cool Aur stuff… whatever they do. Most importantly, it'll answer a lot of questions about
whatever this is.
Gale opened a blank tab and immediately typed 'spiderman real life hero crime fighting'. The results showed cosplayers of different sizes with not much muscular definition. Stunt videos showed up.
Clicking on one of them, it showed some guy doing parkour in a Spiderman outfit. It couldn't even be called parkour. It was too slow and clunky. Form was bad too. The video would probably amaze him before the rift. Now it just looked like a baby trying to walk.
He minimized the browser, revealing his desktop's default background. Even that felt wrong. A generic meadow landscape that could be anywhere. Just like this apartment.
How would Ollie, Rachel, and Annett think of how he's living now. Did they remember him?
I miss them.
It was the first time he ever missed anyone other than his parents. If he remembered correctly, Rachel was from some kind of family in Aur. Didn't know what that even meant though.
Gale imagined meeting her after coming back. She'd smile at him and then they could talk about the stuff like hiking and reading books. The fun stuff that she wanted to do. He'd also share with her the titles of his favourite books and find them in the library for her to read.
Breath of the Void picked up movement in the hallway. Someone walked past his door. Their signature was clear, different from the blurry mundane signatures that felt more like nothing. Probably one of the Path's watchers, keeping tabs on him. Making sure their investment was intact.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
I can't even buy anything outside anyways. Can't even buy McDonald's from across the street. What's the point of keeping tabs on me?
Gale typed in another search term on the browser bar 'time travel unexplained cases.' However, these proved to be even more useless. It was just a bunch of conspiracy theories and sci-fi fanfic. Nothing about rifts or time skips or people returning after being lost for a long time and how those people managed to get a job after.
His stomach growled suddenly. That McDs from downstairs sounded good right about now.
The kitchen area beside the folding table only had a sink, a mini fridge, and a microwave. There was nothing in the fridge other than three water bottles, half a loaf of bread, and two instant noodle cups.
A friend would tell him he should go grocery shopping. Shopping meant money. Money meant jobs. Jobs meant papers. Papers meant questions. Questions meant questions he couldn't answer.
Deep breaths, Gale. Deep breaths. You just had it way too easy in the orphanage. Food was provided, even if it was slop. No point in running off to the forest now when this thing called
the Path
is out there watching your every move. The forest also wouldn't give him his G.E.D.
…And without a G.E.D, how the hell is he going to get a job!?
Gale's arm flailed down and his head plopped backwards. The ceiling was stained with brown water marks. Surprisingly, there was no mould.
A spike of ether caught his attention, fed by Breath of the Void. Something was happening just three blocks over. A surge of energy he hadn't felt since the Eclipsed.
His leg started shaking. He should do something. It was probably a bad guy doing something bad to a good guy. But he forced himself to stay in his chair. That wasn't his problem. He wasn't a hero. He was just a normal guy trying to get a normal education at the ripe old age of 28.
Another signature entered the fray where the original surge was. Now it was two energies that fought against each other. A spike in both the signatures made both of his legs shake, itching to go over there and see what's happening.
And then it vanished. Someone handled it. A Path agent probably. They had systems in place, teams ready to respond to any criminal activities by Aurians. They didn't need him. Heroes didn't exist in real life, not even in this new fantasy version of it.
Before he knew it, the sun had already gone down and the city lights had turned on. Gale slammed his laptop shut. The shaking leg wouldn't stop. The walls of his apartment felt even more cramped than the prison of the orphanage. He needed to do something now.
Essence flowed through his pathways, activating Distort. The air around him rippled like heatwaves off a summer pavement, bending the light away from his skin and making him nigh invisible. Phase Touch on his whole self followed, spreading into his baggy gray hoodie and baggy faded jeans.
He didn't bother with the door. Three steps and he passed through the wall, emerging onto the fire escape. He let himself drop through the metal grating, descending three stories in a controlled fall. His feet met concrete without a sound.
McCowan and Eglinton spread before him. Any direction would do as long as it could calm him down, and Gale ran.
His legs carried him past convenience stores with flickering neon signs, through alleys reeking of garbage and stale beer. Each stride lengthened as he pushed harder, faster, trying to outrun the thoughts that chased him.
Past the sleazy motels of Kingston and now through the forested neighbourhoods of Port Union, his lungs burned, welcoming the feeling of being alive. It felt real in a way that paperwork and G.E.D certificates didn't.
The essence drained ticked down at the left bottom corner of his eyes. Maintaining both Distort and Phase Touch cost him, but this was no longer the world where he needed to maintain a healthy amount of it. There were no threats lurking around every corner. He analyzed everything that went through, showing him everything he already knew about the mundane environment.
He knew instinctively he was heading east. Always east until the city's density began to thin further from the suburbs.
Oshawa's outskirts came into view before him. His legs felt refreshed after not having run that much since the dark forest, and the cool night air went into his lungs differently from the damp coldness he was used to.
He stood before an old warehouse. Metal sides rusted by decades of rain, snow, and sun. There was something odd about this warehouse. Something about it felt wrong. He didn't need Breath of the Void to tell him the patterns of conflict that had happened here. Bullet holes peppered the walls, recent ones, yet the area was clean.
Gale straightened, studying the structure. No security lights. No cameras. The parking lot sat empty except for scattered leaves and broken glass. The warehouse bore signs of recent activity.
[Hydrogen Peroxide residue.]
That confirmed it. Someone had cleaned this up thoroughly for some reason.
He phased through the loading dock door, emerging into darkness broken only by thin strips of moonlight through gunshot holes on the roof. Shipping containers littered the area in nonsensical ways. They weren't stacked or stored side by side. They were just in a random arrangement for some reason. Floors were also cleaned, showing no trace of whatever happened here,
but the walls remembered.
[Analyzing Conflict sequence.]
Analysis highlighted details others might miss. It was a fight between a group of men and a single person, case in point by the group of men having the same rifles while there was one odd bullet hole pattern that was different from the rest.
Analysis also showed blood had been cleaned away, professionally, leaving behind only bleach wiped on the floor. Someone wanted this place to look abandoned while erasing all evidence of anything that had been in here, and they did it
good.
The bullet holes showed a firefight, but a controlled one. Single shots. Double taps. Both sides were professional. No spray-and-pray until probably the final confrontation that showed wild firing from one side and a broken wall.
Gale moved deeper into the warehouse, phasing through the empty shipping containers without disturbing the scenery.
He moved to the warehouse just beside the one he was in. This one looked more normal, except for the two bullet holes in the main office inside the warehouse. Inside was clean too.
Analysis showed a high caliber gun had shot the two bullet holes in quick succession. That was it. Nothing else other than more bleach residue.
It was the first time he saw clearly what conflict would be like in this world. A world where guns dominated, like Ollie's homing pistol bullet things.
Would he have been able to win against the people who fought in this place? He didn't want to try. It was smarter to not find out what would happen. Probably observe first, gauge the opponent like what he did with that first predator.
Getting strong was non-negotiable, but not to protect himself from threats. Vianne and the dark knight did say some kind of tide was coming. There was corruption taking over the entirety of existence. One way or another, he'd be the one facing it alone or not alone.
Would what happened to the Eclipsed happen to Earth too?
Gale clenched his fist. This place was the place where Ollie, Rachel, and Annett lived. Hell if he was going to let corruption just take over like that.
He spread out the tendrils of his void's breath. He needed to know if there was anyone near.
None.
It was the perfect place to practice Dainv Sword Arts. Before that, Gale opened up his status screen.
...
Name: Gale Hathie
Race: Dainv
Core Class: Awakened
Core Density: 11/12
Core Attributes: [
Max Load: 50
Efficiency: 10
Essence: 62/150
]
Skills:
[Phase Touch Lv.3][Alter Lv.2][Distort Lv.3]
Passives:
[Breath of the Void Lv.2][Dainv Spear Arts Lv.1][Essence Control Lv.1][Dainv Sword Arts Lv.2]
[Available Rewards:]
[First Codex Entry Chest]
…
He had gotten much stronger than before. When he fought the dark knight at the last battle, he felt the big difference between Lv. 3 and Lv. 4. The feeling of that power was something he wanted to experience again.
Then, something caught his eye at the last part of his status.
[First Codex Entry Chest]
What the hell is this?

Chapter 71