Chapter 50: Expulsion

His heartbeat slowed, More and more until It steadied itself.

Beneath the chaos, beneath the entities, the burning ropes and the agony in his side and the blistered skin on his wrists, there was still him. It was his body, His mind, His Route core and definitely His spiritual energy. Why were they trying to take control?

He was tired.

Tired of being directed, tired of never having a say in his life, done with people playing with him like a puppet.

And he was tired of being buried.

Makun didn’t pull consciously. He didn’t think, or need to do anything to expel them. His body, his soul, just did it.

Like coughing up water after nearly drowning.

His spiritual body contracted.

Everything that was him, his will, his memory, his rage, his pain, collapsed inward, pulled toward the Core like gravity dragging debris into a black hole.

And the entities, already weakened by the ropes, already destabilized and burning, couldn’t hold on.

One by one, they were torn away.

Ripped from his ribs and expelled from his lungs.

They screamed the whole way out.

The black smoke around Makun’s body exploded outward in a burst of chaotic energy. The demonic faces stretched impossibly wide, mouths open in silent shrieks, before some dissolved like mist in sunlight while others were dragged back into the Deep through the closing crack.

The flames on his torso flickered, then died.

The ropes blazed brighter for half a second, purging the last traces of entity residue, then finally dimmed.

Makun’s body went limp.

Ryan gasped, releasing the binding with a sharp exhale. The ropes vanished. Makun collapsed forward, hitting the ground hard.

Thud.

He fell face-first, his mouth landing on the wet ground, full of leaves and insects. Blood pooled beneath him, his own this time, not the entities’.

His side was still bleeding, His hand was charred black and his skin was cracked and blistered. His wrists and throat were marked with burnt, blackened bands where the ropes had touched him while his breath came in shallow with ragged gasps.

But the voices were gone.

The hunger was gone.

For the first time since he returned to his body from the Veil, Makun’s head was quiet.

Mark limped forward, gun still raised, eyes scanning Makun’s prone body.

Ryan stepped closer, breathing hard, hands still trembling. “Is it done?”

He was a third-grade Initiate similar to Mark, however compared to Mark who had worked in areas full of bizarre phenomena before when he was younger with hopes of making it all the way up to the Eternal tier, Ryan, who was still young, in his twenties and positioned in Naija City, was inexperienced.

Nothing ever happened in Naija City. Their days here were leisurely. The most they did was manage rogue practitioners, walk around the city patrolling looking for some bizzare event that never happened.

Or they waited for the AI to send in a message Like it did today, but that too was a rare occasion for the VEB.

That was why what happened today shook Ryan.

He saw up close how Mark had been beaten to a pulp and laid to waste on the ground, his ribs broken and his body battered beyond what a first-grade Initiate should be capable of inflicting.

“He’s unconscious. Not dead.” Mark crouched slowly, wincing as his ribs protested. He reached out, two fingers pressing against Makun’s neck.

He felt Makun’s pulse. Weak, but steady.

Mark’s jaw tightened. It was his first time witnessing such a thing after initiation.

Initiation rarely went wrong. The crack that usually formed between the Deep and the physical realm was very tiny, tiny enough to only provide access to the practitioner, nothing else.

Also the time it took for the Route core to form was never long. It was very fast.

However when it did go wrong, people were in danger.

But that was still manageable. Third-grade Initiates like them could take care of the situation, and not everyone got possessed.

Today, this Berserk Warrior was really strong for someone that just got initiated.

He is not normal. There is something peculiar about him, Mark thought.

Usually the presence of a Master or other practitioners was necessary during an initiation, exactly because of this situation. If something went wrong, they had the ability to support or suppress whatever came through, acting as anchors, keeping your body grounded in the physical world.

He pulled his hand back and looked at Ryan.

“He expelled them.”

Ryan blinked. “What?”

“The entities. He forced them out. During the binding.”

“That’s not…” Ryan shook his head. “He’s Tier 1. First-grade and newly awakened. He shouldn’t be able to—”

“But he did.”

Silence.

Mark straightened slowly, still staring down at Makun. His expression was unreadable. The anger he had earlier had dissipated, mostly because the mother and daughter were now safe.

No, his expression was full of calculation.

“Celine,” he said, not looking away. “Memory wipe on the civilians. Standard trauma suppression. Make it clean.”

Earlier after reaching the scene, they had made use of a device similar to the Phase Veil charm, however that device worked on a larger space and it was given by the Suppression Bureau to its different branches with hopes to prevent people from witnessing mystic altercations.

After making sure the mother and child wouldn’t be exposed anymore, they had to take care of what they had already seen, and that was Celine’s job.

Celine was a third-grade Initiate Healer. She had not yet been specialized into a sub-route, however she could feel herself slowly becoming a Mental Healer, granting her abilities to manipulate memory.

It was not perfect yet, but it could take care of a few normal people.

The female voice from earlier, still unseen, responded from somewhere near the golden barrier.

“Already done, sir. They’ll remember a gas leak. Hallucinations. The dog will be chalked up to animal attack. Clean.”

“Good.” Mark’s hand tightened on his gun. He raised it slowly, barrel pointing at the back of Makun’s head.

Ryan’s eyes widened. “Wait, wait Mark!!He’s not possessed anymore, He’s just…”

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