“We’re here!”
Nier said as he looked at the large building to the side. It was a skyscraper, of course, and a damn large one. Dark glass and grey metal beams polished the outside, and it reached about sixty floors up, give or take.
On the other hand, given what this place was as a whole, you would see odd-looking people here.
Hestas and Corrupt filled the place as a whole.
As such, some of the people here looked completely normal, minus the fact that Nier could literally sense Gaian energy in those normal-looking Hestas, as much as he could sense the Gaian energy in the more uncanny or inhuman-looking ones.
For example, he looked at a tall and muscular man with gold-colored skin that shone brightly in the sun. He was at least seven feet tall, and even his hair was golden.
He wore nothing but black posing trunks. Using his Occultist eyes, he looked at the man to get information on him and the others here.
Naturally, he made it so that only the important bits of information were visible. Above their heads, colored in red, what he saw was as follows.
For the man with the full gold-colored body, his information was as such.
Name: Wuan Zohma
Age: 19
Ethnicity: Half Black/Half Chinese
Alignment: Neutral Good
Race: Hesta
Level: 1
Ability Synopsis: Gold Exterior is the name given to this power by Wuan Zohma. It is a Fortitudo-type Hesta ability. The user has the ability to turn his entire body into gold without worrying about mobility issues. They also exhibit the power to turn anything that is flesh into gold. Naturally, the gold Wuan can create is 100% pure and is supernaturally strong to the point that bullets struggle to make even a dent; as such, firearms with more force are required to harm him.
Nier continued to look, this time at a small-looking girl. She was petite and had brown-colored hair fashioned in a bob cut.
Her skin was white, but a horn sprouted above her head, almost like a crown that curled around her head. As it growled from left and sprouted up from the right.
She wore a cute-looking blue dress, but something about her gave Nier a bad feeling. And after checking her information, Nier instantly found out why.
Name: Sera Perez
Age: 21
Ethnicity: Aelorian
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Race: Hesta (Corrupt)
Level: 2
Ability Synopsis: Sera Perez, once a normal college student, had a run-in with a Wendigo, a Class Blue Flux that only eats the flesh of young people. In that confrontation, she awakened as a Hesta, unlocking the ability “Unalive.” Whenever Sera is killed by a person, she comes back from the dead with a trait from the very thing that killed her, albeit mutated differently from the original. As such, after resurrecting and surviving the attack, she came back with Wendigo horns that allow her to control heat and teleport to places that are either extremely hot or extremely cold. At her current level, she has four lives, meaning she can come back from the dead four more times a day before she runs out of energy, and can be killed for good.
‘That is pretty OP, to be honest… A lot of these Hestas are OP to a degree, too. Haha, still look at them, all bunching up like lambs, begging to get tested to become a hero. Bunch of fools. Still… I need the license if I am going to hunt legally, that way, I can avoid public safety if I am ever caught.’
Nier said to himself, as he kept scanning, more and more; however, as he continued, he quickly noticed. Level 1 auras flickered basically everywhere, pale candle flames in a storm. A handful glowed a touch brighter, signifying their Level 2 status, but beyond that, there was no one stronger than that.
Unless you consider.
Nier turned, his eyes on the beautiful blonde. She was a level 2, or rather, she could pass for a level 3; he, too, could sense it. Bella was on the edge of her next evolution.
Nier noticed this for a while now, and they did talk about this earlier as well, but without a doubt, Bella is the strongest Hesta here.
Bella tilted her head, one brow arched, as she asked, puzzled as to why Nier looked at her.
“Do I have something on my face, or something!?”
He blinked once, then a short laugh escaped him.
“Haha, No! No! Sorry. I’m… not big on crowds. I don’t leave the den much, so I am a little nervous you could say, since this is the first time I’ve seen this many Hestas in one place, it’s kind of…
“Disappointing?”
She finished his line, as she knew he was bullshitting.
Bella knew to a degree that Nier can sense Gaian and Flux energy.
Just like any other Hesta can, despite not being a Hesta himself.
Rather, she could sense, no, see the disappointment as clear as day on his face.
“You don’t need to lie to me, you know, I think I know you enough to at the very least be able to tell when you’re disappointed at first glance.”
“Was it really such a dead giveaway?”
Nier questioned, and Bella nodded her head.
“For me at least, it was.”
Hearing this, he smiled faintly as he began to voice his opinion.
“I gotta give it to you, you’re quite perceptive, but yeah, you’re right. I am disappointed, I can sense each of their Gaian energy. And if I am being honest, it’s… thin. Like watered wine thin.”
Bella leaned against the car seat, arms behind her head, as she basically gave Nier the harsh truth of reality when it comes to the power structures of the Hestas.
“Well, if I am being honest, Nier, most Hestas at first glance would hardly be anything worth mentioning. The truth is, Nier, most Hestas never reach level 2.”
“What!? Are you for real?”
Nier asked, a little surprised by Bella’s words.
“Of course I am for real, why else would I be telling you? But still, ninety percent of the time, Hestas typically die in their first week on the job.”
“If not by a more experienced Hesta, or I guess they go by witches or sorcerer as a more modern term by the public. They will either be ripped apart, burned, smashed, eaten alive, violated on the field, or go completely missing when fighting against Fluxes.”
“For example, you know why Public Safety looks so untouchable on the TV whenever they show their skills live? Or when their hunt is caught by onlookers and posted on the internet?”
Bella asked, and Marcy listened despite not saying a word since the conversation between the two started.
“Why?”
Nier finally asked, and Bella continued with her response by saying.
“It is because every last one of them is a veteran, or an ex-hero who clawed their way up the ladder before swapping the cape for a badge.”
She flicked a glance at the nearest cluster of rookies, then back to him.
“Those monsters you see on TV? The ones curb-stomping Flux left and right, or the heroes solving crises like it is your typical Tuesday? Those motherfuckers you are watching are quite literally the top 0.5%. The rest are just Cannon fodder.”
“Hell, only if you knew how rare some of these higher-level Hestas truly are when compared to the normal Hestas around them… It’s only after reaching level three that you can be considered a true Hesta. Level 3 is when you completely shed the limits of your humanity, breaking the laws of nature in unorthodox ways.”
Nier’s eyes narrowed at Bella glazing, as he questioned.
“How rare are we talking about in terms of higher-level Hestas when compared to the lower-level ones?”
Bella’s grin turned wolfish in that moment as she began to explain.
“Hahahaha, how do I answer this? Well, I will just answer it the same way my mom answered me when I was first learning about the Hesta as well. Level one is the most common; still, only 3% our total global population was able to achieve an awakening. But just because you became something more than human, you’re put right back on the hierarchy ladder with the best of them.”
“Just to hit Level 2, the odds are one in twenty. Level 3? One in five thousand. Level 4? One in two hundred thousand. Level 5, the final stage? And the absolute peak a Hesta can reach, the ultimate state, is one in a fucking million. Out of seventeen billion souls on Gaia, only three percent ever awaken at all. You do the maths, and that will give you a clear estimate of how fucking powerful the absolute monsters of our world truly are.”
Nier whistled low.
“Yeah, I see… By the way, quick question…you guys know Lady Blue, right?”
“Who the hell doesn’t know Lady Blue?”
Marcy jumped in, and Bella answered.
“I’m with the goth here. Yeah, who doesn’t know her?”
Marcy shot Bella a dirty look for comparing her to a goth again, but tried to keep her temper cool.
Instead, her focus went back to Nier; she was curious why he had asked that.
“By chance, do you guys know what her powers are?”
“Ohh, sadly no… I do know it’s something to do with movement, though. From what I’ve seen, pers…
“Her power is the ability to ignore and manipulate Newton’s first law.”
Marcy said before Nier could finish speaking, taking the two by surprise. This then caused Nier to look at her and said.
“How the hell do you even know that?”
“Yeah, goth girl, it’s not good to make up false news, you know.”
“I am not making up shit.”
Marcy argued, defending herself, while Nier asked nicely.
“Then how do you know that?”
But the answer Nier got took him by a magnitude of surprises.
“Sheesh, you two definitely live under a fucking rock, or have no social media life whatsoever. Just take a look for yourself.”
Marcy said, handing Nier her phone, as Bella looked at the screen, equally shocked, and Marcy bent forward from the back seat, pointing her fingers at the screen.
“She has a massive fan club called the Blue-Comet. It is essentially a super-serious fan club comprised of comic book enthusiasts and diehard fans. Their movement is so massive that not even the K-pop community wants to fuck with them; hell, it’s so big to the point that it can be considered its own cult at this point.”
“These guys are her stalkers, basically. They live just to watch Lady Blue in action, and on their fan club’s public page, they explained that Lady Blue’s power is to manipulate inertia on a cosmic scale, and at a supernatural level…although take this with a grain of salt; it could be something else.
However, keep in mind that in the past, they attempted to delete their pages multiple times, but they continued to create new ones until they finally established their own website to host the club. So it’s a pretty reliable source of information. If the government went to such lengths to silence them, but failed.”
