by Ink Bamboo
Several years ago, their church underwent a massive change. Most of the important clerics and followers had chosen to sacrifice their lives in a massive ritual, leaving only a few of them behind to take care of the church.
Fortunately for them, an old priest had stayed behind to take the role of leading them down their current path. On their own, they would’ve had little chance of surviving. Now, given the sacrifice made by their peers, there was an abundance of resources left in their vaults, opening a path for them to grow at a speed bound only by their talent and comprehension.
They were currently in the forest for an important mission. Based on the prophecy of a seer, traces of their god’s legacy would be found in these lands, allowing their church to once again soar back the place it deserved. Of course, the man and woman felt pride at being entrusted this task. They had been chosen above all their fellow disciples after all.
That being said, the lack of results they had achieved so far did little to please them. The wolf confirmed the legacy was real, for it carried an uncanny energy of death that should not have manifested naturally. However, that only increased their worries. Just what happened to the legacy they were after?
After searching the southern parts of the forest to no avail, they started making their way north. Everything was uneventful until they arrived at a village an hour away from where they had found the wolf and the mercenaries. The stench of death in the village still hadn’t faded, and the scene of carnage depicted by the blood on the earth was sufficiently vivid for both of them to realize what had happened there.
“Massacre?” asked the cloaked female. Her silver hair did little to hide the excitement in her eyes.
“Must’ve been,” said the man to her side. His eyes were fixed on the village as if he was looking for something.
After dismounting and tying their horses to a tree, both of them made their way inside. The first thing to greet them was a group of bodies lying around, lifeless. Their appearance was similar to the dead men they found together with the undead wolf — that of common mercenaries covered in poorly crafted leather armor. The fact that their make-shift armor remained unscathed was particularly strange.
“This is weird,” said the burly man. His lifeless eyes gazed at the group of bodies only to realize most of them hadn’t even drawn their weapons. “What do you think happened here?”
“I’m guessing they pissed off someone they shouldn’t have,” said the woman to his side as she removed her hand from a dead body. Her pale fingers were now covered in a black miasma, making it look like she was wearing dark, translucent gloves. “These people died a true death.”
Her partner froze for a moment after hearing those words. “A true death?” he asked, his tone filled with skepticism. “The amount of effort required to give someone a true death is no small deal. Are you sure someone did that to a group this big?”
“Yes, they died from damage to their souls,” she said. “There is no puncture damage to their bodies, no signs of poison, no blunt damage, nothing. What’s more, there aren’t any lingering desires attached to their bodies. Only true death can do something like this.”
Normally, after someone died and their soul moved on, their body would be left with vestiges of their experiences during life. Whether they had experienced unrequited love, had an unaccomplished goal, or wanted revenge on someone, all those feelings would coalesce into an essence that would stay behind with their body. The fact that the bodies of those mercenaries had no such thing left on them could only mean one thing: they had ceased to exist.
The man gasped in shock at his partner's words. He walked towards the bodies and carried on the same analysis as the girl before ultimately confirming that his partner was right. How? How on earth was someone able to perform so many true deaths with such ease? He couldn’t help but think this had something to do with the legacy they were after.
“Do you believe someone found the legacy before us?” he asked.
The cloaked woman pondered his question for a second before answering. “I would like to think that isn’t the case. There are very few seers able to divine a legacy outside the boundaries of their faith,” she said. “Moreover, I refuse to believe there is someone able to perform something of this scale without divine intervention. Not in this kingdom, anyway.”
The man couldn’t help but agree with his partner’s words. Despite being a little insane, she was recognized as someone with great potential in their order. Since that was the case, they were better off acting like someone had received their legacy before them.
“Should we keep heading north?” he asked.
After pondering it for a moment, she shook her head in reply. “I’d like to check the rest of the town. What’s more, I have some use for these bodies.”
“What are you planning to do?”
The girl smirked. “It would be a waste to leave all these ownerless toys lying around, wouldn’t it?”
The man’s eyes widened at her words. The path of death was broad and thus boasted quite a staggering variety of subjects, ones that could enlighten their followers on its many mysteries. While he had studied the realm of poisons, it was only one out of countless others such as assassination, combat, necromancy, and curses.
He knew his partner was skilled in the last two, so he decided to leave her to her own devices while he scoured the rest of the town. He had better things to do. Seeing her play with the corpses was not as important as gathering more information regarding their mission’s objective.
Eventually, the woman started moving the corpses next to each other while whistling tunes and hymns from her faith. The excitement she displayed while doing so was reminiscent of a child playing with dolls. A normal human’s aversion to death was nowhere to be found on her. On the contrary, her touch upon the corpses looked more humane than the way most humans treated each other.
Seeing her focused on her own ‘games’, the man made his way to search for clues around the settlement. He knew finding something useful might take a while. Although the settlement wasn’t that big, a proper amount of attention to detail was needed given the importance of their task.
Slowly, he examined every home and building. Aside from the blood covering some trails, the broken doors, and the flattened farmland, everything he could see seemed to be in order. At least, that was the case until he saw what seemed to be a makeshift graveyard.
“Interesting,” he said to himself. Using his hands, he brushed away the soil above each grave, only to realize that they had been made quite recently. The soil was still loose, showing the elements of nature hadn’t had the time to pound it into place.
These graves were the ones dug by Amro for the villagers. Given the time he had and the physical constraints of his body, most of them had been buried at a shallow depth. Hi actions were more of a token for the dead than a true, proper burial.
Dead mercenaries and buried villagers, thought the man. Is the one responsible for bringing true death to the mercenaries the same person responsible for burying these villagers?
It was an oddly compelling thought, one his instincts fully supported.
The man took off the pauldron covering his left shoulder, using it to dig up one of the mounds. The act of desecrating a grave was not beneath him, for he had done it several times already in the past.
After a few minutes of digging, he was able to pull out a body from the grave. It was the remains of a middle-aged woman. Tall boots, a heavy apron, and plenty of cuts on her hands told her a story of her life’s work.
“She was probably a butcher.”
After taking a look at her, he placed the corpse aside. It was time to get dirty. The man’s lifeless eyes seemed to glimmer with a black light as he covered his hand with the same dark miasma his partner had used.
This was the nature of his own aura, something born from the affinity of his soul. Unlike his partner, he wasn’t that skilled at using this technique. However, given that she would be playing w
ith her toys for a while, he had no other choice but to examine the body himself.
His hands dug into the butcher’s rib cage, a series of different reactions occurring to the miasma in his hand. He felt resentment, sadness, and frustration coming from the woman’s body. All of them were traces of the negative emotions that should have overwhelmed her before her death. However, amongst them all, he could also feel something else. Something hidden deep within her.
He focused on the alien feeling as he tried to use his aura to sense and identify it. A few moments later, he finally managed to place what that feeling was. Hope. Something that had no reason to be in her lingering soul. Something that had probably been placed there after the time of her death.
Such a grotesque emotion, he thought to himself. There are no uses for it. Hope alone can’t change someone's fate, only power is capable of such a feat.
Moving forwards, the burly man decided to keep carrying on his analysis.
“These people were killed by physical methods it seems. They look nothing like the mercenaries from before.” Of course, that much was obvious given that the body was covered in cuts and bruises seemed to prove this point.
“Perhaps, the death of this woman and the rest buried over here was under the hands of the mercenaries’ weapons. It is then reasonable to think that whoever had dealt with the mercenaries also buried these corpses. Could there be a relationship between them?”
“That must be it,” he said, reassuring himself of his own conclusion. Without any further delay, he hauled the butcher's body over his shoulder, ignoring the fluids spreading over his cloak. It was probably better to have his partner look over it.
“Noelle!” he said. “Look at what I found.”
The silver-haired woman turned back, an annoyed look on her face. She had been inscribing symbols over the dead bodies of the mercenaries, too busy to worry over her partner’s actions.
“What is it?” she asked. It took her a moment before she noticed the body hanging over the man’s shoulder. Immediately, she stood up and examined the body, barely letting her partner place it on the ground.
“Oh,” she said. Her expression turned into one of curiosity as she placed her delicate hands over the dead butcher’s body. After a few moments, her face contorted into many expressions, before it finally settled onto a look of confusion.
“So many feelings,” she noted. “I like the taste of her despair the best. It looks like she experienced a lot of it before dying.”
A wicked smile painted her face as she continued, “However, I can’t help but feel that this corpse was meddled with after her death. It’s like someone helped dislodge part of the lingering attachments it had. Had you not brought it to me and with enough time, this soul might have been able to move on its own, eventually entering the cycle of reincarnation.”
Finishing her analysis, Noelle stood up and wiped the dust from her knees. “It seems like whoever played with our friends over here also had an interest toward the residents of this little village.”
The man nodded his head. As expected from his partner, she quickly arrived at the same conclusion he had.
A glint of mischievousness appeared on Noelle’s eyes. Slowly, she extended an offer her partner found hard to refuse. “Bernard, I do have an idea for something quite fun. I’ll need your help. Can you tell me whether there any more bodies from where you took this one?”
“Yes, there were at least another few dozen graves,” he answered.
The smile on the woman’s face seemed to widen, just like a child discovering that their favorite shop had more than one aisle.
“That’s so much better. Bring me all of their bodies, I’ll use them to track down the one responsible for all of this. There’s a high chance he’s carrying our lord’s legacy with him.”
The man’s lifeless gaze seemed to regain all of his vitality for a quick second. Nothing could excite him more than the notion of being useful to his church.
“I’ll start digging then,” he said. He had already removed his other shoulder pad in order to double his digging speed.
“You do that, I’ll finish attaching the strings to my new puppets,” Noelle answered. Even before her partner had left, she had already knelt beside the bodies of the mercenaries to continue with her work.
“We’ll meet you soon.”
Chapter 22
Beliefs.
While deep undercurrents were assaulting the forest and the noble’s district, celebration reigned through the slums of Sol. The building that belonged to Zaros’s gang was filled to the brim with residents of the slums celebrating their victory. Amongst them, only a few had refrained from participating in the festivities. They weren’t the kind to reject free food without a good reason.
Nevertheless, a very select group had refused to participate. They were the slums’ leaders who had met together with Zaros in order to discuss the events that led to the celebrations. Two figures, however, felt deeply out of place. Alexander and Maria. Many had insisted they had to be present given how the events from that day were so deeply related to them.
“I know I’m in no place to say this, but they won’t stay still after all of this,” said Alexander. His brows were furrowed while his face was slightly pale.
After rescuing his sister, he began realizing the consequences of his actions. Back when they were in the midst of everything, he was too focused on fighting to think about the backlash that would come their way. Their visit to the eastern district would be taken as a provocation by those arrogant nobles, and they were not the kind of people to let bygones be bygones.
Zaros stood in silence, waiting for the rest of his subordinates to offer their opinions. Amro had already assessed the situation for him, but he wanted to hear his subordinates out before deciding on a course of action. Despite his inexperience as a leader, the boy was eager to do his best for the people under him.
On the other side of the room, Maria mimicked Zaros’s silence. She knew the problem was brought upon by her kidnapping. As such, she felt she had no place to take part in the conversation.
Coincidentally, most of the people in the room also remained silent. After today’s events, many of them were afraid to say something out of place for fear of inciting Zaros’s wrath. Very few had the courage or ignorance to speak freely like Alexander. Even those who did, did so while holding much of their opinions to themselves.
The overall silence filled Zaros with disappointment. One of the most important virtues a person could have was their own courage. A quality all the men before him seemed to lack. To him, they looked more like docile kittens than eager wildcats.
“What we did today had to be done,” he said, looking at the group around him. “I don’t regret my actions. Someone had to draw a line on the nobles’ behavior.”
Once again, no one dared to speak their mind, causing Zaros to sigh. It was no surprise then that he felt lucky when the silence of their meeting was interrupted by a knock at the door.
Alexander took off a makeshift dagger from his waist whilst the two burly brothers who used to guard the base’s entrance grabbed swords of their own.
“Calm down,” said Zaros, signaling everyone to sheath their weapons. “You can come in.”
A robed man stepped inside. A few strands of flaxen hair escaped his hood, calling away the attention from his uncoordinated and clumsy gait. It was Slyfox.
Other than Zaros, everyone else felt momentarily astonished when the old overlord of the slums made his way in. They had not expected to see him back so soon. Only after a few seconds did sneers and murmurs regarding his condition start spreading between the smaller gangs’ leaders.
Seemingly unaffected, Slyfox stated his opinion on the ongoing conversation. His enhanced senses had alerted him to the topic of their conversation long before being allowed in.
“The solution is rather easy,” he said, pointing his finger towards Zaros. “We can offer you to the nobles. I’m sure they would let thei
r grievances go in exchange for your head.”
Zaros thought over Slyfox’s words before deflecting them with his own assessment of the situation. He had long formed an idea of the way the old leader of the slums viewed him thanks to Amro.
“I won’t dig into why you’re here of all times after running away. After all, our deal was for you to become my subordinate,” Zaros said, causing Slyfox’s face to crumble in visible anger. “However, what you just said proves my point. Sacrificing our people to get in the nobles’ good graces solves nothing and only delays the problem, weakening our standing for an illusion of peace.”
“What do you think the nobles will do after I’m gone? At best, they’ll increase their efforts to exploit everyone, weakening the residents of the slums until they can get rid of their threat once and for all. They won’t let this go. We’ve proven we can fight back.”
“You dare say our people?” replied Slyfox sarcastically. “I’m pretty sure you’re not even from around here. Are you?”
“Has that stopped me from taking care of them better than you?” asked Zaros.
Slyfox’s brows furrowed as he removed his hood. He was visibly angry, holding himself back only on the realization that he couldn’t defeat the kid in a fight. Even more so with his leg still injured.
“You think angering the nobles and placing a target on everyone’s back is taking care of them?” asked Slyfox. At this point, his voice was raspy, making it evident that he had consumed a little too much alcohol recently.
“I’m still here for them,” Zaros answered. “That’s better than you who left them on their own once you had no use for them.”
“So, you think that’s enough to make up for the damage you’ve caused?” countered Slyfox. “Nothing but the foolish words of a child. Your shoulders are not broad enough to save others apart from yourself. You’re nothing but a naïve, ignorant boy.”
This time, Zaros had trouble coming back with an answer. Flashbacks of the villagers’ lifeless eyes filled his mind for a second before being dispelled by his own memories of running away. Only the notion of how he had strengthened himself with Amro’s help broke him out of his grim thoughts.