Narlou sprinted through the surrounding forest faster than he had ever gone, focusing solely on his senses as he was desperately trying to find the presence of his brothers, but there was none. No matter where he went, there wasn't even the tiniest bit of the presence that he had grown so used to.

But he didn't give up. He couldn't give up.

His legs carried him further out, kicking up dirt beneath his feet as he dodged trees and branches. His heart clenched uncomfortably with every panicked breath he took, and tears started forming in his eyes, impairing his vision ever so slightly.

Narlou was scared. So fucking scared. The brothers – Yone and Yasuo – they were everything he had left! They were what gave him purpose, what made him want to wake up every morning again and again despite the horrible thoughts plaguing his mind, despite the horrifying dreams he was forced to endure and despite the self-loathing he felt Every. Single. Day.

"How dare you…"

He clenched his teeth as his fear turned into anger, forcing his already overworking body to go even faster.

"How DARE YOU take away what's mine!?"

He suddenly came to an abrupt halt as his exclamation echoed throughout the dense forest. It had been brief, but he had definitely just felt a flicker of the brothers' presence. Quickly closing his eyes, Narlou carefully touched every surface of this forest with his senses, trying to find what he had just felt again.

'There!'

It only took a few seconds to reach the spot where his senses told him to go, and sure enough, he found a well-hidden opening in the ground with his extremely enhanced vision. It was small, but big enough for humans to climb through.

The kids were definitely down there, he could feel it.

The teen didn't think twice as he rushed over to the hole, jumping into the darkness beneath. He touched the ground a second later and looked around, discovering nothing but rock and dirt with only one small tunnel that led to a closed wooded door. A weak light was shining through the small opening at the bottom, everything else was dark.

He ignored the smell of rotten flesh and dried blood on the floor as he silently snuck up to the door. His emotion-driven side was screaming at him to just go in and get his brothers out of there, but his logical side knew better than to run right into a possible trap. So, he gently pressed his ear against the door, wincing only slightly as the cold and damp wood touched his warm listening organ.

He managed to do the wait-and-listen approach for a whole 20 seconds before he couldn't take it anymore. The combination of no sound escaping from the other side of the door and his inability to hold still when the life of his brothers were on the line made him throw every bit of caution into the wind.

"Fuck it."

The door flew off its hinges and Narlou stepped into the room not a second later, only for his entire body to freeze as he took in the situation presented before him.

A pungent smell of blood invaded his nostrils as his eyes scanned the room's floor. It was covered in symbols and half-burned candles that stretched into the shape of a circle, and in the middle of it were several bodies of people he recognized as villagers.

Two people stood behind the circle, one on his knees with his arms raised and the other kneeling behind the first, his hands holding the first man's shoulders.

He would have recognized them as Martel and Jolune, but his attention was elsewhere.

Thrown into the pile of the other villagers were the unmoving bodies of Yone and Yasuo. They skin was pale, and their eyes closed, and Narlou would have almost believed them to be dead if not for the weak rising of their chests and the tiny amount of energy their presence still emitted.

Paralyzing fear numbed his body, unimaginable anger flooded his mind and a flaming hatred started to burn in the pits of his stomach.

"What… have you done?"

He could feel his mana trying to corrupt his mind, hear it whispering sweet lies into his ears and telling him to kill them all in the most brutal ways imaginable. It was urging him to let it take over while his mental defense was at its weakest.

He knew this feeling; he had experienced it before. He knew what would happen if he were to give in, and he would rather die before that happened.

Luck seemed to be on his side though because the room suddenly rumbled deeply, bringing back the oh so sweet clarity and control of his mind while dirt and stone were falling from the ceiling.

He wasn't sure why, but he needed to hurry.

Narlou kicked himself of the ground, sprinting at the inner circle as fast as he could. The plan, or the lack thereof, was to take the kids and run, but that proved to be more difficult than anticipated as he reached the circle.

'No wonder no one is moving.'

The moment he entered the circle, his mana was being sucked into the ground and the surrounding symbols at a fast pace. Any normal man would've collapsed immediately, but Narlou was no normal man.

"You fool! Do you really think you can escape now?!"

The whispers and attempts to take over his mind came back at full force as he snarled at the man partially responsible for all of this. It would feel so fucking good to just run over there and kill that motherfucker, but his still sane mind forced his gaze back to the bodies of his brothers.

'I can still kill him later. Their safety comes first!'

He picked up the teens in one smooth motion and threw them over his shoulders, ready to get the fuck out of there, but a certain someone seemed to have other plans.

"It's almost done."

Martel's voice was downright demonic as it reverberated through the chamber, sending shivers down his spine. Narlou didn't like the sound of that, not one bit.

One dash later showed Narlou to be beneath the hole again, ready to jump out, though he threw one last glance at the remaining corpses of the villagers with saddened eyes before he did so. He wished that he could also save them, but if his sense was right, then most of them were already long dead anyways.

The earth shook once more, only this time the shaking was accompanied by a deep growl.

The teen turned away to focus on putting more enhancement magic into his legs. The ground cracked as he jumped high into the air and out of the hole, and not a second too late as it collapsed under the strong shaking.

But Narlou didn't see that, nor did he really care. He was already on the run back to the village, or to be more precise, the hill that Yone liked so much. He came to a stop once he reached it and set the two kids down onto the wet grass.

A quick check showed that they were not physically hurt and just had a bad case of mana exhaustion.

Narlou let out a relieved sigh.

"You can't scare me like that."

He ran his hand through their hair once, before turning back to the forest where he had come from, his eyes narrowed in anger.

Whatever the crazy old man had been trying, no one would hurt his kids and escape unharmed.

Narlou wasted no time and dashed back into the forest, readying himself for the upcoming fight. The bastard might be old, but he was still a top magician.

As he came closer to the location though, more magic started to fill the air. It was not the normal kind of magic that one would normally feel in a human. No, it was the kind of magic that caused goosebumps and made you think twice before investigating the origin.

If Narlou had to describe it, he would say that if felt evil, full of desire for destruction and death.

His eyes narrowed even more as his own mana suddenly started resonating with the evil mana, and he felt a desire to kill slowly surface inside of him again. It was not nearly as strong as before, but he knew that long exposure would not end well for him.

'I need to destroy that evil mana as soon as possible before my own shitty mana becomes too difficult to suppress.'

He finally came to a stop some distance away from where the hole used to be, waiting for his enemy who he knew was nearby to reveal himself. It didn't take long, and his patience was rewarded by the ground where he suspected the chamber to be under to suddenly exploded with a loud bang, causing dirt and rock pieces to fly everywhere.

The satisfaction he felt for finally being able to take that fucker down evaporated as the figure emerged from the ground in all its demonic glory.

"Fucking damnit."

Martel's body, or what was left of it ascended higher in front of him, two huge black wings stuck to his back, creating a low humming every time they swung to hold the body in the air. It exuded a presence so powerful that even Narlou felt himself take a step back, not because of fear but because of the massive amounts of evil mana surrounding the being, causing Narlou's mana to act up even more as well.

"You are not Martel anymore." It was not a question.

Martel's body looked more dead than alive at this point. A big hole could be seen where his heart used to be, his eyes were carved out and his head was horribly misshaped. It was by far the most gruesome thing Narlou had ever seen, and he had seen some fucked up shit during the war.

"Martel… Truly a fitting name for such a pathetic human." The being said in a dark voice that sounded like it spoke from everywhere around them at once, echoing around the now silent forest.

"But you, I can feel your powers. You are a much better host than this one."

Narlou would've made a joke about not one, but now two things wanting to take over his body, but he sadly didn't have the mental capacity to do that right now.

"Fuck you. Go ahead and try, you pathetic excuse of a spirit."

Evil magic clashed against Narlou's own at full force as the spirit rose even high into the air with an earth-shaking growl.

"Arrogant little human! You will beg for mercy once I'm finished with you!"

"Come at me!"

And so, Narlou's first battle against a spirit began.

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter. Hope you still enjoyed it.