Edited 05/04/2020
Harry had come home from school clutching a book protectively in his hands. He'd rushed for his cupboard hoping no one would notice him. At the age of eight he struggled with the words in 'The Lord of the Rings'.
Scarcely on the second chapter the door burst open. Vernon stood there with a smug Dudley behind him. A large grubby hand reached out and snatched the book away. As his uncle read the title his face turned beat red then purple. He grabbed Harry's arm and pulled him from the cupboard.
What scared Harry the most was his Uncle's lack of words. He didn't say boy that isn't aloud. Boy you should be doing chores. Instead he silently took Harry to the master bedroom.
"It seems you're too stubborn for soft lessons. We'll try a hard one this time and if you can bloody learn. "
His uncle pulled Harry's pants down and removed his belt. Lash after lash rained down on his rear, back, and legs. It was a pain that stained his memory. Sometimes hard lessons were needed to get the point across. That didn't mean they'd learn what you taught them. Without pain there was no adaption. It was still years before Harry was brave enough to take any book to private drive.
That lesson was scarred into his memory as surely as in his flesh. Though the wounds had closed remarkably well; Harry never forgot the lesson. He remembered and carried the lesson with him. If something was forbidden hide it well and if you want someone to follow your rules, make the punishment stick.
Harry climbed a massive stairwell leading to the uppermost floors of the building. The walls on these floors were caked in pulsating inflamed flesh. Large yellow boils covered the walls pulsing and twitching occasionally a leak would open. Harry watched old dead white blood cells fall from a boil like a waterfall. All the while the flesh worked as a great conductor pulling the energy of heaven and earth.
He made sure to pay close attention to the living children stitched together with homeless, and elderly. Flesh from the walls slowly crept over them. Large flesh vines shot from the walls to collect victims and pull them into hidden openings. As he climbed higher, he heard screaming.
"It seems we have reached the fresh victims." Nomine hissed.
Harry silently observed the building, he didn't want to miss a detail. On the next stairwell. He saw with his very human eyes the horror. Mortals were used to bind mortals. Harry saw black strings attached to those who stitched children, men, and women together with needle and thread. They were bound living to the walls as the red flesh crept up. Blood fell only for tongues from the red creep to catch it. Teeth jutted from around this floor. A long tentacle reached up an took a group of stitched humans. It took them and impaled a few of their number on jutting teeth. Flesh quickly climbed around the new corpses and began to spread to the other victims.
Now a word was shed from his lips as he climbed the stairwell. He kept his aura under control. This place was a hell designed by cultivators. If anything could be considered evil, it was this place. Yet Harry had other words for it that would work as well. He had questions.
"Nomine is the threat of the gods enough to overlook this?" Harry asked.
"You didn't seem too bothered before. You were warned and yet this place still stands." Nomine said.
"I couldn't conceive of something so wasteful. This is beyond me." Harry said.
"What do you want to do?" Nomine asked.
"I want to exterminate this sect." Harry said, and continued. "I want to make what I do to this sect a lesson for others. If you commit these atrocities, I'll come and destroy you." Harry finished.
"What law are they breaking? You aren't a human any longer. Is this any different than what humans do to cows?" Nomine said. "The next sect to do this will be sneakier than the last." She added.
"How many lives were wasted for so little gain. The forbidden forest generates more essence than this." Harry argued.
"That may be, but this is a city. They have no forest to draw from only a vast supply of humans. They are merely inefficient." She defended.
"The essence of this place is easier to cultivate because it made from humans. Most of the refinement process has already been completed by using human essence. As a tradeoff bottlenecks are harder to break through. The stress of refining essence into qi lowers the probability of bottle necks. Of course, that only applies to the refinery stage. At the foundry its free qi with no drawbacks." Harry said.
"So, this is more beneficial for you than others. You stand to gain the most for the suffering of these mortals. Are you close to another breakthrough?" She asked.
"The foundry doesn't work like the refinery stage. Having more aura isn't better. Control is the most important for this level." Harry hissed back.
At the highest levels of the building he saw massive arteries imbedded in the walls. Machines were attached to these vessels taking blood and crafting stones from it. Harry could sense vast quantities of concentrated essence from the stones. It was enough to blow through a few bottle necks.
"I stand to gain a lot from this place. Having more aura in the long term is beneficial. Humans become us, we may use a few here and there but this scale is industrialized murder. The war hasn't started, and we aren't desperate. This is a waste of life." Harry decided
"They won't see it that way. They'll spread word of Harry Potter the tyrant. The one who restricts the creativity of immortals. This was merely the ugly beginnings. We planned to use cloning later promise. We only needed to kill a million humans to get critical mass." She hissed.
"No, they won't, I'll say what happens and they'll be too dead to contradict me." Harry said and continued. "That's how history works."
"True." Nomine conceded. "Unfortunately, one always gets away." She said.
The vault door opened revealing a man in his 40s. Harry stabbed his sixth sense into the man picking up his stage 10 refinery qi. The man winced. "It seems you learned to use your dark gifts like Carl. Some training will help with that. I'm sure your shocked by what you saw but we aren't human anymore we're something else. My name is David King, what's your young man." Harry's eyes flashed green and the man's black.
"Why kill so many people?" Harry demanded.
"Come now boy they aren't even from here. Carl must have told you. We import the dregs and cast offs from the primitive parts of the world. At least we give them a purpose. You've read the book you know we have enemies. My father helped save the world from Hitler this is my time." David said.
"I've fought a servant of our enemies they are beyond most mid refinery experts." Harry conceded. "They turned the mortals in my neighborhood into worshipers then used them to patch its wounds.
"They can use mortals to patch their wounds. Who exactly are they? I've heard very little of the enemy. You're the first person I've met to make contact." David said.
On the desk were piles of blood stones. They ran over falling on the floor. Each of the stones was a color different than the last. The darker the color the more essence stored within. Harry glanced over seeing a lion's head mounted on the wall. On the floor of the office were Persian rugs. A chalice of the old Roman empire laid upon a pedestal filled with black stones. Each of those stones were filled with dark but human essence.
Harry snatched the chalice from its pedestal and inspected it. He picked a stone out that was darker than the others. Held within the stone was a cloudy mist pulsing with chaos. Katana from Japan decorated the walls closest to the desk. Harry picked one out and pulled the blade free. He admired the way the steel sang to him. It was made in the forge fires of feudal Japan. It was one of the blades taken by the allies towards the end of the war. The blade wanted blood.
"Please take your time answering me. I know my office holds quite a collection of goodies." David was much like a lazy dragon sleeping upon his horde. The kind slain while sleeping. He put the blade back in its sheath and returned it to the wall.
"There are more monsters discarded by pantheons than stars in the sky. The star spawn is one such group. They look like squid dragon men and want to resurrect Cthulhu. They drive men mad and use them much like this sect does." Harry said.
"I assure you we have only the best intentions in mind for humanity. Britain will prosper once again under out rule. The sun will never set on the British empire once more." Harry held no loyalty to Britain.
"Can't you stop this slaughter?" Harry said.
"You're just a boy. What do you know about gathering a group together and making them strong? This city is barren. The essence here is so mixed up its impossible to refine it quickly enough to advance in any meaningful way. If we had another way, we would use it." The man's eyes were manic. Harry could sense very little consciousness power in the man. He had less than Harry had before Hogwarts. As a tenth stage refinery that was abysmal. If this is necessary maybe he should allow it.
Harry frowned at his own thoughts. There was no good or evil only pleasure and pain. The pain of limitations created the need for this place. This will be found out and then humanity will turn against them. Harry was in on this no matter what. Even if he destroyed them, he'd share their reputation. Their witch burnings will involve nuclear fire. He'd need to make plans to leave the planet. Mars was relatively close.
His aura exploded around him free and vengeful. He turned to David. The man frowned upon feeling Harry's true cultivation level.
"There was already a sect out there with this idea. We haven't cornered the market. You know how we acquire our sacrifices." David muttered.
"No, I didn't need to sacrifice humans. The best sacrifices are the gods and their kin. In exchange for your existence you're going to give me a stipend." Harry said.
"I see is there already a government." David asked.
"There is a military, we demand your support in exchange for protection." Harry said.
"What does that make our sect?" David asked. The man was quick to adapt. Harry liked that.
"You are a civilian city state. Its normal to give support to your military. Now, I'm going to invade another country. I'd appreciate if your sect came in behind me to collect the spoils." Harry said.
"Can the gods really replace thousands of people?" The man asked.
"Was it worth it?" The man frowned for a moment.
"It's for the greater good of qi experts." The man said. His eyes gave him away.
Harry was across the room in an instant. His hands grasped the man's head and his thumbs sunk in through an eye. The screaming started after that. Harry withdrew his thumb slowly. The man's eye had exploded like a grape.
"You've lived up here too long. You forgot what pain felt like." Harry delivered a powerful blow sending the man out of his rolling chair. His face painfully smashed against a wall.
Harry raised his foot over the man's knee and stomped. Flesh and bone melded into pink paste. The man continued to scream. It did him no good the room was in a vault. Now sound could escape.
"Please, stop I'll give you the building. The deed it in the treasure room behind me. Let me go, I'll work for you." The vault door opened, and Claudia walked in. "Rose help me seduce this monster he's trying to undo everything." She didn't say a word.
She walked in hips swaying and lip up a cigar. Her lips sucked on it making lewd noises before she took it out of her mouth and put it out on her own skin. Claudia moaned as the cigar went out. There wasn't a blemish on her skin when she removed the cigar. She pouted cutely while looking down at David.
"So long as we are useful to each other we won't turn on one another. That was our agreement. I think you'd be more useful feeding the machine below." She tussled David's hair before grabbing a hand full of it.
"No don't feed me to the building." David screamed.
"Who's going to take over for him?" Harry asked.
"For evil to prosper good men must only ignore it." Nomine hissed.
"The board of elders will decide a new master among those strong enough to hold the office. I'm disqualified due to my status as a private contractor. I'd bet souls James the Gravedigger gets it." She paused before pulling needle and thread from her pocket. She kissed David and bit off his tongue. Then she began to sew his mouth shut.
David joined the sacrifices purchased by the sect. He was taken and added to the wall. A fleshy tentacle quickly took him with his group. David avoided a quick death by impalement. The building soon spread over him. The well of essence increased significantly. Harry felt it increase by more than ten times. Just as it seemed to settle it increased by another magnitude.
"What is that creature?" Harry asked.
"It's a demon born from my womb and David's seed. Have no fear, I control it, and I'm loyal to the sect." Claudia said.
"What's the sect's name?" Harry asked.
"David was a fan of resident evil. He named us Umbrella."
"Is victory worth all the death? Is it worth the betrayal of your morals?" Nomine hissed.
"Victory," Harry hissed the words. He remembered the beating from Uncle Vernon. He found hidey holes for his books from then after. With the book he escaped this world for a time. The misery, hate, and even his anxiety was gone for a time. Harry remembered the feeling of winning. He never took reading without fear for granted again. Only with the library did he slip up.
"I tell you if we win. The mortals will become our enemies as surely as the gods." Harry hissed.
Back in the highest office Harry began cleaning out the vault. He swept through the treasures. He found 20k American, piles of blood stones, and an old occult book. Harry found the page bookmarked that summoned Claudia. All of it went to his mokeskin pouch or as he called it, his bag of holding. Harry held up a hand full of blood stones and quickly absorbed them. In an instant his qi increased by 10%.
With his bag full, he went up to the roof. On the roof was a helipad complete with a personal helicopter. Harry leapt off the roof and flew for number 4 private drive. He had a house to order and a trip to plan.