Excerpt from the Book of the Broken Truth:

Speaking of the "Anathema" nonsense that those poor fools of the Immaculate Order spout at everything.

I know of six types of Exaltations, the Solars, The Abyssal, the Infernals, the Siderals, The Lunars, and the Dragon-Blood or Terrestrials. Back in the old days, in the First Age, there were only four.

Solars, the rulers, Lunars, the stewards, Siderals, the viziers, the Terrestrials, the warriors. It was a thing of beauty, it was perfect and ordered, the Exaltations brought forth a golden age for humanity and other races, although, I admit that maybe other races did not see it the same way.

Anyhow, the war against the Primordials started in full, and the Creation shined in advancement and illumination.

Then, when the Primordials fell, everything started to fall to pieces.

With the creation of the Neverborn, the Underworld surged, with the run of the Yozi, Malfeas come into existence, and with the last breath of the Primordials, with their last words as Primordials before they became the things that they are today, they cursed the Exalted.

And there you have it.

All Exaltations are Cursed, all Exaltations, no one is free of their particular brand of madness, although the Abyssals and the Infernals had a different Curse from the others.

The madness of the Solars?. Nothing else than the curse acting on their minds, stressing the Solar to the point of madness, accumulating mental pressure until they erupt dangerously, and then rinse and repeat until the Solar found impossible not to be pushed to the edge of sanity.

The Lunars?. More of the same, but with the addendum that the Primordials curse them through their connection with Luna and their Shapeshifting powers, to become the animals they emulate. Add to this the fact that they have been way too much time gallivanting the Wyld and you have quite the mess on your hands. Ah, and the Solar Bonds, that is another interesting thing to add to the pile.

The Terrestrials?. Their Anima, their powers is a manifestation of Gaia, they were destined to become warriors, when their anima flare, they connection burns and tear their minds apart as much as they tore everything apart, the stronger they dip into their animas, the worst the resulting eruption is according to their morals. Also, they are very ill-suited to rule.

Sure, her Redeness has been ruling the Scarlet Empire for quite a lot of time, but she did that thanks to the sacrifice of all her brotherhood, literally, a Solar artifact of the First Age, and the backing of the Siderals.

The Siderals?. I will dare to say that these poor sods are the worst of the lot. You see, Siderals are supposed to see the Loom of Fate, the destiny of all beings. Unfortunately, their curse is the fact that whenever they plan, whenever they read the Loom of Fate, a wrinkle forms in the reading, forming an immutable future as if it came from the Maidens themselves.

Let me put it in perspective. Whenever a Sideral plots anything, there is a good chance that they will overlook something crucial to the plan or an unintended side effect will screw it up, when ten Siderals plans together, it is guaranteed that they will oversee something vital, when a hundred Siderals plot together, they will screw Creation without a doubt.

For example.

The Siderals plot the Usurpation of the Solars, and the consequence were the Great Contagion, the Balorian Crusades, the loss of half of Creation, the Deathlords, the Green Sun Princes, the Immaculate Order, and the horror that is today the Celestial Bureaucracy.

Why?.

Because they saw the possible futures, all three of them, and decided that if they took down the Solar, the Bronze plan, they will eliminate all threats WITHIN Creation.

The Underworld, Malfeas, The Wyld, Yu-Shan, those are not WITHIN Creation are they not?.

The Great Contagion?. That's the work of the Deathlord known as the Dowager after she wiggled too much in something called the Well of Urd.

The Fair Folk invasion?. A logical consequence when the Fair Folk discovered that the Solars, the one that can, and have been, kicking them back to the nightmare that shit them were no longer defending Creation, that the Lunars were weak and screwed, that the Dragon-Blood armies were a shadow of their former selves, and that practically all living things were dead, or about too.

And, when the Fair Folk were kicked back due to a miracle in the form of her Redness, who by the way needed the Imperial Manse, the SOLAR constructed defense grid, she crowned herself Empress of everything and started the Scarlet Empire. If you are a Dragon-Blood, then the Scarlet Empire may sound incredibly attractive, if you are anything else, you are doomed, and possibly you will be incinerated alive because you are an "Anathema".

So, the brilliant plan of the Siderals of the Bronze Faction can be resumed in:

We killed the Solars, and tried to do the same to the Lunars, and beat the Loom of Fate with a big stick, so no one could find proof of anything of what we have done, and in exchange, ninety percent of ALL the living beings will die, half of Creation will be lost, and the rest of Creation will be under the same heel that they supposedly were with the Solars, but with a Terrestrial flavored sole of the boot, and with seventy percent of the technology and advances of the Solars lost or broken. Not to mention turn the Celestial Bureaucracy into a den of politicians, bureaucrats, and useless mongers that would make Malfeas blush.

I rest my case about how the Siderals are cursed.

Ah, speaking of not within creation. We, the Abyssals and the Green Sun Princes had our curses to deal with.

First of all, the Abyssals, and the Infernals, are Solar Exaltations corrupted by the Neverborn and the Yozis respectively. They found the Jade Prison, where the Siderals wanted to bury and forget the Solar Exaltations, they sent a Behemot to crash the place, and the beast managed to crack the thing, making one hundred and fifty Exaltations escape, and the same number feel into the hands of the Primordials.

A hundred for the Neverborn, fifty for the Yozi.

In the cases of the Abyssals, we are cleansed of the Great Curse, but on the other hand, we have something that I like to call Resonance. Whenever we do something that is not approved by our Neverborn patrons; the sleeping, undead, primordials; we accumulate Underworld essence, up to a point that it explodes in the form of dark miracles, each nastier than the previous.

So, you have to be a good one-man murder army or the Resonance will explode with one or several of the following results: Killing someone you love, and lots of extra living beings in the area (addendum, I have to see, if Lunar mates and those that the Lunar mate loves are exempt of this), making a chunk of Creation turn into a Shadowland, crippling stigmata, or become a meat puppet for the Neverborn.

Infernals, those are sucker bets if I ever saw one. They are cursed with the urges of their Yozi patrons. They are forced to always do everything they could to advance the agendas of their demonic patrons through the urges that they experienced constantly, the hunger that dwells within them, and that is nothing else than the constant push of the Yozi to fill their agendas.

So, be a good puppet and obey the Yozi, or the Yozi will make you obey the hard way.

But you see, I can understand why the Usurpation took place, I have all the memories of my previous incarnation, and due to how I have a perfect memory, I remember everything. I remember the madness that plagued the Solars. I can name three individuals that are practically one-man excuses for the Usurpation. Desus, the Hierophant, and Bright Shattered Ice.

I hold a special grudge against Bright, she was the reason I had to abandon my cozy home/laboratory/workshop at the North and move to other cities, to escape from her paranoid obsession with being the greatest Scholar of all Creation. Bloody bitch even used Desus to convince me that staying without a Lunar mate for a century will do me good, and seeing how Desus was a complete monster, but capable of selling sand in Chiaroscuro and make a fortune, I bite, hook, line, and sinker.

Perhaps finding my Lunar mate would have helped me to endure the worst of the madness, perhaps I would not have been forced to use traumatic methods as is to modify my brain to quell the worst of the Curse, perhaps the Siderals who supposedly helped me to make good decisions could have helped me to develop a cure, but that is all in the past.

It is something that has always astonished me, is that not a single one among the Exalted, of any kind, tried to cure the Curse, or even try to found out what was wrong with the Solars, and the other Exaltations, everyone, and their grandmothers, believed that the others are the one in the wrong and went their merry way, blind to their failures.

And then Usurpation happens, and everything went to Malfeas dancing a jig.

I was sure that I was not on my Creation.

There are hundreds of clues, but the biggest one that I found was the small metallic container of red and white, that contained a mysterious bubble liquid that I have found in the strange building where I have to awaken after, supposedly, being torn apart by the resurrection of the Unconquered Sun inside of me, before Ignus Divine tore the Ebon Dragon a new superfluous backside.

The end of the Time of Tumult, or like that poor fool of Kejak liked to call, the Bronze Era, was a complete mess. The Ebon Dragon almost won the day, but I managed to sacrifice myself and revive the Ignus Divine before everything went to Malfeas, er, literally.

I made my peace with that, I sacrificed myself willingly, and supposedly, I should have entered Lethe and back to the cycle of reincarnation. However, I awoke three feet under the earth of the basement of this building, in a very painful manner, and when I managed to get my mind straight, I found myself in an unknown building, with the unknown, and broken, trinkets that I have never seen, and feeling better than I have felt in the last fifty years.

Inside metallic boxes that contained rotten food of all sorts, well, I assume it was food or organics of some sort, several metallic cans hold a mysterious liquid that I can not judge what it is. Due to the charms that all Exalted like me is capable of pulling out, I was able to see inside the can, seeing the black bubble liquid inside. I take that it was a beverage of some sorts, with the red and white letters and background as the mark of the particular merchant or store that sold this thing.

Leaving the can over the wood counter of the tavern of sorts where I stand, I let my blood chains open the can, just in case the thing blasted in my face. My blood chains were a charm that I learned in the Underworld. The chains are a mixture of my Abyssal blood and essence solidified into physical chains ending on hooks that had partial sentience of their own. My willpower is more than enough to keep their sadistic tendencies under wraps, but after I awoke there, they are more curious than wanting to tear everything apart like usual.

A small sound of gas being liberated of a pressure container and I moved back to the can, sniffing the liquid; that made my sensitive nose tickle, and take a sip of the beverage. It was cold enough; after all the climate outside of the building seemed to be of the Creation North variety; to be a curious experience. The black drink was not bad, sugary, but good. With a stupid smile, I chuckled at the can, drinking from it without a care in the world.

Outside of the abandoned tavern, a dense forest under the midday sun waited for me, and even if I did not felt the constant itch that all the Abyssal felt on Creation, the sun never did well on my skin. All the Abyssals felt uneasy under the sun, after all, we are dark and twisted mirrors of the Solars. Deathknights would be an apt description of what our job entails.

But, here I was, on a mysterious Creation, drinking a cold refreshment of unknown qualities and feeling better than I have felt in decades. I can only compare this bliss with the time that I passed with my lovers at my Manse in Denandsor.

I managed to claim the cursed city, and turn the defenses of the city into something capable of withstanding even the assault of a Third Circle Demon and three legions of Malfeas. The face of the demons at the Mechanical dragons and the veritable horde of vicious battle automata was one for the ages. After dealing with the Green Sun Princes and Third Circle demon at the forefront of the armies, I left the automata to butcher the hordes of demons and went back to my Manse to have a celebration orgy with my women.

May Blossom, Raksi, the Lady of Darkness in Bloodstained robes, and I, had a very nice orgy to celebrate the defense of our home. It lasted four days, and it was only interrupted when the Circle of Solars of my only living relative called for my help. One thing led to another, and I ended up conducting a demented ritual to sacrifice a Solar Exaltation to revive Ignus Divine. The Neverborn howled like you wouldn't believe. But that was now in the past, after all, when I ended up the ritual I expected Lethe or Oblivion, not this strange land.

Swirling the liquid inside of the can, I just stared at the forest outside of the building. It was very similar to the snowy lands of the North, of the Ice Walkers tribes, but lacked the constant piercing winds and freezing temperatures that marked the presence of the Elemental Pillar of Air. I did not see any presence of the usual decorations that the Ice Walkers tribes had around, on the other hand, judging from the abandoned Firewands and other hunting paraphernalia, in this place, there were hunters of some kind.

A chain brought me the abandoned Firewand, it was a model different from what I knew. Sure, it seemed to have a similar shape, but the mechanism was completely mechanical, there was no Essence involved here at all, now that is surprising. I never underestimate mortals, because I knew that they could surprise you with things like these.

So, the chamber will go here, then I pull this lever, ah, then the hammer will hit here, and the chemical will be sent the metallic jacket into the objective. Well, that is ingenious. Guided by my curiosity, I emptied the can, tossed it into the air, and taking aim with the firewand, I shot at the can to see what kind of weapon this strange firewand was.

My betrayed face at the lack of shot must have been one for the books. The clang of the cans falling to the ground echoed the raising of my eyebrow at the weapon, unable to understand why on Malfeas has the bloody thing do not shot. The weapon was in perfect order, and I am quite sure that I have understood the mechanism and the functioning of the weapon, not to mention that the bullet that was inside of the weapon did not jam. Still, even if everything was perfectly fine, the weapon did not shot.

By the Incarna, there is something afoul here.

Dismantling the gun, cleaning it, double-check for any possible mistakes, and putting the entire thing together again took me five minutes, and only because I was being lazy. This new world can wait, I will enjoy the first time in five decades that I do not have the Whispers of the Neverborn grinding my brain.

Satisfied with the work, I aimed again and pull the trigger.

Again, nothing.

This weapon was not a magical item, it was made of wood and steel, and it was not prepared to channel Essence, so I did not channel my Essence into the weapon to make completely sure that the problem was not on the weapon, or me. My Essence runs through all my body without problems, way more fluid than it did in Creation. Another proof that something was not entirely right here. I will admit that firewands were never my thing. In none of my reincarnations I have mastered neither the bows, plasma casters, throw weapons, or anything similar. Still, I am competent enough with them, enough to do not shot myself in the foot at least.

Grabbing a salt shaker, I stomped on the ground with force enough to provoke the fallen can top jump, and use the salt shaker to pierce through the thin can and into the wooden column beyond. So, it was a problem with the weapon, how curious. That could be the reason why anyone has abandoned a perfectly fine firewand. Even if it's not an Essence weapon, it was an advantage over a lot of the common mortal gear. Sure enough, it will do little against a power armor of a nephwrack, but against most of the threats of Creation, it can be a powerful asset to have.

Playing with the packages of food or the metallic containers inside of the kitchen of the tavern, I tried to calculate how much time has passed since the building was abandoned. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that those were frozen foods, the kind of food that was stored in an essence-fueled freezer to kept the perishables edible for a longer time. Well, these people do not use Essence, so much is true, instead, they seemed to run on electricity?. I can see the faint currents of residual electricity on the wiring on the walls and the machines, I pour a mote of Essence into one of the strange machines, that lately learned it was a toaster, and the Essence of my body melted the inner machinery and wiring of the artifact.

So, whatever energy source they had, it was not compatible with Essence, or, at least, compatible with Underworld Essence. Hardly a surprise, Underworld Essence is death in energy form, that destroys, does not creates, even If I have managed to create some pretty ingenious loops to fuel diverse Magitech with my Underworld Essence.

Whistling a small tune to myself, an old war song that I sang with my Ice Walkers siblings before my Dark Exaltation as an Abyssal, I dismantled a lot of the machines, trying to make heads or tails about what I was seeing and how they seem to work. That took me a while and by the time that I noticed how had the daylight diminished, I was surrounded by a veritable mountain of scrap pieces and gutted machines. The ones that had called a lot of my attention were the ones with a disc inside; judging from the pictures it was a music box of some sorts and the diverse kitchen appliances that this Creation has.

Appliances that were not limited to the kitchen, plumbing, electrics, cooking, the inhabitants of this Creation were quite versatile and clever to construct something like this, however, it lacked the versatility, raw power, and connection with nature that Essence has. I was already sensing several demesnes around the building, so it was a surprise that no one else has thought about it before, maybe they lack Essence manipulators?. If that's the case, I am in for a treat, all the Manses that I could build without having to share resources with anyone.

The nightfall, and to be honest, it did not bother me at all. A long time ago, I was tainted with the Neverborn sight, and my eyes become pools of obsidian darkness that reflected the nightmares of anyone that stares at them, along with the ability to see in complete darkness as if was daylight.

The bathroom of the tavern was also quite surprising, the plumbing, albeit crude compared with a Manse or a First Age building, was more than adequate for the location. Observing myself in one of the mirrors, I was quite shocked at how I was seeing the image of my first Incarnation, the day that I become a Solar of the Twilight Caste.

Standing near seven feet tall, more or less, carved into transhuman perfection due to my experiments and the enhancements of the Solar Exaltation, although I was more on the swimmer build side of things, instead of the muscular raw presence of the Dawn Caste, with the obsidian eyes that marked my taint as Abyssal, red natural hair, instead of the liquid bone that I had as Abyssal, and with a fine short beard. I even conversed my fangs, modified to ease the feeding capabilities that all Abyssal needs to survive outside of the Underworld.

Meh, all in all, not bad. I was still an attractive fellow, but lacking the ethereal beauty that some of the Abyssals had. It was something that happened to all of the Abyssals, I included, as our necrotic Essence grows in power, it starts to modify our bodies. Perhaps as a reflection of what happens with the Solars that grow in beauty and power with age, we, Abyssals, do as well grow in power but not always in beauty.

For example, one of my lovers, the Lady of Darkness in Bloodstained Robes, was among the Abyssals that grow more beautiful with time and the increase of the power of her Essence, on the other hand, one of the Abyssals that I was on a Circle with, the Falling Tears Poet, looks like a starvation dying corpse, with necrotic scars, hollow eyes of obsidian, clawed hands and sickly stick legs. Yet, appearances are nothing but that, appearances, Poet can smash a Tyrant Lizard into chunks with his Goremaul, despite looking thin and frail.

My appearance was neither, as I did lack the pale perfection that I did in the past, neither was I the carbon copy of a Hungry ghost. I will chalk these changes as a blessing. I preferred them to my appearance in Creation, though, Lady of Darkness loved it, meanwhile, May Blossom like me more muscular, and Raksi was a shapeshifter, so she did not care at all.

Frankly, the most disturbing thing right now was the absence of clothes on my person and the shame that I felt at not being able to realize something that simple during the last three or four hours that I have been having fun with the trinkets around me. Due to my status as Deathknight, inconveniences like cold, heat, or any hostile environment are something of the past, and my skin is harder than leather, so I did not felt any discomfort.

However, walk around naked, unless it a local custom, is something that I did not like in my Creation, and not only because wrapping myself up in death-related paraphernalia prevent the discomfort that Creation induced on Abyssals, but because I came from a North culture, where clothes can be the difference between life and hypothermia.

With a tentative pull, I call for my warehouse inside of the empty dimension called Elsewhere. I was not all that convinced that it will work here, after all, this is not Creation, and even if Essence works, Elsewhere may be beyond my reach. Much to my eternal relief, my Cache Egg materialized in the open space behind the tavern. The backyard was filled with a broken vehicle, that had already been dismantled, boxes of different cans with different beverages and even preserved food of some sort, and other assorted trinkets. That is a relief, I almost had a heart attack at the loss of all the wonders and resources that I have inside of it. To have it forever lost in Elsewhere would have been a bloody disaster.

My Cache Egg was an artifact of Jade and Orichalcum that was up to ten cubic yards in size. I have stored practically everything that one could imagine inside, except for living beings. Organic matter is possible, but for living beings, it is not. I took that it had something to do with the absence of everything inside the empty dimension called Elsewhere.

It took me another hour to make an inventory of all that I still had inside, experimenting a lot of nostalgia and loss at certain items that hold a sentimental value for me, and picking up some gear for my exploration of this new Creation. Back in the day, in any of my three reincarnations, most of those close to me called me a hoarder, for my custom of hold everything that I found remotely interesting and keep it inside of my Cache egg, along with all kind of trophies and gear that I thought it could be of use at some point.

Wrapping myself up into a corpse collector coat, but instead of the raiton mask, I had my lower face covered by a veil of dark silk, I raised the cowl of my coat and with an influx of essence, more than enough to make my Caste Mark flare in the middle of my forehead, the Cache egg banished back to Elsewhere.

The reflection in the bathroom, taking advantage of the time that it will take for my Anima to disperse, shows me that I was still a Daybreak Caste. I was still an Abyssal, but lacking the constant company of the Neverborn in my head, and the itching sensation of the Resonance building up in my lower soul, my Po.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Procrastinating a bit, I explored the different cans that I have found in the tavern, some hold preserved foods, most were still edible but others were not, and other had beverages of all kinds. I assume that they were brands, like wine from the Realm, or Ice Walker mead, things like that. Out of pure joy and pleasure at the idea of eating anything that was not the blood, flesh, bones, and souls of mortals and immortals alike.

Ah, sorry, I should explain that.

When I was serving under the Deathlord that Exalted me, the Lover Clad in a Raiment of Tears, she took sadistic pleasure in letting me chase after a specific pleasure, banning any others, and then cut me short from it, allowing only one pleasure, servicing her in soul and body. She forced me to take a taint, a permanent modification based on how the dead do not longer need food. It prevented me from dying of hunger, but anything that was not the aforementioned elements will be puked out of my body, as I was unable to digest them.

Well, not any longer, you sadistic deranged maniac, I can enjoy food and drink like a mortal, take that...even if you are in another Creation, or, more possible dead, as the Ebon Dragon shattered the mountains where your fortress was. Well, good riddance to bad rubbish, I will say.

From the multiple layers of my coat, a pair of bat-like wings surged, after I pushed a bit of Essence into the clothes, and I raise from the ground, easily reaching the thirty feet of altitude, I continued flying over the tops of the forest where I have appeared and lazily floated around, enjoying the wind and the picture of the wildlands under me.

Standing in midair, I observed the forest under me. I had the subtle sensation of being back at the North, at the clear and harsh lands of the Ice Walker Tribe, nomadic tribes all over the snowy forest of the North, near the Haslanti league, surviving to the dangers of the land and beyond. On similar lands, a lot more snowy and stormy, I was captured by the Tear tribe that serves the Lover, I Exalted in the middle of the raid that exterminated my clan, but the Nephwracks that accompanied the Tears captured me and lead me to the Crimson Fortress, where the Lover broke me into one of her Monstrances of Celestial Portion and turn me into the Abyssal that I am today.

The Lover was a very harsh mistress, but even if she did all she could to broke me, both in a sexual manner; into another of her many, many lovers; and mentally, turning me into another of her devoted champions, like that buffoon of the Dark Prince. But I was of a different paste, even after my transformation after I become an Abyssal and tore apart my name to gain my title, defiance always nested within me. It took me two decades, but I managed to escape the servitude of the Lover and become part of the Mask of Winters rooster of Deathknights.

Ah, the name and title thing.

Abyssals do not have names, they have titles, the only way they can speak of their true names is to renounce all connections with it. Once we received our title from our Deathlords or even the Neverborn themselves, that becomes our only sign of identity.

My second incarnation was called Triglav Kaneko, once I was turned into an Abyssal, I become the Sorcerer in Chains and Bloodstained Tears. Poetic, lots of the Abyssal names are like that, but we tend to shorten it, for convenience's sake for than anything else.

Under the servitude of my second Deathlord, I meet my first lover, the Lady of Darkness in Bloodstained Robes, as I took over the spot of the usual Daybreak Caste that she had on her Circle. I also meet a couple of good friends, Disciple and Poet, who were, like me, individuals that saw the Abyssal status as little more than a mixture of a curse and slavery. I, discretely, helped them to become more than they were, showing them that the Neverborn can be defied. It did help that Poet was already sick and tired of the Deathlords and the Neverborn, and Disciple was in love with Harmonious Jade, a Night Caste Solar, and wanted to be more, wanted to be akin to his First Age incarnation.

Like Disciple, I remembered my first incarnation as Solar, and before we went mad with the Great Curse; the curse that the Neverborn and Yozi cast in the first place; I had to admit that I wanted to be like that man. I was that man, and I strive to be better. Disciple and I bonded on that experience, and in time, Poet, Lady, and Disciple joined me on my escape from the Mask of Winters. The other two Deathknights of our Circle were complete monsters that were completely fine with being little more than murder machines and slaves in all but name.

The forest sure did bring memories.

In the distance, the echoes of battle called my attention and I called for a Charm that allows me to see in the distance, past walls, stone, steel, or whatever. Only sorcery methods can prevent my glare, and for the moment, I have yet to see anything resembling magitech around. Mortal tech, brilliant or not, is inferior to the Magitech of the First Age, and I was the Wonder Maker of the First Era, only surpassed by Kal Bax in Manses and Oà-Te in sorcery.

True enough, I am a Daybreak Caste, a scholar and sorcerer, not a Dusk, a warrior and general, but all Solar Exaltations are tremendously fluid, and such a wonderful trait, was inherited by the Abyssal Exaltation. That means that Abyssals can evolve beyond the traits that their Caste embodies and become something else.

The most grievous examples that I have seen under Deathlord command was under Walker in the Darkness command, where his supposed Dusk Caste commander, Shards of Basalt, was a deranged woman that had multiple personalities, and even if she was a dervish of death with her Daikable, she can not command an army for her dear life. Or the case of Blood in the Moon, a Moonshadow Caste that could not firm a sign a treaty unless its beheading someone with her Grim Cleaver.

Traveling fast, I reached the place where the battle was taking place and stopped in the air, at a prudential distance to observe well what is taking place. From my privileged spot, I can observe the entire battlefield and I was quite surprised about what I was seeing. This was not my Creation.

It was a small settlement, barely two dozen tents and shacks surrounded by a wooden wall that was holding by willpower more than anything else. The majority of the populace inside was doing all they could to prevent the fires from spreading around the settlement, and the line defending the wall had its hands full with a lousy horde of something that I would have called Hungry Ghost until I saw them better.

The attackers were humans of both genders, pale, with a sickening yellow undertone, sharp fangs, lack of hairs, deceptively slim complexion, armed with whatever they could have, from axes, spears, crude weapons of all assortments, with a bunch of them with slingshots tossing bottles filled with flammable liquid. They were a violent bunch, that has built stairs and was trying to overwhelm the line of defenders of the wall.

The defenders of the wooden wall, were not much better, an assortment of individuals that were fighting out of desperation and to defend their small piece of Creation from this screeching and ravaging lunatics. Men, women, it did not matter, they were fighting with as many improvised weapons as the attackers, however, they also had something that made me blink.

At first sight, I would have said that the defenders had the help of Exalted, of a kind that I have never seen before. But the moment that I saw one of the women raise a wand and cast a spell, using Essence in a manner that I have never seen before, made all my mental schemes crumble, and then, to make it double, one of the defenders, turned into the warform; a lupine one: of the Lunars and tore the attackers apart like they were made of butter.

Both were redhead women, by the way. It does seem that the Loom of Fate has always conspired to put notable redhead women in my life, be it for good or bad.

The Lunar brought memories of my Lunar Mate, Raksi, the Queen of Fangs, and the biggest monster of the East. A deranged individual whose mind was shattered by the Wyld, and only lived to satisfy her hedonistic, cannibalistic, megalomaniac, and narcissistic fantasies of being the Queen of all Creation. I rambled like a two-bit madman of Chiaroscuro for two days straight after I observed the routine of my Lunar Mate for a week.

Devouring babies, orgies with Gorilla-men, sadistic rituals, torture poor victims or devour them in laughs, try to convince an I AM device to taught her Adamant Circle Magic; something almost impossible; rinse and repeat.

After seeing the mess, I swore an oath to fix it, and that was what I did, even if was in a way that was no better than what Raksi has done for centuries in her city. I run a terror campaign that tore the city apart, the city of the Thousand Delights, became the city of the Thousand Terrors.

I broke her, I tore her mind apart, peeling layer after layer, and cleansing any residue of the madness that the Wyld inflicted on her, reforging her back into the brilliant sorceress that should have been a shining example for all Lunars, all over Creation. I exterminated most of the population of the city, tore them, sacrificed all of them to three Hekatonkeires, leaving only a thousand individuals alive to help rebuild and repopulate the city.

Once I cleansed Raksi of her madness, I helped her to achieve her dreams of becoming the first Lunar sorceress in achieving the Solar Circle, and we married under the Full Moon, at the peak of my Manse in Denandsor. Our bond, the Solar bond between Solars and Lunars, shined brightly and we shared an orgasm so potent that the discharge of our animals destroyed two nearby buildings.

I will miss her, I will miss her greatly.

Anyhow, even with the extra power of the two women, it was clear that they were overwhelmed, the she-wolf can not be everywhere, and the versatile Essence manipulation of the Sorceress was not able to cast her particular brand of sorcery and quell the fires spreading all over the settlement at the same time. The defenders that finally fall under the rabid assault of the Hungry Ghost look alike...that proceed to chew the fallen defenders like they were a full course at a good restaurant.

They are not Hungry Ghosts, they have no Essence, those are just biological mutations, perhaps natural, perhaps artificial, but they are not Essence wielders, meaning that they are a horde of cannibals that wanted to feast on the people at the settlement. The entire thing was almost a throwback at my worst times as Deathknight, heck, I had a memory of something pretty similar, but with me leading the charge and with the fools of the Immaculate Order at the walls.

Lowering my altitude, I start to prepare the adequate spell for the horde of hungry mutants. With my Aura flaring brightly, my presence was announced like a beacon in the middle of the forest, and the entire battle stopped for a bit, as the necrotic aura of my anima flared. If I have any doubt that they were not supernatural entities, when the horde reacted at the flaring of my anima with fearful screeches, all doubts vanished.

Quickly ending the successions of words and gestures, I landed at the rear of the mutant bunch; my chains already feasting on the mutant flesh and blood at my surroundings, acting as a secondary pair of serrated and vicious extremities that hunt down my enemies relentlessly; and unleashed the spell.

Death of Obsidian Butterflies, the most iconic and classic of the offensive spells that any Terrestrial Circle initiate could learn, in essence, unleash a torrent of razor-sharp obsidian butterflies that tore apart anything that they touch in a wide line in front of the sorcerer.

The chirping of the butterflies as they tore apart the horde of hungry idiots made me smile, fortunately, the butterflies crashed against the walls of the settlement and stood there, as new and very bloody accessories of the defenses of the settlements. I have seen warriors deflect the barrage of butterflies with nothing but a stick or their own hands, but these poor sods were torn apart as if they were meat to the slaughter.

Walking in over the ripped corpses, I advanced to the walls of the settlement, smiling under the veil that covers my mouth, with another push of my essence, I surrounded myself with an aura of dread, a combination of several charms, a trick that has allowed me to walk in and out of entire armies, slaughtering them without even the need of raising a hand.

Left and right, the few sickly pale cannibals either stood frozen and terrified; easy prey for my chains; or if they managed to overcome the dread that I exuded, they paid their valor with their flesh and bones exploding all over the place due to visceral stigmata erupting on their skin and insides. There is little need to say that by the thirty victims, the hungry fools learned that I was not on the menu, something that they can not claim by the way.

Suddenly vanishing in front of their eyes, I reappeared behind one of the bigger cannibals, and grabbing the back of his neck, I raised it over the wooden floor. My chains surrounded his limbs and torso, as I proceed to slowly and very loudly torn and crack every single muscle and bone of his body, in a nauseating cacophony of cracks and rips.

At the same time, I feed on the soul of the cannibal. He was not an Essence manipulator, but his soul fed my Essence and revitalized my mind and spirit. In other circumstances, I may have devoured him, drinking his blood and chewing on his heart, but with so many witnesses, I preferred to keep my feeding habits under wraps.

Lady of Darkness and I learned a peculiar charm that allowed us to turn the agony of the bite of the Abyssal into pure bliss, we still can kill the victim, but sure as hell we will leave a smiling corpse. We called it, the Crimson Fang Kiss. Later, when we were infiltrating a bordello of the Cygnis House of the Realm, Lady and I used the time to develop a more advanced version, so we can kill our preys through sex. I laughed when she sucked a Dragon-blood's soul through his cock, in the meantime, I pounded a God-blooded bitch so hard and so good, that she died of a mixture of cervical orgasms and having her inner organs pounded into mincemeat.

Halcyon days those.

Anyhow, with a final snap, I separated the vertebrae of the agonizing cannibal, gripping his neck so hard that his head went flying with a loud and sickening pop, his blood splatter all over the outer side of the wall, covering the few cannibals that have survived by doing nothing and being far enough from my chains to be torn apart.

Morale broke among the cannibals that run as if all Malfeas was hot on their tails, and I tossed the broken corpse over the wall with a frown. Cowards, only when you are in superior numbers do you fight?. Bah, they are even worse than Hungry Ghost, those who had the unholy decency to stay and fight.

Snapping my chains back, I adjusted my veil and saluted to the rest of the terrified humans around me.

"Greetings", I cheerfully saluted in Low Realm, "Nice day do we have today isn't it?".

Uh.

Poet will be reaaaally proud of my flawless social skills right now, I swear that I can hear his hand slamming against his decorated mask right now.

Malfeas of a first impression.