Speech = ``…..´´

Thoughts = … ….

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….Bandits are fungi?...

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The sound of flesh being torn apart and teeth munching through things that a human mandible should not ever have continued for a while longer. The two new risen taking their time and leisure in their voracious, primal instincts to enjoy their spoils.

Their eyes flashing no longer pure anger and rage, but satisfaction as the blood of their meal slipped down their fingers and chins, staining the rest of their pale bodies.

All while he watched with a bemused expression...

He knew that undead had a natural disposition against the living, that it pushed them to attack and tear them apart as the difference between both sides were too great and always tried to clash.

For them to attack anything on sight was natural, but this had been something else.

He had not commanded them to attack, and yet they did, brazenly...nor did they stop until he was barely a carcass on the ground.

But he could guess why as he looked at the barely recognisable form of the man that had been the leader of this band of crooks…

For dead as they may be and lacking of any soul at the moment they could not hide the truth of their actions. It was, even now...hanging over their heads.

The fear, the pain, the shame, the hatred that had run through their minds had left a very strong imprint in their subconscious. Every little thing they felt during those brutal hours of abuse until the hour of their death had refused to evaporate as their bodies drew their last.

In fact, they had cling to their brains even harder. As if they had attempted to mark by fire the faces of all who had done this to them no matter what.

Something that had awaken as their prime directive when their bodies were strung up from deaths embrace. And so, before any command had been given their bodies had fulfilled the deepest desire their previous owners had before their untimed ends.

Revenge….

It had also informed him that the warping nature of his own self was still at work….

In the abyss everyone was forced to rebirth, so their bodies never awoke as the living dead, but here it seemed that with the negativity he carried with him anything that was bury six feet deep underground would stir up again as a puppet under his thrall.

He would have to control it a bit before he strode through a cemetery and woke half a city in the process…

To not do so would be more of a hazel than anything else.

Not for the incoming casualties of the populace, but because he would have to clean the infestation later. When one undead spawned, more would follow, their negativity affecting the area around them, especially any sort of necrotic flesh. In a short spam of time they would multiply like rats. Only bigger and with a fouler smell….

He took a step forward...

Finally drawing the attention of those two. They sluggishly rose their heads and stare at him…

He merely scowled at them. Not hiding his loathing at the poor mimicry this meat-bags were attempting to pull off. There was nothing left of their old selfs. No memories, no heart…, empty little things.

They were just that, echoes.

Echoes of what once was…, what could have been.

He clenched his fist, sighing loudly...

``Such curse….., should be mine alone to bear´´

The cocked their heads, perhaps not understanding what he had just muttered, or had it been an involuntary tick as their heads weighed on their necks. It did not matter. The next second their heads had disappeared in a puff of dried blood and brain, demolished as he bashed them with his right arm.

Their legs still holding them upright a while longer until they realized that they were truly dead, falling down like a string-less puppet.

``Rest now…..young ones, your vengeance is satiated´´

He looked away from the spark that had appeared form thin air and had started to consume the mother and daughters bodies. He extended his clawed hand to the side, the head of the man they had devoured flying towards him after the magical tugging broke through what was left of his spine.

...If only all of us were so lucky….

….

Since he had arrived he half felt something was wrong in this place. There was a stink that did not left his nose. A scent of corruption…

It had been weak, but it appeared to be more on the contained side of things than actually the remnants of a dead entity.

He too membered the presence that had tried to spy on him when he arrived. It had been rather quick as whoever was behind had rapidly broke the connection and retreated away from further exposure..

But not fast enough for him not to track where it had come from…, part of it.

True, he did not know where exactly, only that if he were to march to the west he would feel the connection grow stronger.

Whoever had tried to do that was not to be taken lightly, if someone had felt his arrival. Who said no one else had?

Still, he was not moving towards his undesired stalker…, but rather in the opposite direction.

He would find what was the source of the darkness he had detected, then he would track the spotter.

He then turned to meet the rest of the corpses he had made, already seeing someone of them starting to twitch.

Whatever shred of pain vanished as he watched them. Those two had deserved their proper farewell, but these had not…

He would not let them reach the afterlife, not after making their second life a living hell.

He pointed his psyche at them, energy starting to flow through it.

``Rejoice…., in death you shall serve a better purpose than you did in life. Rejoice vermin, and join the glorious ranks of those that came long before you..´´

An invisible wind pushed the bodies of the slain up in the air, before dragging them towards him. Their mangled bodies disappearing from sight when they touched his weapon, absorbed and stored within.

Soon enough, there was nothing in this field but the spilled blood on the ground and some of their flesh that could ever explain what had happened was not a dream.

He finally the last remaining piece of flesh that had remained in his grasp. The mans head having already stir up to unlife by the sheer proximity of their bodies. Its maws opening and closing time and time again, his eyes flaring with twin burning coals, just like him.

``This form seems more proper for the likes of you. Now, you shall tell me everything I need..´´

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`Curse you- argh…!´´

Spoke his last a bald, unremarkable man as he fell to the ground, his waist falling to the ground in a soft thud while the rest of his upper body had been slice off and sent flying before crashing loudly and without any grace against the wall of a building, the weak and poor surface of it caving down under the impact and becoming nothing but rubble...

Well, that had been the last one of them...

He turned around, giving one brief glare at the now truly dead town, perhaps hoping to hear the weak beats of this mongrels hearts, but found none.

``This is getting ridiculous…., just how many of you are out there...?´´

He growled. A bit annoyed at the way the night and now first ours of morning had turned out to be though a bit too late to receive any answer at all from the now corpse of his latest victim.

With a swift swing, he cleaned the blood from the blade before he walked away from the centre of his work.., the rocks of the dirt path creaking with each step he took even though no footsteps were left behind as he made his way.

The taste of blood in the air soon enough disappearing as he breathed in the components through the breather. Enjoying its bitter, taste and the burnt out sensation expressing through his lungs and veins.

His eyes snapping to attention as the cells inside his body were pushed to overwork again.

And with it came a rapid retrace of his footsteps of what had transpired.

The first few times he had decided to ignored it, considering it just coincidence as he made his way rapidly through the countryside towards the darkness that he had detected, which was just in the same direction of a mayor city given the way he could sense the life signatures of may souls growing bigger with each second that passed.

But after the twenty seventh time he had the feeling that something was wrong with this country.

There was no way, no logic that could explain the massive amounts of craven little shits that he had stumbled over and over again in a matter of hours.

It felt as if this bandits cropped out from the ground like a viral fungus or actually made a great part of the populace of this county or piece of land he was strolling through.

Given that most of their groups had at least thirty members, that would have been at minimum almost a thousand of them. Why they did not made a small army to pillage instead of marauding parties with different goals that fought one another for the best piece of business he did not know.

He did not care enough either…

But now that their bodies had yet to grow cold and their blood was still splattered against him that had left something for him to ponder.

Either he was somewhere where the law of the strong was mandatory, or whatever bodies of government had neither the power or interest to step in and crush any sort of disruptive elements. Leaving the rest of the populace outside their walls to fend for themselves..

A tradition that seemed universal wherever one went. Too bad that someone else had decided to fix the matter by themselves when the world had decided not to...

He looked back at one of the corpses in which he had just steeped on. Its head almost gone, leaving only a small part of his left side. He had being cut down in two perfectly. His right side was missing completely...

``Fate seems to hate you more than me….´´

But even though they had wasted his time, he had come to learn a few things. He had not been sure with just one or two attempts, but now he had a clear view of how things worked. Or how the inhabits of this world did..

Their tools were mostly made of steel. Cheap and badly taken care of in most if not all cases. Their protecting gear suffering the same lack of knowledge to lengthen their useful life spam or they just did not use any at all, going to battle with what they wore in their day-to-day.

And though some had better blades probably from a master of arms they were too far an in-between nor they had any carvings or runes to make them stronger or better.

Not even when some had used magic, their bodies flaring with sparks of dim crimson light. The leaders of their lot of course…., but if the light show was meant to make them stronger he did not know.

He could not sense when a worm added another ones worms strength to its own. This world had ample amounts of mana lingering in the air, there was nothing to show for it. Either the mortal races had not develop enough to siphon it or these fools had no clue how to..

In other words…

He was disappointed.

They were just thugs wielding slobs of metal that they swung wildly with no training at all. They knew that they had to poke with the sharp end to kill someone, but that was the end of their knowledge. And that was when they were not busy freezing in shock or terror when he was making his way through their fellow kin..

He scoffed, his face growing line, yet invisible from outsiders as he stepped over what remained of the skull of that man and left nothing behind but a crater on his wake..

``Weaklings...´´

Still, it was not for nothing…., they at least were kind enough to provide him with more meat to lash out and collect as he made his way to the dark essence that he was tracking down.

Speaking of which…, he could feel it close.

He shifted on his feet, cocking his head to the side, ignoring the way the tubes jangled with one another as he glared in the direction he felt it.

Glowing eyes peering through the broken houses, through stone, wood and flesh as they tried to unveil it.

It was close, really close...yet incredibly weak, almost as if it was not even there, but it was the same kind of darkness that he felt. Only that now he focused could he sense a few more nuances to it.

With nothing better to do he made his way through the bandits belongings.

The glimmer of gold from stolen coffers and meant nothing to him as he pushed them and threw them aside like trash. The mundane mattered little to him when one had taken a taste of true power.

A clawed gauntlets grasped the dirty blanket that covered a large box and pull it out, the effort racking the entire thing and what was inside along with it…, eliciting a guttural, weak and disgusting groan in the process.

His eyes narrowed as he studied what he was seeing.

So this was it..

This really was the source of that smell…

….

He had seeing a lot in his life, and yet he had no idea what he was looking at.

``What are you suppose to be….?´´

He spoke, his voice echoing harsh and cold through the metal filters, yet there was a mild tone of empathy drawing out at the end of his words. One that he had not recognised as such...while the creature jolted at is presence, but it could do nothing about it...

The thing...if it could even called it that was nothing more but a lump of rotten flesh, bubbly and mostly shapeless in its form...yet not quite dead as it started to move sluggishly under its metal confinement nor completely unrecognizable parts of it like limbs or organs.

Though they appeared to have been inserted on it rather than actually belonging to it...

For most it was just a freak…, the way the rampant waves of mana slicked out of it like sparks of lightning from time to time. The thing shaking, growing and becoming smaller rapidly and with out control.

All while shrieking with non existent vocal cords…

He could only hum at the expectable, his eyes tearing through every fibre and blood-vessel as he ripped out its secrets..

``You are...an interesting creature...´´

If one were to look deeper and not just scan the surface thoughts one would find that there was pain, so much that it had turn into agony and nerve wrecking damage coursing through every pore of that blob of flesh, but what was most interesting was the presence of an imprint.

Strong….

Rather strong indeed.

Yes, there was no way to deny it. There was or had been a conscience inside it, either before it was transformed into that, or maintained it for a while until it was lost under the tide. Leaving nothing but an almost empty husk behind in its place.

He tried to stop it, to quell the bitterness that this sight was resurging from within.

He failed...

Giving way to those dark halls at the edge of his memory to flood him…., he clenched his jaw. Teeth grinding against one another that they could have started to produce heat on their own.

Those terrific visages of the creations of madmen that he had been unwilling witness during the war. Not in the war torn fields or the besieged and laid to waste cities, but in the darkest depths where no one thought to look through.

All that blood, all those cages… with those poor dregs that had been dragged into them for the joy and amusement of their monstrous captives.

Dead, mutilated or just broken…

Those had been the lucky ones.

Those who had attracted the wrong attention of their devious masters however had been bereft of such mercy.

The air started to freeze, becoming heavier and heavier…..

He could still their cackle, even as their bodies laid broken under his feet, even after their entire worlds crumbled around them like houses of cards, even if they would not get out of there alive...they still laughed.

They laughed as they showed what they had done. Proud of their insanity, and knowing there was nothing left to salvage from them, forcing his hand to free them of their misery.

A final fuck you before he squished their brains out through their sockets and made them eat them...

Bone, flesh and soul...all carved out, liquefy and them put the bloodied mess in a state of almost unending suffering. Their bodies turned into furniture, their minds ravaged yet allowing them the smallest glimpses of lucidity, enough to realize the hell they had been put to as they could not voice out their suffering nor ever stop it.

Not dead, not quite….but they would have wished they could.

And this thing was just the same.., they had taken away anything else they had and left it with the bare minimum.

It could only feel pain…

A fate worse than death for most...

He clenched his fist, the ground underneath him freezing and dying on the spot as if an invisible hand had ripped asunder the soil around him, he graved the psyche with both hands. The chains wrapped around his arm glowing and biting his the cloth and flesh alike.

Wishing for him to let go and bite into that soft, flesh….

Blood, for the sake of blood….

``Killing you would be a mercy….,´´

He growled, a shadow passing by his eyes as he ready himself. The creature flattening itself against the ground, shaking yet no longer screaming, perhaps its most animalistic part understanding what was to come.

He rose the psyche above his head, the blade cutting through the light of morning in two neat sections. Dimming it as if it was absorbing it.

And then he struck….

The ground shook, metal shrieked and gushes of wind scattered around and brought down whatever building could not resist it.

But the sound of flesh being sliced up like cake never reached, nor the creature whined before falling limp.

It was still there, but with the sharp edge of his weapon almost scratching it. Part of the bars that had been on the way now bent or broken...

This was not what he was looking for…, not at all. but it had a relation with it.

A spawn

A summon…

An experiment gone wrong with that power…

It could be anything with the given information he had, nor he could trust whatever nonsense the humans on this reality had on these creatures, claiming them to be possessed by demonic entities yet he sensed no such thing.

But there was no denying that it had part of that darkness inside it. It flared from it, it was part of it.

It called to him….

The edge of his psyche was about to pop that blue, ugly eye it had. The creature not even responding to the threatening tool about to carve it in two nor the killing edge emanating from him.

It would be so easy…, so simple…

It would be the right thing to do, but a part of his mind also wondered how and what sounds it would made when he pierced it from left to rights.

``….´´

He did not end the creature, though he did not pulled the weapon back. Allowing it to remain a little longer, reflecting its monstrous appearance over its length.

``Killing you would be a mercy, but you are the first step to answer a few clues of what I am actually looking for…, to ignore that would be to admit failure..´´

He sighed, finally pulling the blade away...though not before reaping away the rest of the bars of the cage.

``Sadly, you are a small matter compared with what I am hunting for…., we will have a lot to find out once I am done there.´´

He then grabbed the creature, it tried to move and scrawl away, sparks of energy flared all around him when his claws grabbed it and pull it up. The intensity of the overload that was part of it would have wounded a mere man…

It merely bounced off him harmlessly..

He threw the mould of flesh into a dark portal that had appeared behind him, before it disappeared as-well. Joining ranks with all the useless inventory he had…

At least that way he would not have to carry it everywhere….

He then jumped up, the ground shattering by the sheer force as he was ejected into the air a few hundred meters in almost an instant, yet when the time came for gravity to pull him back he remained static in eh air

His sight fixated on the distant, yet visible towers of the castle that was merely a few miles away from him.

The stench was leading him there it seemed.

There were a lot of souls there as-well…, no matter, it would end the same way everything else had.

``Kingdom of Midgar….Death knocks at your door..´´

But just as he was about to dash through the air towards it a thought crossed his mind, one that he had not considered about his newest addition to his collection.

``Wait, can living beings be stored in that interdimensional pocket..?´´

It had been so long since he actually put something like that inside that for once he was a bit lost...

Would it die?

Would it be mutated?

Or would it remain the same.?

….

….

``Well, it doesn't matter...I can always resurrect it...´´

He muttered before he disappeared into the horizon.

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I apologize if there are some mistakes with the grammar, the autocorrect is becoming my worst enemy. Alpha has started her journey as the first pokemon of the reaper even though he has yet to realize that, what adventures await to the both of them? :)