The air in the room suddenly changed and got heavy, rendering any living being of breathing. The people in the room began to gasp for air, unsure whether it was the smoke, or the fear of an impending death that caught a hold of their pharynxes.
The beast, being the source of the change, effortlessly continued to slice apart every single human alive in the room. It was a bloody massacre that had no signs of stopping so long as there was a living human in the vicinity.
After gallons of blood was spilled and numerous body parts were sent flying, there was finally only one human left alive.
The beast then slowly approached the last human. An indescribable fear struck the man after he watched this beast, that was now approaching him, massacre all his comrades.
As the beast approached, its dark cloud began to absorb the blood that was spilled all around the floor, walls, and ceiling. He then grabbed the man trembling in fear, by the neck, and lifted him towards the ceiling.
Unable to contain his fear, with tears in his eyes, the man finally found release in the form of urine dripping down his legs.
"I'm sorry, please…let me live," the man pitifully begged as a paddle of urine slowly began to form beneath him. The beast then threw the man and sent him flying through the once shut door as though disgusted. He landed outside with a thump then skidded right in front of the tailed Lilith, where she she had been waiting.
The man quickly got up and limped away for his life. The throw was so powerful, the pitiful man ended up breaking his hip and foot upon landing. But that didn't stop him from trying to get away.
The tailed Lilith then walked up to the beast as it finally stepped out of the burning building. She looked it up and down with a puzzled face, since the dark cloud that is usually surrounding my body, was now outlined with a blazing, turquoise flame.
The beast then attempted to slice the tailed Lilith, but the scythe went right through her body as though it were a mirage. The scythe could deal no damage to her. She suddenly grew to a size of 7 feet then grabbed the beast's face.
The white in her eyes began to turn pitch black and dark blood now flew out from her dark scarlet eyes and down her cheeks.
She groaned in pain throughout the whole process as the beast let out a loud, deathly screech before reverting back to the size of 7 feet. The turquoise flames outlining the dark cloud began to fade away as I slowly felt my conciousness take control once more.
"Thank you, tailed Lilith. You are much more useful than I gave you credit for," I said in gratitude. She then whipped me on the arm with her furry tail, giving me a look of resentment.
Dark blood could still be seen flowing out of her eyes. She almost looked pitiable.
"You need to be more careful. You were never meant to reach such a point and lose yourself like that. It hurts more each time I do this, and you made me do it twice today," she said with a calm voice. However, her face could not hide the all too visible displeasure she felt.
"I understand, it was my own fault that it got this far. Nonetheless, this was ultimately quite educative," I said not losing my composure. While I do not fancy being whipped, it was simply the result of my own undoing. I will not challenge correction.
"I acquired 89 years from the remaining lifespans of the humans that burned inside the club. I could feel their lifespans had strengthened me somehow, but it's at such a miniscule degree that it sadly cannot be considered significant. I need more, much more. From what I have learnt, in the long run…
it will never be enough," I said depressingly.
"There has to be a way for me to increase my resistance to Theós' control faster than this. At this rate, it will take me many millennia before I can take another 50 steps on the narrow path. Tailed Lilith, what did your previous master do to get as far as he did?" I ask anxiously.
"Cain was a true reaper. His suffering drove him to do a series of things that led to him going as far as he did down the narrow path. When he found out that he was given power over death, he became ecstatic.
He believed he could start over and build a new world where no one's self interests was above anyone else's. A fair world with no favortism. With him as the ruler, and an arsenal of thousands of shadows, no one could have stepped out of line. It would have been simple, 'Obey or die!'
However, he soon realized that he could not do any harm to the humans, but only guide their souls to the afterlife. He was enraged! The power he was given was nothing short of a curse. Forever doomed to walk the earth. Unable to die; unable to kill; unable to change anything.
He believed Theós was playing some sort of twisted game. This was the curse for commiting the first murder in human history. Since he could not kill humans, he took out his anger on another one of Theós' creations, the dinosaurs.
He killed off every last one of them in an attempt to get back at Theós. In doing this, he realized that with each dinosaur that he killed, he became stronger and could slightly resist Theós' control. Eventually he figured out that he could also create more shadows because of it.
The only problem was that animals made such an insignificant increase to his strength that it was only worth killing them if he were to wipe out an entire species to extinction.
He eventually began to scheme then found a way to kill humans indirectly. The plan was a huge success and gave him the results he wanted.
He found out that a single human's lifespan was worth that of a thousand animals. This led to various schemes being made against humanity. Such as plagues, bombings, and saving people like Hitler from death," she said with admiration.
"He was a reaper, what do you mean by saving people?" I asked. "When Cain saved someone who was at the end of their lifespan, he found out that each death that person was responsible for from the moment they were saved, would then be on him," she replied.
"I see, this at least broadens my options," I said still in deep thought. "So, what do you plan on doing now?" The tailed Lilith asked expectantly.
I took a long pause to think about my next course of action. I suddenly noticed the sun coming up then finally said with confidence, "I am going to write a book." The tailed Lilith looked at me with unwavering disappointment. Clearly, she had expected something more grand.
"What good will that do?" she asks emotionlessly. "Well, for starters, I refuse to keep breaking into stores just to get a day's worth of clothing. I need to be able to support myself as a man. I need influence and I need resources.
As for the grand plan you are probably expecting of me, you'll just have to wait and see for yourself. Now, let's go," I said then opened a gateway in front of me using the dark cloud.
I go through the gate alongside the tailed Lilith then reappear back in the bathroom of my house in Sherwood. 'I need to clean up this mess I made,' I thought to myself.
I then walk out of the bathroom and head down the stairs. Below the steps, I could see a corpse in a puddle of slightly dried blood. "What a mess," I say to myself. I then control the dark cloud to completely cover the corpse and the blood.
The dark cloud then began to accelerate the decaying process on the corpse and absorb the puddle of blood as well. In almost an instant, nothing but dust was left.
"How many more shadows can I create at the moment?" I ask the tailed Lilith as I approached the door. "10,000 is your current maximum," she replied.
I then stepped outside and began to walk towards the barn. As I stood at the entrance, I looked down at my mother's bloody corpse. I then proceeded to do the same as I did with my father's corpse and started to clean the area.
As soon as I was finished getting rid of the body, I walked out of the barn and created a shadow having a task in mind for it. It then immediately took to the sky at a tremendous speed.
It seemed to be in search of something. I then called it back and tried to give it a direct order, but all it did was stand there, as though lifeless.
"You won't be able to make them do anything other than collect souls. They are not intelligent beings and only have a wisp of a human's soul. There is but a single purpose built into them from the moment they are created. Find a human; collect their soul," the tailed Lilith clarified.
'If that is all they are good for then they aren't really much use to me,' I thought to myself. "Can I increase their intelligence?" I ask the tailed Lilith.
"No matter how much stronger you get, you can only increase the number of shadows you create, but their intelligence remains the same," she replied still curious about what I'm planning to do.
'People are born every day, but people die every day as well. There shouldn't be a need for me to have this many excess shadows. There has to be a purpose for this.' I thought to myself.
"Have you ever tried merging them?" I ask then immediately created 100 shadows, not waiting for a reply. I then begin to control each shadow to go into the next until there was only one left.
By the time I finished merging the shadows, the final one had taken a different appearance. It had a dark cloud around its body, much like my own, only this shadow's cloud was less thick. However, what truly made it different from the other shadows was that it had no face. There were only dark clouds, moving about the area its face was supposed to be.
"Can you speak?" I ask the merged shadow. It stood there absent minded for a while then slowly shook its head. "So, what can you do?" I ask a follow up question.
The merged shadow stood there for a short moment then flew into the sky in search of a human, just like the other shadow. So, I quickly called it back.
'Although this one is more responsive with direct orders, I still need to create a shadow with far more intelligence. A shadow that goes beyond its instinctive duty of collecting souls. I guess I should just merge more shadows.' I thought then proceeded to create 5,000 more shadows and began to merge them.
The shadows twisted together and formed a massive tornado that looked much like a whirlpool from above made of a thick dark cloud. The whirlpool completely blanket the sky, stopping any sunlight from passing through.
Eventually, it began to shrink after a while. A being could be vaguely seen kneeling in the middle of it, taking the dark cloud within its body.
After a few more minutes, the whirlpool disappeared and the morning sky was visible once more. A 7ft shadow arose from the center of where the tornado used to be.
It looked identical to myself, with the exception of the dark cloud continually coming out from its skull. This made it difficult to even see its features. Its head was decorated with a pair of 1ft horns, giving it a menacing look.
"Can you speak?" I ask the newly merged shadow. "Yes, master," he says slightly bowing towards me with his right hand placed on his chest. "And what can you do?" I ask him. "I, Azrael, will do anything my master asks of me," he said with a respectful tone.