--Gremory Point of View--
'Where am I?'
A sea of blood surrounds me, bodies of thousands of people shattered everywhere. This scene would scare me before, but there is not much feeling for seeing just random people dead after you see everyone you love to die in front of you.
I try to find a way out, but in vain, there is nothing besides an endless blood sea with corpses.
I keep walking until the darkness started to surround the place.
I try to make a distance between us until she reaches me.
"What is this?" I spoke to her while I stand on guard.
I can see clearly in the dark now, and I see nothing there. But somehow I can feel the presence of something evil.
Then, the darkness itself spoke to me.
"Your hunger grows my son, I expect to see you soon"
And then I woke up.
To my surprise, I am still alive, and it is morning already.
I am in the middle of the forest, Carine and Fulgence are on guard ready to attack any insect that comes close enough.
"Heeey guys, are you alright?" I asked with the hope that they would answer back.
"..."
"Can you hear me guys??"
"..."
No answer after all.
"So yesterday was not just a dream, the old man and everyone is dead"
"..."
"Did you guys even killed Scullery after I blackout?"
"..."
'Talking to them is meaningless, most probably they ran from there with me after I black out'
"..."
'What should I do? Go after him or hide? Think... Think... What the old man would do?'
While I think about it, I realize my condition, my clothes are tattered, my shirt was used as a bandage yesterday, and I'm very hungry.
'I am not in the condition to fight yet, the result will be the same with me probably dying... The old man used to say "Remain calm at all times and think about your actions". So first I need to eat, maybe just a couple of animals will be enough'
The moment I think that Carine and Fulgence leave for the forest, killing everything they see ahead.
'So they have no brain but follow my commands without me even talking'
I give a good look at them and there is not much difference between a normal human and them now. Besides the scar on their throats that now glows the color of vivid red, together with their eyes.
'Yeah, that's quite scary'
I have no idea of where I am since I have never been so far in the woods before, but I follow them to feed.
I didn't active my shell before, so there is no need to activate it now.
--I start to follow them--
'They are killing animals quite far ahead, and I am still being able to absorb them, my range is better now that I've absorbed so much black energy?'
'I wonder what else has increased' (Author note: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°))
When I looked at my body I realized that the increase in my muscles was much greater from yesterday to today compared to what I achieved with these 4 years of training.
My size increased too, I have now 1.63 m (5′ 4″).
'I never thought of black energy as anything other than food, so I only consumed what was necessary to survive for those years. If I knew that before, maybe everyone would still be alive...'
'In these moments the old man probably would say "Thinking too much on the past won't bring it back", "You need to move only forward" or something like that'
"I will never forget you guys, one day I will avenge you all, I promise" I scream with all my might.
'So first I need to know my new limits'
I grab a stick on the ground and I use shadow impulse aiming the tree in front of me.
To my surprise, it made a much stronger cut than I would have been able to make yesterday using a sword.
Then I use it again, again, again, again, again until I run out of mana
'Only 12 times?? Everything improved so much, but my mana stock is so bad yet'
It is an improvement still, yesterday I could use 10 times, now I have 2 more.
'But now I have to run to reach Fulgence and Carine. They follow the commands with mastery, but apparently, they cannot think beyond that'
'And what if I think about making them stop? Fulgence and Carine stop now!'
And so they did.
Well well, this will be very useful.
As I ran back to them, I see a lot of animals dead by an arrow. Squirrels, birds, and even two deer.
'Looks like Carine won the match against Fulgence hahaha. But who can blame him, he has no weapon at all, while Carine never leave her bow, even during the party so when we were captured she was still with him'
'I can still hear her talking, "Your weapon it's just an extension of your arm, so you should always be with her"...'
And then I started crying briefly.
'Enough with this, this is not over yet. Not until I kill Scullery!'
'But thinking about it, they would not handcuff her and leave the bow on her back. So she must have taken it before she ran away with me, which means that they can still think a little'
'This is awesome, I also can't see any handcuffs anymore'
After five minutes of running, I finally reach them and having absorbed the animals on the way made my hunger decrease. Yet my need for food has grown a lot along with my skills.
'Well, that's worrying'
"You guys just follow me, now it's time to go to Lathrium" I spoke even knowing that I could just think about them following me.
"..." They answered. (Author note: Just like me with my imaginary friends)
And then we started walking.
And we walk...
For hours.
Even having said that, I have no idea where we are. I need to find a road or something.
And we walked again.
Until I heard roars of battle along with blades clashing nearby.
"Gremory... This is not the time" I spoke to myself.
Then I heard someone screaming for help.
'Oh fu** this, I am going'
They were fighting in the middle of a stream that was inside the forest.
Once I got close enough to see the battle, it changed my way of thinking in fighting.
For the first time, I could see magic besides mine.