PoV Diego
I woke up in an unknown world. The sky was clear, and I could see in it a giant gas cloud with an equally massive ring of asteroids around it. Some weird reptiles were flying above me, screeching while flapping their wings.
As I looked at the ground beneath me, I soon realized why that was the case. The ground was littered with corpses. They were all dismembered. Limbs were ripped out of their bodies. Several parts of their bodies were missing. I then realized I was holding what was probably someone's liver.
I dropped it and started searching for a clue to where I was.
"Dubir!"
The blade appeared to be a one-edged, curved blade. The blade was mostly black, with some red lines near the edge of the sword. From the red line, golden vein-like threads covered the body of the blade. The guard had the shape of a weird flower. On my left side was a floating black scabbard.
'What happened to you?'
Dubir: I feel happy and proud of you.
'Why, and where are we? I just can't see anything here, just grass plains without an end.'
Dubir: We're currently on stage... seven, I think? So, we got through the graveyard, the defense on the hills, the desert invasion, I think your allies got the next one, and after that, we were on the container ship, so this is number... six?
'Why are we here?'
Dubir: Forren was scared of your hatching, so he tossed us in here. I never imagined you would be... how can I say it? ruthless.
'What happened here, and why is Fury so quiet all of a sudden?'
Dubir: You ate everything that had a pulse for a couple of days, but often you wouldn't go further than a couple of bites before changing targets, as for the others. Fury tried to use her power to stop you, but she didn't have enough power, so now she is probably recovering. The twins were also horrified at the sight. To get their forgiveness, it will probably take a while.
'It's not like I'm ever going to use them.'
As we were talking, I heard someone screaming in the distance. The voice belonged to a female. She was carrying a basket full of fruits over her head. She was dressed rather poorly, with barely any clothes on.
To her, I would've probably looked like a monster. I was naked and covered in blood, and pieces of raw human meat were still stuck in my mouth. I was also talking to a weapon.
Dubir: Now that you think about it, you're right; most sane people would find this situation terrifying.
Not only that, but everywhere you looked, there were at least a dozen corpses.
Where did she come from? Did she just appear out of thin air?
Before I could even ask her that question, she dropped her basket and kneeled down, laying her head on the ground, asking for mercy. At first, I was a bit confused, so I didn't answer immediately. This made her a bit more crazy, as she started beating her head against the ground while also asking me to spare her.
So I immediately stopped her. I reached out and lifted her by the shoulders. She was trembling. She was scared of me.
Dubir: Is she blind?
"What are you talking about?"
Dubir : Check it anyway.
I didn't know what he meant by checking, but I decided to fake a punch. She didn't flinch or seem to react in any way.
'Is there any other way to check if she is really blind?'
Dubir : Ask her?
'She's in shock. I doubt she could answer me properly. And what if she lies? Why do I care so much about stupid things like this when I can just?'
With a swift movement, I beheaded her in a single, clean strike. I noticed then that most of the blood that was on the sword was being absorbed by the blade.
Is this how soul weapons eat?
Dubir: Kinda, we don't often use blood; instead, we ingest our user's mana to use our powers, manifest ourselves, and, finally, repair ourselves. And we don't eat the blood; we eat the mana within the blood of our opponents.
I then noticed the reality around me slowly crumbling, shattering into a million pieces, and it slowly revealed what really was around me.
'It seems you've run out of power.'
Dubir didn't respond this time.
In reality, I was in a throne room. Many guards were on the ground. Some of them were still alive. Just as Dubir described before, some of their limbs were missing because I ripped them off of their bodies. In my hands, Dubir had a completely different aspect from the one in the illusion. He was a dull plain longsword; the edges were bent, and it seemed one step away from completely shattering.
Despite the fact that I was in the throne room, there was no royal member, noble, or anyone dressed up. All of them had armor. All of them were missing their legs. Most of the ones that had died had a significant part of the back of the neck missing. I noticed that Frey was also out. He was in terrible condition, as both the pole and the blade were completely broken.
I looked at my right wrist, and the smart watch was there.
'What is this thing made of anyway? Even when I use my ability on the wrist, it won't fall off.'
"Frey, Dubir, you can return now. Thank you for your services."
I didn't feel much when Dubir returned, but when Frey did, it felt as if I had suddenly put on a 15-kg backpack.
A reminder for the future: always call them back before they get broken.
The objective was: "Kill the royal family or kill the corrupted nobles within the kingdom."'
Is there someone among you who can track people with its power?'
Nobody answered, so I took it as a no.
'So, let me get this straight. I'm in the middle of a throne room—God only knows where—and I need to find some stupid mother- people to kill. They're probably hiding by now. ARGHHH! This is so frustrating. How the hell am I supposed to find those targets?'
I was so frustrated that I started biting off my nails, walking left and right aimlessly, and kicking an organ that fell off a corpse. I was unsure which organ it was since it was in a pretty messy state; it was small and long, and it had a purple-ish color completely covered in blood.
I then got out of that room, only to find even more corpses at the front. These were trained warriors. Their bodies were far more trained than the small fry inside the throne room. They had built a lot more muscle mass and were generally less fat.
Among them, there were a couple of maids here and there. Oddly enough, all of the females' noses were bitten off, and their eyes were left hanging out of their sockets. The cause of death for most of them seemed to be a stab wound in the back.
The ones that didn't die that way had their legs chewed up, and the cause of death seemed to be blood loss.
'Why did I target their faces? '
I noticed a fancy room with a bit more corpses than usual. They were all male guards. They had some interesting weapons, so I started inspecting the room.
Dubir: I should ask you that. Anyway, when did you get that strong? When we were on the boat, you couldn't even dream of ripping an arm off of someone.'
What are you talking about? I was always this strong. In the boat, I didn't do that ... because... It probably had something to do with how lazy I was. I don't remember that well.'
A moment of silence followed. As I kept searching, I found what I thought was the corpse of a noble woman. I say this because her face and body were almost unrecognizable. She had a ripped corset, a torn blue dress with golden refinements, and was a very tall woman.
PoV Mary
It was almost an ordinary day for Mary. She had woken up earlier than usual. This was because she wanted to go to the basement of the castle to grab a present for her mother. She planned to give her this present on the night of her tenth birthday, three days from now.
A couple of days ago, some soldiers discovered a weird rock that had some special crystals growing on it. Mary wanted to give her a crystal that she had harvested with her own hands. She had already asked permission from her father, and with the help of the maids, she quickly got ready to start.
It took a while for her, but in the end she managed to extract some of the crystals, damaging a bit of the rock below. The maids figured that if that didn't impact the rock's ability to generate crystals, then it probably wasn't something to pay much attention to.
Once she returned to her room, she hid the present in a small box she often used to store a small diary of hers.
The size of the crystal was about the size of her palm, so it easily fit inside the box.
She smiled then. Her mom really liked those shining rocks. She had a collection of them in her room: red, blue, purple, or yellow. They were present in necklaces, earrings, rings, and anklets.
Plus, the crystal she harvested was red, her mother's favorite color.
She then proceeded to visit her eldest brother's room. She wanted to play with him, but he was too busy studying. In the last couple of weeks, he suddenly holed himself up in the room, ignoring everyone and everything.
"The maids said, "Since he is the future heir, he must study a lot." At this rate, big brother is going to die with a book in his hands." She confessed to her stuffed teddy bear.
Lately, a lot of her brothers started taking various kinds of lessons, and she started feeling lonely. Usually their answers were, "I'm sorry. I'm occupied now." "Maybe we can play later." or "Can't you see that I'm studying now?"
Mary was starting to feel lonely, and sometimes she would cry when asleep.
Even when their mother fell terribly ill, they never visited her. Mary instead stayed with her most of the time; the maid had to forcefully drag her out in fear she could catch the queen's disease.
After she healed, the queen gifted her her stuffed animal, which she was now constantly carrying with her. Soon after, most of Mary's friends stopped visiting her mansion, and she was prohibited from seeing them.
So when the mother proposed the idea of playing all day long with all of her brothers and sisters, Mary was ecstatic. Since it was her mother's idea, her brothers and sisters accepted it and took a day off from studying to play with Mary.
They played catch, then they played a card game. She didn't know the rules, but her brother still found a way to make her win most of the games.
'I wish this happiness could last forever.' She selfishly prayed.
When the time to eat came, everybody was present at the table, even her father. She started crying out in tears of joy after seeing her father smiling at her. Her father then proceeded to hug her and spoon feed her the rest of the meal.
Their peace was interrupted by a messenger. He said:
"Your majesty, the traders are starting to swim. The puffer fish have also started to circle around the sharks, while our pool of fish is starting to get agitated."
"Father!" shouted the oldest brother after standing up.
"Don't worry, I'll find a way to deal with this." He said.
He then got up and left. The mood in the room had grown sour and tense. Everyone seemed angry. Her mother had an uncomfortable look on her face, while all her sisters became pale. One of the brothers said something incomprehensible, and all the others started shouting at him, cussing, and cursing him.
Mary was on the verge of tears but knew to hold back to not anger her brothers and sister, so she left before finishing her plates and headed straight back to her room.
Only a couple of maids decided to follow her; the rest of them had run off somewhere. They helped her change clothes. They chose very flashy clothes. Then they gave her one last hug and kissed her on the forehead before leaving.
Immediately after the maids left, someone knocked on her door. It was her eldest sister, Gabriel. She had tied up her long golden hair in a ponytail and was now wearing a blue dress with golden flowers embroidered into it; she wasn't wearing her usual accessories.
"Mary, are you ok?" She asked while sitting beside Mary.
"I-I'm fine." Her voice was so feeble that it was almost impossible to hear.
Gabriel then proceeded to lay Mary on the bed and hug her tightly while also patting her head. while whispering "it's fine, don't worry" to her little sister.
"How about we play hide and seek?" proposed Gabriel.
"Just the two of us?"
"Yes, just the two of us. What do you think?"
Mary nodded, making a cute sound.
Mary was thinking of a place to hide, so she decided to open and close the door to give the impression that she was hiding somewhere outside her room, and then she quietly managed to hide in her closet, leaving only a small opening to peek outside.
Before Gabriel could finish counting, some people screamed in pain in the corridor. Many voices could be heard shouting. "Hold the line", "Protect the young masters", "Kill this fucking beast" and then... they all started screaming in pain.
This froze Mary in place. She could do nothing but tremble and sob.
Gabriel then rushed to check what was happening outside, then immediately rushed towards Mary and told her .
"Mary, calm down. I'm here with you, so everything will be fine. Trust me, ok?"
She then proceeded to give Mary her stuffed animal that was still on the bed.
"Please do not open the doors until I or my father say so. Do not make any noise either."
The hyperventilating Mary could barely understand what she was saying but still managed to nod in response.
Gabriel then closed the cabinet doors and went outside.
Unfortunately, Mary was far too curious for her own good, and she soon witnessed one of her older brothers and her eldest sister being murdered in front of her by a reptilian man-like creature.
Mary could only watch in horror, crying for her loss while peeing herself in fear.
The creature seemed to not react to her constant screams; instead, it started sniffing around the room in search of something. Once it found Mary's small box, it ripped it apart and ate the purple crystal. Then it tried to get out but was intercepted by the soldiers.
This went on for a couple of days. On Mary's birthday, a miracle happened. The creature magically disappeared, and in its place, an unknown male voice appeared, talking to himself, searching for something.
When he entered her room, he started inspecting Mary's eldest sister's dead body. Mary was too shocked to realize what was happening. The man then gradually approached her hiding spot and opened it.
Even then, Mary remained still. Everything felt like a terrible nightmare she had to wake up from. As soon as she made eye contact with him, she noticed something that terrified her.
The man was smiling. The naked man's smile seemed to extend from one ear to the other, while his devilish dark eyes were staring directly at her.
She mustered whatever strength was left in her body to charge at the man and run away as fast as possible.
"Fury." chanted the man.
Mary had no time to check what he had done. She rushed towards the door and bolted away, heading towards the underground.
'Mom, Dad, where are you?'
A giant war axe then flew right beside her. As she turned the corner, she managed to see the ax dissolving into a black mist and returning to where it came from.
"Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" She screamed as she ran down the stairs, hoping someone would hear her screams and come to her aid.
When Mary managed to reach the underground tunnel that led directly to her father's castle, she saw that the naked man covered in blood was already there, waiting for her at the entrance.
Before she could even react, he cut off one of her legs with what looked like a demonic sword.
The man was talking in a different language, asking for something while pointing his sword at the end of his tunnel.
"P-please, don't kill me!" That was the only thing she could say.
The man seemed puzzled at first. He then cut off her right thumb and kept asking her questions in his weird language.
A black mist surrounded the man. The ax from before appeared in his hands. He raised it over his head, preparing his final swing.
"I'm sorry." said the man with a female voice.
"Please-"
Mary was still pleading for her life when the battle axe shattered her skull.