Author's note: Chapters hereon were unedited, and had some minor issues with tense. Read without the mind of a perfect grammarian.
He puffed out a mouthful of air, and his nervous tensions were released. He placed his palm on the woman's round stomach, as his eyes were shut.
Time ticked, and his forehead was trickled with sweat, lining over to his side cheek. An itch pricked his fingertips and they emitted purple fumes, as purple as tyrian. The flowing fumes thinned out and penetrated the woman's pelvis.
With his soul sense, he steered the purple fumes toward the imagery of the fetus, and he disrupted the connection, between the soul and its body, and weakened the unborn goblin child.
The wisp of the knee-hugging goblin was surrounded, by the threatening purple clouds. Gradually, the wisp was devoured by the clouds and coated it completely. Timely, the color was renewed to a glowing royal purple.
He gasped for air as he peeled back his eyelids. "I'll see you soon Darling." He muttered.
------
Three days had gone by.
He raised up the tiny Melantha by her armpits. Her gaze was locked into his as she pouted her lips in weepy. "Is this the time when I call you little wife?" He bit his lip, holding his emotions within, but tears fought back and burned his sinus.
Why would he cry? This was a happy event. A happy event.
"Welcome back, I... I can't describe this happiness. Sometimes, I wonder if the voice in my head was just a product of my insanity, unaccepting the fact that I can never see you. But here you are. You look exactly as you are in the baby pictures." Their past life revisited his mind like a passing dream, and he chuckled in nostalgia.
His welling teardrop crumbled and slid down, unto a glistening line. He beamed with unexplainable glee, as his heart enlarged in relief.
These must be what they called, tears of joy, he thought. And similar to him, her strong soul had influenced the vessel's appearance.
More days had passed: her first crawl, into a step, her mouth sipping milk, to a speaking pipsqueak, each had been witnessed by him.
He recalled the events from their rebirth. A human woman that carried a goblin would give birth twice, every 7 days. The carriers would live for 15 days, nourished by the goblin fetus. The second the baby was delivered, just after the litter was breastfed, they would breathe their last, to a total desist.
As he watched her grow with passion, he sharpened his hunting skills with the goblin duo, and they crafted small primitive bows. The bow's body and arrows were sculpted from the wood materials provided by the trees. He had to thank the sharpness of the lizard's horn, that had served as their knives.
Its strings were made of natural plant fiber, twisted together to strengthen its durability. And with his dutiful assistants, they were able to produce enough small traditional bows. Although the two's craftsmanship was a little crooked in appearance, they had proved to be useful.
The baby batchmates of Melantha had also joined their party and gave their team more manpower, at the price of more mouths to be fed. When he thought about the past goblins who had never returned after setting out, questions had twirled as he pondered where they had gone.
------
A young pitch-black bear creature flopped dead, arrows littered its back like it had become a porcupine.
As they strolled forward, he watched the goblins as they sprinted next to the corpse. Their nasal were reddened by the primal lust of hunger. They bared their fangs and pointed their arrows at each other. None of them would want anyone to have the first bite.
"How unruly". Melantha grumbled from his side.
"This made me appreciate Aleges and Clux more, they were so behaved. Guess goblins have varying characters too similar to humans huh? Or is it because we haven't interacted with them much yet?"
These batchmates of Melantha were not able to form any bond, with her, for he had interfered. He had cared for her every time he had a chance till she could speak.
Was he to blamed? He was just... slightly protective.
His vision caught a white soul that came out of the corpse's snout, he stepped near and balled the soul, then hurled it into his mouth. The coldness chilled his breath, as it ran through his throat and into his lungs— tasteless like water, frosty like ice.
As he savored the aftertaste. His soul sense zapped his brain, and he was warned of an upcoming danger. He jerked his head backward in speed, and whooshed, and an arrow passed through his line of sight.
Who?
He snapped his head to the side, and he saw a goblin scrunched in fierceness.
His lips twitched in anger, he had never felt wanting to murder someone like ever before. "You're the one who got the nerve to get angry?!" He thunders.
Rage erupted into his veins as it became more visible, on his balled fist. He gripped his horn dagger from his waist. As he was about to dig the grave, an arrow pierced the goblin's jaw, pinning its head to the ground.
Melantha pounced on the perpetrator and straddled him like a pig about to be butchered. She stabs and stabs and stabs... Until she sculped out a grotesque goblin's head while spurts of crimson enveloped her frame.
Was he not supposed to be scared by such a violent display of her wife? Then why is the copper stench in the air bringing him a homely feeling? Her grisly conduct has instead enamored him silly.
Slapping himself to break his stupefy. The scene has pinched his heart in ache. How could he be so careless? He becomes complacent due to his fellowship with Aleges and Clux.
He balled his hand into a fist as his thoughts rolled with realization. Right, aren't Earth's humans the same? They claim to have a high moral compass but at the end of the day, they always go after each other's throats for the sake of getting a bigger portion of the resources.
Of course, these unruly goblin beasts were even worse.
Melantha's black-stained bosom heaved up and down, her petite body was now bathed in gore. She caught his nearing figure and rushed at him to plant her face on his chest, her shoulder was quivering from the mixture of wrath and fright.
"It's okay, it's okay. I ain't that easy to take down." He softly rubs her back to ease up her shiver.
The misbehaving goblins were trembling on their feet upon witnessing the cruel death of their own. Aleges and Clux were snarling at them with their daggers drawn, making them step back.
When her fear soothes down, she ferociously glances at the group. "Looks like we can only abandon these pieces of shit. They are nothing but wild animals! We could've known better." she scowls in disappointment.
"Let's make a meal out of the hunt prize and leave them be." He bobs in agreement. "Too bad we don't have salt or any alternative. In that way we can tan the bear hide. Oh! Forget it. It's just small in size anyways". Trying to regain the good vibe, he switched to a different topic.
He cut out a chunk of meat from the bear's tenderloin and sliced it in half for Melantha. Unlike the rubbery meat of a lizard, it's soft and has a stronger gamey smell in flavor on his every bite.
"Clux! Aleges! Come here you two." She beckons the two as she nibbles her food. If it was in the past, no way in hell she could eat with unsanitized hands and ambiance.
This must be an attestation that an unforgiving environment breeds the wild.
"Fooooowd!" The two happily responded in unison.
"Grr!!" Seeing the four of them merrily having a feast, the left-out goblins were growling through their teeth. Through his senses, he could see their souls erratically burning in red killing intent.
"No wonder they never progress their civilization, some are born with extreme tendencies for chaos even against their own kind." Mordred uttered coldly.
Indeed, even he can not disregard the fact that the background's bloodshed is making his mind hazy from bloodlust, his every cell was screaming for massacre and plunder.
Not waiting for them to pull out another dirty trick. He dashed in as his eyes glint in purple.
A vibration travels through the air from his forehead that dazes the goblins upon contact. Before their body kissed the soil, the nearest goblin gurgled its own blood as his dagger plunged into his chin. A rain of arrows passes by his ear as it drowns the other goblins' screams of pain. It was an easy four-against seven-battle, or was it even a battle? They stood no chance to even retaliate.
He felt no remorse. Massacred with impunity.
Multiple white fumes came out of the dead's pores that float mid-air, they were seemingly stuck into spheres that were unable to disappear.
"You sure are my lucky star, Darling. Who would've thought that by absorbing souls, it expands out our soul influence range and its duration." He flashes her a gleeful grin.
Fastening the bow to their backs, Aleges and Clux got back to their eating business after the quick crime.
Melantha strides towards him as she slurps off her fingers clean. "Thanks to the previous host's soul of this, we found that out." She pauses and locks eyes with him. "Now that I think about it, aren't we like parasites? Latching to a living organism, sucking the soul out of them, and controlling their bodies?"
Huh? Did he just disregard it, was it not disgusting? She indirectly ate the blood of their own from her stained fingertips, and why was his brain perceiving it as normal?
These thoughts made him pinch his forehead. "The goblin's anatomy. It's slowly changing us, in and out." His eyes squinted. "And your analogy's quite right." He chuckles.
"I know. What then, M'Love? The moment we reincarnate is the time our past selves cease to exist. They will remain happy memories, memories we could expand through this life." She caressed his cheeks tenderly. "And, What's funny?"
"You're absolutely right, Darling." He held the same hand to reciprocate her affection. "Hmm~ going by that thought. Doesn't that mean everyone's a parasite? You die, go into reincarnation, and zap your new parent's essence to create yourself. Then you separate from your mother's womb, take the world's oxygen to breathe, and quench your hunger by the world's river and animals to continue living."
"And what're you implying? We should stop making things complex in our minds and focus on how we want to live instead of who we are to live?" She drooped her eyelids in pondering.
"Exactly. After our interaction with these callous goblins. I realized we should start caring less about every little detail. Either we spare or kill, that's because we want to, indiscriminately. Not bound by who or what they are. But because we want to."
"Hold on." She pursed her lips and brows. "Will that not make our surroundings turn chaotic? We sound lawless."
His shoulder trembles in cackles. "Hahaha! Aren't laws made to protect the interest of the individual in power? Simple. We'll be the power in charge of the order, things can bend when you have the right to speak." For the new him. This is logical.
An arc gradually forms on her lips that shows her white sharp teeth. The twisted smile was so menacing that it betrayed her gorgeous visage. But for Mordred, it was so attractive that she magnetized his heart, drowning him in intoxication. He's unable to break his obsessive gaze.
Pulling her by the waist, his chest pressed her leaf-covered bosom. Her coppery and earthly stench banded to tickle his heartstrings. He leaned over and plastered a smoldering kiss on her tea-green lips, their tongues were wrestling between salivas as slurping sounds were heating their veins.
While lovey-dovey. He raised his hand into a clutch, congregating the wisp of souls into one huge ball. In beckoning, it stretches out into two lines of thin smoke. Trailing towards them, they inhale them through their mouth ajar and nose.
"Let me show you something." She flashes him a radiant smile, seemingly a wife who has made a leap in her career or a happy stay-at-home wife with a new delicious recipe to share.
Eventful day: 44th day, Melantha preggy
173 +1 banshee, +8 from the party
Current day: 44th day
10:05 09-10-2023 Time