"I won't leave any of you bastards alive!"
Cassian, at that moment, was like a natural phenomenon: a dark and unstoppable storm moving at unrecognizable speeds, decimating everyone in its path through each and every street in the town.
Wherever he passed, all the beasts simply died, as did the aberrations.
The more he moved and accumulated control, the more he felt he dominated his body and the darkness.
Although now that he was not only using his body, he noticed that there was something he had to take into account: the aura, or rather, the mana.
Although the darkness moved and did what he wanted, it consumed a certain amount of mana; the more he wanted to do, the more he spent.
Using it to move also required spending it, as did movement and attack techniques, and he was using it without restraint, even killing hundreds of beasts at the same time.
Even so, he also killed many aberrations with each core he devoured, his physical condition and mana recovering, balancing his enormous mana expenditure.
By consuming one core, he could create up to a hundred darkness spike that could kill the same number of beasts. It was efficient.
He didn't care if there would be consequences for doing so later.
And although he seemed lost in the killing and revenge, he also helped residents who were in danger, getting them out of complicated situations and taking them to the city center.
Now he was on a completely different level. He had already moved throughout the town, killing thousands of beasts and dozens of aberrations.
It was so simple that he truly understood something fundamental: if he had possessed this level of strength from the beginning, none of it would have happened.
He understood the harsh truth, the weak and foolish fall, and the strong and cunning survive.
..
He had already visited several places, including where he last saw Eshaan and the others, but he found no trace of anyone he knew: neither Nisha nor Yefaziel, neither corpses nor signs of life. That only made him angrier.
He destroyed everything in his path in the city and rescued everyone he could; there were no more than fifty, considering that there were about six hundred residents fighting.
With the number of beasts, which were several thousand, and the aberrations more than two dozen, the final outcome was obvious.
"Huff... where is that damn thing?"
Not even a minute had passed since he started, and now he was on top of a building.
He had eliminated everything in the city, but he didn't find what he was looking for.
The aberrations with scythes or spikes, the ones that killed Diona, possibly Rowen, Ellys and Yefeng, as well as Valeriane.
He did not see it, but Yeling did. After recovering the dead Celestine and finding Naelune at death's door, she came upon them both at the right moment—or rather, at the worst possible one—just in time to witness Ellys and her brother's deaths, and the cause was one of those scythed aberrations.
Yeling had accidentally found them first, and the place was not near where he was foolishly searching. He really did everything wrong, and everything went wrong.
And the same thing happened with Valeriane: Yeling, although hurt by Yefeng's death, returned to look for him, but only found Valeriane dying, pierced by many aberrations with scythes and spikes that then merged into a giant mass that Cassian had seen.
It couldn't be a coincidence; they were definitely related. But no matter how hard he searched, he couldn't find any aberrations with scythes, even though before they seemed to be everywhere.
"Hmm, damn... I have to search outside, but I can't move like a fool... Ah! I can do that!"
Cassian was getting used to using darkness, it was a very flexible element and was not only useful for moving and attacking with it. At that moment, he also thought of something else.
He created a dark patch that floated in front of him. Nothing could be seen, only darkness, but when Cassian stared at it, he began to perceive many things and places around him, outside the city.
It was something Yeling had developed, and it allowed him to see what was happening outside, even though he was in her shadow.
She could see through the darkness, and doing this allowed him to see in various places where there was no light.
And it was a completely dark night.
It was a combination of his ability to see through the darkness and the shadow's ability to connect through that dark dimension.
There, distance was not a stable concept, and that was also why he felt an overwhelming sense of speed when he moved from one place to another.
Of course, consuming mana to move was necessary, but if it was only to see through it, he could reach distant places without spending too much.
He had almost all his mana left, but he had already killed all the aberrations, at least within the city, so now he had to be more careful.
As he watched and searched, he saw something strange to the east, where the tide had struck. A little way into the forest was a large blackish-green dome that emitted red and white flashes.
He didn't understand what was happening, but Cassian thought it was something he needed to investigate, especially since he couldn't see what was inside.
He quickly took a step forward and disappeared from the spot again. ...
******
"Kukuku, Joram, Joram! How long are you going to keep this up? Always the same thing, you know it's useless, kukuku. Why don't we talk?"
"..."
"I mean, it doesn't matter, does it? Mental corruption doesn't work here, kukuku, they can't replicate that..."
"..."
"Kukuku, I've always been curious, are you happy with this decision? Kukukuku..."
"..."
"Kukukuku, this isn't fun. Kukukuku, I understand that I'm not the real one. But thanks to you, I have to suffer this eternal curse, kukuku. I don't even understand why I have to accompany you, kukukuku."
"..."
"Kukuku, say something. Don't you feel anything about reducing us to this state, selling your soul and everyone else's...?"
"..."
There were three beings in that place, all different from each other. The one who spoke was the strangest.
Although it was no more than two meters tall and humanoid in shape, it was mostly covered by something, but the little that could be seen made it clear that it was not human, or anything resembling it.
You could see its chest: only empty ribs, no organs. The strangest thing was that its bones seemed to be covered with grayish flesh. It was a fleshy skeleton, with some holes that revealed the bones.
Its head, mainly its face, was strange; in addition to the absence of a nose, half of its face had flesh, although it appeared disfigured, and the other half was skeleton.
Most importantly, a large green eye occupied the space where two should have been. It appeared to have two horns on its head, but they were covered with what looked like a type of cloak or veil.
A closer look revealed that that was part of his body, was a cloak made of his own skin, similar to the thin skin that covered his bones.
And if that weren't enough to make this being strange, one of his hands ended in a Citole, made of wood.
It spoke cheerfully to an older man who watched it from a distance with his large sword in his hands, but he did not respond to anything this fleshy skeleton said.
But he did not attack it either; this was the leader of the town, Joram Kaelfyrd.
In addition to the two of them, there was a third, further away: a blue wolf over twenty-three feet tall, sitting idly, like a mere spectator.
The three of them made for a strange scene, to say the least.
"Kukuku, won't you answer? You know that nothing will come out of here, nor will anything enter. This is my territory. kukukuku...We can take our time, until dawn... until then, you know you can't beat me!"
"..."
"Really, the longer this goes on, kukuku, the stronger I'm getting, kukuku... no, we getting stronger, kukuku, we're making this easier,"
"..."
"Kukuku, by now, your foolish townspeople have likely fallen. Maybe you're the only one left alive, because that's how it should be. No matter how much you resist, it will continue like this, kukuku...until nothing remains."
"...Those kids..."
"Oh, you spoke! Kukuku… They won't do it, they won't change anything. I know it, you know it, even that god knows it. This was just a test, and now most of them are dead, kukuku. Even though my baby couldn't find the remaining two, what difference does it make? What difference will it make in the future? Kukuku None!"
Finally, the town leader spoke, and even though they were enemies, there was a kind of understanding between them; although the words were not entirely clear, the leader and the creature seemed to understand each other.
"..."
"Kukuku, silent again. Kukuku. Well, it's a shame for them, having to die and all that..."
"..."
"Kukuku, well, it's obvious. The path you gave them is only what you want. And although it may be a solution, it's practically impossible. That god designed it to be that way, kukuku. It's the price for living in an illusion, Joram."
"Shut up!"
At that moment, the apparent leader of the town finally replied angrily, burning as he stared at the being with equally burning and threatening eyes.
"Oh, did I upset you?—kukukuku Come on, what, haven't you heard this before? Kukuku… you want to fight, even though you know it's useless? Kukukuku, aren't you tired?"
"...stop this nonsense."
"You! You're the one who should cut the crap, Joram!!, kukuku... It's all your fault, kukuku. You're the fucking problem here, kukukuku... And even I'm sick of it, kukuku. One more down, two more to go, and who knows how many more, kukuku. All this futility is so funny... kukukukuku!"
"..."
"Well, I guess you don't want to talk anymore, kukuku. I've lost the desire to talk to a stubborn old man too... Do you want to go outside and see your town destroyed? Maybe that will wake you up."
"..."
"Oh, is that why you come here? You're running away. Now there are probably corpses everywhere and beasts surrounding the dome waiting for you to die so they can feast, kukuku."
"I'm going to kill you!"
"Kukuku, you can't, you know that. Kukuku, honestly, I'm tired of this. Kukuku, you're not even worth playing with anymore, kukuku, my baby, you can go out and have fun now."
At that moment, a fourth being sprang into action: a massive, thirteen-foot-tall creature with several mouths all over its body.
Furthermore, its only limbs were a giant scythe and a gigantic stinger. It appeared silently behind the fleshy skeleton, without making a sound.
This made the village leader, who was watching it very closely, even more alert. Suddenly, from one of the creature's largest mouths, it spat something in his direction.
He was about to attack it, thinking it was an attack, but when he saw what it was, he stopped.
"Oh... isn't that your son, kukkukuku?. What a good girl, she even brought a gift."
It was Eshaan, or rather, his half-digested corpse.
"...grrrr, this will cost you dearly!"
"Kukukuku... big words. Well, baby, go ahead and kill him. If you do it before dawn, I'll give you a gift... kukukuku.. ku? Huh? What's going on?"
At that moment, the laughter stopped, half of his face covered in flesh made a confused expression, and he looked up.
BOOM!!!
And just then, there was a loud impact that shook the place and made the ground tremble.