The flames in the metal brazier flickered like half-dead rags, their wavering red light barely illuminating the grim prison. Everything else was shrouded in darkness. Through a small, palm-sized window in the metal door, he could see a butcher in a sackcloth mask walking down the corridor.
His flayed skin burned, his ankles were raw, and his dislocated joints sent spasms through every muscle. At first, he didn't realize he was awake. The face before him had become a head, rolled onto the floor—its torn neck caked with clotted blood, the splintered bone of its throat visible.
Either I've gone mad, or this is the most unlucky reincarnation I've ever had.
He turned his head slightly, trying to shift his gaze from the dead man's head to survey his surroundings, and was immediately hit by a searing pain.
I hate these unmodified bodies! he cursed inwardly.
His pursuers hadn't given him much time, making this hasty reincarnation a disaster. If he managed to escape this dungeon, he would first need to perform the surgery that would allow him to control his nerve signals with his consciousness.
After steadying his breath, he began to extend his mental feelers into his new body. He managed to ignite the last dregs of the soul within this broken vessel—the soul of its original owner—and, without a shred of gratitude, burned the dim flame to ashes. As an offering, he communed with the labyrinth of Tsathoggua.
At the end of the faint, rot-like light lay an unimaginable darkness. The corner of the cell was grim and silent, filled with a damp stench. A rustling sound came from the darkness. Amidst a chilling, low moan, a strange, ink-black, viscous fluid flowed from a crack and coalesced into a wrinkled, black, flattened sphere, like the shriveled skin of an old woman.
It was about the length of a human arm in diameter. Its moist surface writhed continuously, slowly changing shape like a lump of black mud from a sewer. A moment later, more than a dozen underdeveloped, slender limbs extended from its amorphous body, resembling the atrophied appendages of a malformed infant's corpse. They waved about as if in a frenzy.
As he watched the summoned creature take form with a blank expression, a weak female voice came from behind him.
"You're a black sorcerer?"
...There's someone else alive in here?
He didn't try to turn around; this body was too broken.
The voice continued, its hoarseness fading, sounding unafraid of the current situation. "This—this must be one of those so-called lesser races, right? A servant of a dark god. I've heard of them from the heretical texts I burned."
Her words gave him a bad feeling.
"Are you an Inquisitor of the Cross Church?"
"Of course I am, Reincarnator," a sudden hint of pleasure entered her voice. "The body you're occupying belongs to one of my knight protectors. I advise you not to get any funny ideas, or the Church's wards will cast your soul into the Holy Flame to burn until the end of the world."
His premonition had come true. The damned Cross Church.
An even fouler mood descended upon him. Besides the Empress who had issued the extermination order, the Cross Church was the most enthusiastic in its hunt for black sorcerers.
"You're just a prisoner too," his voice was low and raspy, like sandpaper on a wall. "A Burner for the Church."
"So that's what you call us—Burners. Did we burn your heretic family to cinders, or was it your heretic friend or mentor? Did you weep with joy after they turned to ash? Did you pray to our supreme God, repent for your sin of trying to contact dark gods, and offer up your other unrepentant friends?"
This woman talks too much. Has she been locked up too long? He spat. "Are you always this talkative, or is it just because you've been cooped up?"
Just then, the sound of shuffling footsteps grew closer, then faded away.
The butcher dragged a heavy axe down the damp corridor, the blade scraping against the stone, mingled with the echo of a body being dragged across the rough floor. The sound crept into the cell, and he could almost picture himself being cleaved by the giant axe.
A hush fell. The woman behind him also fell silent for a moment.
Perhaps the sound had stirred some unpleasant memories for her. After the butcher had moved on, she reined in her tone.
"...Whatever. Let's discuss our escape, heretic. I have no desire to die in this xeno's nest. But before that, out of courtesy, shouldn't we exchange names?" She hadn't adopted a softer tone; perhaps she didn't even understand the concept of softness.
"You can use the name of this body's original owner." Are you kidding? Who talks courtesy with a Burner?
"My apologies, this particular knight only started working for me a few days ago. I hadn't gotten around to learning his name. Ah—how unfortunate. It seems I won't be able to pray for his miserable soul after all. So be it. I wish his corpse won't be fed to the dungeon dogs." She paused, not for long, but not briefly either. He felt she had no sincerity at all. A moment later, she spoke again. "Alright, that's done. So, what's your name, heretic?"
"Watch what you say. I'm using his body right now."
"Oh, you're so difficult. Shouldn't we be praying for them together at a time like this? Even I have managed to summon some rare sympathy. Or is it that you, as a black sorcerer, don't possess such a thing?"
"Sassel Betrafiio," he said, his voice laced with weary annoyance. A strange spell bound this body, preventing him from uttering any of the fabricated names with their carefully crafted backstories.
"Never heard of you. Probably some unknown little sorcerer from the backwoods. How dreadful. To think I have to rely on a black sorcerer who reincarnated into a death row prisoner to save me," she said with schadenfreude. "You can call me Jeanne."
The remark didn't embarrass him. He had been on the run like a rat for over seven years. He simply replied with a mocking tone, "I've never heard of you either. Probably some nameless inquisitor promoted from a country village, the kind who knows nothing but how to burn heretics like a zealot."
"Heh. How does the ward feel? After all, you can't lie about important information. And your life is now tied to mine," Jeanne retorted with equal sarcasm. "This is the power of my Lord. Does that make you happy, you unlucky heretic—you fool who reincarnated into the body of a xeno's prisoner?"
"How remarkable," Sassel replied flatly and proceeded with his plan.
He commanded the Formless Spawn to crawl toward the un-decayed corpse. Its morphing tendrils pierced the skin and blood vessels, beginning to draw out life force.
The woman behind him who called herself Jeanne said nothing. Sassel guessed she was experiencing some psychological discomfort with the scene—psychological, not physical. As an inquisitor who had personally burned countless heretics, she wouldn't be sickened by such a trifle.
His mental tendrils danced, finding a fulcrum extending along the summon's connection and grasping it. In an instant, he felt an 'energy' mixed with countless illusory black vapors slowly flow, gathering into waves imperceptible to ordinary people. They surged toward his body, beginning to mend its broken wounds.
This was forbidden. This was a defilement of the soul. But he hadn't been human for a long time.
The darkness felt familiar, like returning to a mother's embrace. Under the gaze of the female inquisitor behind him, his wounds gradually healed, and his withered muscles filled out. Correspondingly, the corpse beside him shriveled into a dry, cracked lump as if it had been there for centuries. With a crack, it disintegrated into black ash.
"I take back what I said. You are the most disgusting heretic I have ever seen. Your soul is no longer what a human's should be, is it? If I captured you on the battlefield, I would send you and everyone you know to the Inquisition and torture you until you confessed your sins with your own mouth," Jeanne spoke again.
"You shouldn't talk so tough when you're hanging from the ceiling."
He turned around and saw his reflection in the girl's golden pupils—a more robust frame than he had imagined, with straight, coarse black hair, though it was matted with dust; a short beard, and a pair of peculiar black eyes. It wasn't the eyes themselves that were peculiar, but the complex emotions his soul revealed through them: ever-changing, calm yet with a hint of sickness, at times exuding a sense of madness.
Then, he began to study the inquisitor who called herself Jeanne.
She had short, pale-golden hair and eyes of the same light gold. Her skin was fair, and despite having been starved for some time, the curves of her body and face remained soft. In terms of appearance alone, she looked like a light and serene young woman. But what left a deep impression was her expression, which fluctuated between cold indifference and manic agitation. Even an unobservant person could conclude that she was extremely difficult to get along with.
At that moment, Jeanne was dressed in dust-covered black clothes, her arms bound by iron chains and suspended from the ceiling. Her lips were parted, dry from dehydration. The tight line of her mouth, however, clearly indicated just how foul her mood was.
My mood is just as foul, Sassel shook his head. Cooperating with a Burner... this is beyond belief.
"Have you had your fill of looking? Are you going to let me down? Has it been years since you've touched a woman? Do you need me to go chop off a few heretics' heads to help you with your physical frustrations?"
He ignored the Inquisitor's venomous curses.
"Letting you down is no problem," he snapped his fingers and communed with another ancient labyrinth. Jeanne then saw an illusory scroll of parchment unfurl in the heretic's hand—without a pen. He walked up to her and said with a deadpan expression, "I, for one, cherish my life, and I'm not comfortable with a one-sided bond. So please, sign this contract as a guarantee of our newfound friendship."
"...I can't read."