Tolbury, The Serpent Isles - 14th day of the Sardonyx Moon, Year 24 AH
A stream of shadows shot forward, arcing high above the rotted village like an incoming tidal wave. Regis leapt to the side, landing atop a nearby wooden box that wobbled under his feet. The wave split apart, individual shadowy tendrils snaking around the village buildings towards them. Regis heard Hal curse as he dodged around the individual strikes across the street. There didn’t seem to be an end to them.
Regis grabbed onto the slanted roof of the nearest building and pulled himself up over the edge, landing lightly atop the weathered shingles. From here, he had a clear view of the empty, decayed streets and the motionless corpses of the villagers scattered about the ground. The main body of the shadow roiled and undulated as it sent out more tendrils.
Regis ducked under an approaching cloud, keeping himself low as he ran across the rickety roof towards the creature. Hal continued to distract it on the ground, rolling under and leaping over incoming attacks with a deceptive agility.
Ahead of the demon, the roof abruptly sloped downwards. Regis allowed his shoes to slide across the shingles, then leapt off at the last moment and plunged his sword down into that smoky black cloud, keeping his body just outside the mist's range. For a moment the blade simply passed through seamlessly, completely without obstruction. But at the last moment, just before the demon landed on the ground, he felt it cut into something.
A creaking moan sounded from inside the shadow. The cloud rippled violently, and Regis jumped back as another wave surged towards him. He felt that tugging in his chest again, a pulling sensation on his soul. He vaulted over a nearby crate and promptly ducked behind one of the abandoned houses, allowing the rest of the current stream to rush past the building walls. He glanced down at his sword. A thick black liquid dripped down from its tip.
“You hit it?” Hal asked. The demon glanced back to see that the angel had circled around the building as well. In response, he raised his blade.
“It’s fairly deep within the cloud,” Regis remarked. "It will be difficult to get close enough to damage it without being absorbed.”
“Figures,” Hal said. He peered around the corner, studying the shadow’s movements. He raised his axe. “Well, as long as I know there’s something there, that’s good enough for me.”
As the cloud began to ripple again, the angel rushed out from behind the building. Five streams of smoke jetted forward towards him. He jumped over the first, then spun around and raised his axe in time to block the second. That stream had been noticeably thicker and slower than the first one—it seemed some of its attacks utilized only the shroud of souls while others involved its actual body.
Regis sprinted forward, bringing his blade down on the appendage. That same black liquid sprayed outwards as another low, guttural moan sounded in his ears. It was layered and echoed, as though several voices were speaking at once—blending into a single dull sound.
Black smoke surged towards him in the corner of his eye. Hal lunged and batted away the strike while Regis yanked his sword all the way through the first limb. He leapt back just as the remaining two streams rushed towards them. The severed tendril fell to the ground, wispy smoke rising up from it and slowly dissipating to reveal a pale, fleshy grey mound. Regis ducked under another blow, then slammed his hand down on the fallen piece, experimentally activating [Rot]. The rest of the smoke cleared, revealing just the strange, amorphous substance. His eyes narrowed. It seemed [Rot] would work as long as he was touching the main body.
“Hal!” he called. The angel shoved back the tendril he was currently grappling with and glanced back. Regis nodded his head at the creature, gestured to his hand, then at the angel’s axe. Pale eyes flashed with understanding.
Regis ducked under an incoming stream of smoke and raced towards the undulating shadow. The ground cracked, stray rocks flying outwards as one of the creature’s strikes hit the street. He twisted around another attack, not bothering to block them. Right now, he just needed to get closer.
The moment he was within a foot of the cloud, Hal reeled his arm back and hurled his axe at the creature. The weapon flew through the air, metal blade gleaming in the light before it finally embedded itself straight into the center of the smoky shroud.
Another groan echoed around the street. The shadows reeled back, black liquid dripping down onto the ground and staining the earth. Regis lunged, digging his blade right next to where the axe had landed. The creature thrashed, more of the mist around its wounds flying away. Regis forced his free hand through the shadows. The moment he felt his fingers touch something solid, he activated [Rot].
Black smoke bloomed out from his palm. A chorus of voices yelled and screamed, mixing into one thunderous roar. The entire shadow lurched, spitting out the two weapons and flinging them far across the street. Something surged in the corner of his eye, and the next thing he knew, Regis was violently flung away from the creature. His back slammed into a neighboring building. Wood splintered behind him, and he felt the air escape his lungs.
“Reg!” Hal rushed forward, crouching down to the demon. His pale eyes quickly scanned him.
Regis slowly sat up. His ears were ringing, his vision slightly blurry. He raised a hand to his head. When he inspected it again, it was bloody. The wound itself, however, did not seem too deep, and he couldn’t feel any broken bones nor other internal wounds.
“I am alright,” he said, attempting to stand. His limbs seemed unwilling to cooperate, and he found that the haziness still hadn’t fully dissipated yet. Hal grabbed his arm to help steady him. Pale blue light glowed from his hands, and Regis felt some of the dizziness leave him. His head was no longer bleeding, he observed, but he could still feel the dull ache of bruises running along his back.
“Like Ark you are,” Hal muttered. The light faded, and the ringing in his ears fully settled.
“Thank you,” Regis said. His gaze shifted over to the creature, and he paused.
With that last use of [Rot], the hazy shroud surrounding it had scattered away. A few remaining wisps of black smoke lingered around it, but there were enough gaps to see the creature’s main body unobstructed for the first time.
A quivering mass loomed ahead of them. It had no distinct shape, its surface grey and soft. All across its body, eyes and mouths of different shapes and sizes dotted its surface, their positions constantly changing as the creature’s flesh warped and rippled like water. The dripping wound Regis had left simply folded back into itself, leaving only a smooth surface behind. Pieces of flesh spread away to reveal a round, blinking eye. Elsewhere on the body, a patch of skin stretched over a gaping mouth, forcing it back into the center of the mound. There was no one face to look at, no singular form to grasp.
“What the fuck is that,” Hal said. Regis didn’t move his eyes away from the creature even as he spoke the answer.
“Souls.”
The only other place he’d seen mounds like this was deep in the Flesh Fields. There, a whirling storm of souls fought to be born. Some merged, absorbing neighboring ones, while the strongest ones broke free and managed to roughly form the first inklings of a physical body. Regis had assumed the creature only absorbed souls, taking them on as the shadowy cloud surrounding it, but he’d been wrong. The entire thing was composed of them.
The surface of the mound bubbled. A blunt, fleshy appendage burst out and shot towards them. They leapt out of the way, but the limb hadn’t been aiming at them, Regis realized. Instead, it wrapped around one of the soulless corpses that was laying around the village, cocooning it in the grey substance. When the appendage retracted, the corpse lurched and rose in short, jerky movements like a puppet on a string.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Hal muttered. More appendages bloomed outwards from the mass, stretching out towards the other bodies to do the same thing. The demon quickly assessed the area. Given the amount of dead present, they would soon be surrounded.
Regis’s eyes landed on their weapons, which had landed a few feet away, and the withered, dry buildings around them. He strode forward, grabbing onto his fallen sword. His movements were slower, every step causing a slight sting in his ribs. His wounds were far from fully healed, it seemed.
Regis gripped the sword tightly in his fingers, then swung it at the closest building. The wood snapped beneath the force of the strike, tumbling downwards in planks and pieces that he kicked in a line in front of the creature. Hal seemed to realize what he was doing, because he grabbed his own axe and quickly did the same. More appendages sprouted from the mound; Regis narrowly avoided one flying straight towards his head. The number of risen corpses had nearly tripled in number by then, and they were slowly lumbering towards them.
Hal knocked a final barrel onto the makeshift wall, and Regis raised his hand and activated [Thaumaturgy]. The ability was limited in scale, only able to make a small flame, but for these dried, scattered pieces of wood, it was enough.
The demon used [Thaumaturgy] a few more times, stoking the fires as much as possible, before he turned and ran further down the road. Behind him, the piles of scattered wood burned a glowing red, forming a temporary blockade of flames to slow the creature in its path.
Regis and Hal ducked behind a large abandoned building sitting at the edge of the village, and the angel immediately began to heal him again.
“That fire won’t last long,” Regis observed. “I suspect it will come after us soon. It seems to sense living souls and deliberately targets them.”
“Fucking fantastic.” Hal glanced back, but they were too far away to see the creature beyond the flickering fire. He turned to the demon again. “So? How do we get rid of it?”
“Ark magic would be able to scatter those souls quite easily, but I’m afraid neither of us have regained access.” Regis frowned. “Physical attacks will not be particularly effective either. It’s absorbed enough souls to reform itself when damaged.”
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The demon thought back to that pulling sensation, recalling the way the three childrens’ bodies had slumped forward and the mass of smoke had grown larger upon absorbing their souls. He summoned his status screen, focusing on one particular ability that had recently come off cooldown. Behind him, he could hear the distant sounds of wood snapping and sizzling flames. The creature would be upon them soon.
“Hal, how does your healing ability work?”
The angel blinked. “Uh, the description was pretty vague, but I think it works by, like, returning stuff to its former state or something.”
“Would you be able to preserve a corpse from decaying?”
Hal raised an eyebrow. “Maybe, but not for very long. Why?”
Regis nodded in the direction of the creature. Instead of trying to pass the flames, it seemed it had instead opted to completely destroy the neighboring buildings in order to clear a path through.
“That creature absorbs the souls of the beings it kills. I suspect it has no real consciousness; its movements are dictated by the half-conscious desires and lingering emotions of the souls forming its body. Its grip on them is tenuous at best.”
Hal listened silently, but he could see realization slowly dawn on him. Regis continued.
“What do you suppose would happen if it absorbed a fully sentient living soul?”
Hal narrowed his eyes. “I was hoping you weren’t gonna go there,” he muttered. “So, what, you’re just gonna leave your vessel and get absorbed? Try to break it down from the inside? For all you know you’re just gonna get sucked in and that’s it.”
“I resisted the call of the Ark for twenty years. I doubt a simple mass of wayward souls would have a stronger influence.” Regis rose to his feet, peering around the building to see how far the creature had reached. “Other attacks do not work, and it likely will not leave us alone now that we’ve caught its attention. This is the most logical course of action to take,” he explained simply.
“Yeah yeah.” Hal raised his axe as well. “Doesn’t mean I can’t worry.” His pale gaze scanned the street, taking in both the mound of souls and the walking corpses lumbering forward at its command. “Guessing you’re gonna need an opening.”
“Correct. Once I exit this vessel, I will also need you to preserve the body until I possess it again.” Cyrus’s consciousness was dead, which meant that he was currently occupying a corpse. The moment his soul left it, it would begin to decay. Finding a new vessel at this point would be rather troublesome, considering that his sway on a vessel strengthened over time. It would be wasteful to start again with a new one. And, he would admit, he’d grown a bit fond of this body.
Hal grunted in acknowledgement. Regis readied to run back out onto the street, but a hand stopped him before he could take the first step. The demon glanced back, raising an eyebrow. Hal looked uncharacteristically serious.
“Just be careful, okay? I didn’t see you die that first time. I’d like to keep it that way.”
Regis opened his mouth, then closed it again. An image of that final battle flashed in his mind, the bleak sky and diffused light, the deep red blood pooling into the cracks on the ground and the scattered white feathers. He smiled slightly. “That seems a bit unequal, does it not?”
Hal laughed and gave the demon a good natured shove. “Hey, that’s what happens when you make an immortal your general. Too bad.”
Further down the street, more wood splintered as another house was knocked down. It seemed their time was running short. Regis turned to face the hulking mass as it dragged itself forward, grey flesh undulating with each movement. “You should be careful as well,” he found himself saying. Hal glanced over at him, then back to the street.
“I will.”
The grey mass reeled, and the two raced forward.
A small crowd of dead bodies now stood in front of the creature, trudging towards them with those sharp, unnatural movements. Hal ran straight towards them without hesitation, swinging his axe in wide circles to cleave through the corpses. Regis stabbed his sword into the closest one, then yanked it out and sliced off the next one’s head. It landed on the ground with a thump.
[You have gained experience!]
These corpses were weak, he noted, their movements sluggish and poorly controlled. Their partially decayed flesh was easy to cut through.
The demon ducked under a clumsy punch and swept his sword out in a wide arc himself, mimicking Hal’s strategy to deal with as many as possible in one blow. In the corner of his eye, he could see the creature remaining further away. More of the smoke had returned; he suspected it was biding time until it had regained its protective shroud. They would need to move quickly before the black mist fully covered it again.
The corpse in front of him split in two, revealing Hal on the other side. The angel was covered in stray bits of flesh and blood, but otherwise appeared uninjured. He yanked his axe back and slammed the butt into an undead approaching from behind.
The creature rippled, and another appendage shot forward. Regis pushed Hal back, letting it fly past them. The limb slammed into the ground, and the demon used the opportunity to grab onto its surface and activate [Rot] again.
Grey flesh withered away, that slurry of different voices shrieking in his ears. The black smoke undulated around it, rising like a crashing tide as it arced high above them. Regis felt the pull again. He beheaded another corpse as the smoke approached. Now was the perfect opportunity.
“Hal,” Regis called. The single word was enough for the angel to understand. He grabbed a corpse with one hand and hurled it forward, throwing it into two more. Three more axe swings were enough to clear out the area around them just in time for the shadow to approach.
Regis closed his eyes. The air was tinged with the scent of rot, burning wood, and iron. He allowed his soul’s grasp on his vessel to loosen, and with a final push, his diminished form seeped out of the body. Black smoke bloomed outwards as his now soulless vessel began to fall backwards.
[You have exited your previous vessel]
[You are now in your DIMINISHED FORM]
[Adjusting stats…]
Regis ignored the notifications flitting past his vision. He’d known this would happen as a result of how [Demonic Possession] worked. The current decreases to his constitution and strength would not matter once he repossessed Cyrus.
Behind him, he could see Hal catch the now empty body as it fell, his other hand already glowing with his healing ability. More corpses moved to surround him, but the angel should be able to fend them off on his own.
Above, the shadow stretched over his diminished form, blocking out the sun and sky. Like this, weightless and without a physical body to ground him, the pull was stronger than it had ever been before. It was a calling, not unlike that of the Ark, but whereas that had been all encompassing and warm—the draw of an old home—this one was violent and wild in nature. Regis allowed the sensation to wash over him, to draw him into that undulating mass of souls. Plunged deep within those depths, the whispers of the sea of souls washed over him.
They pulsed and surged and convulsed. Echoing voices yelled and screamed. In that whirlwind, the dead could only express themselves in sharp bursts of feeling that grew stronger the deeper into the mass he went. Regret. Yearning. Fear. There was a weariness to those emotions, the heavy weight of those that had already lived burdensome lives, that had not been present in the Flesh Fields.
Regis let himself drift in that swirling storm. He’d been correct; there was no singular mind driving the creature, only the last lingering emotions of the souls drowned into the cacophony. The demon pushed his own consciousness forward, letting the different voices bounce off of him. Though plentiful, this was nothing compared to the masses of souls birthed in the Flesh Fields. Those had possessed much stronger wills than these could muster.
Scatter, the demon thought. Break apart.
The souls lurched around him. He pressed on.
Scatter, he urged again, his own voice ringing loud and clear above the roar. You should not linger like this. There is no place for you here.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then a crack formed in the shadows. Then another.
Bright light beamed through, shining down on the whirling mass. Regis hadn’t known what to expect from a scattering of souls—perhaps something loud and deafening, a flurry of movement and sound to match the current maelstrom.
In reality, they broke away silently. First one fell away, then the next, dispersing piece by piece until only the clear sky remained above. The murmurs and whispers faded, giving way to the soft whistle of the passing breeze. The last of the shadowy mist scattered, and the mound of grey flesh began to fall apart, landing in pieces across the earth. Regis could see Hal a few feet away, palm still glowing. He activated [Demonic Possession]. His surroundings faded to black.
When he opened his eyes again, he was staring up at the sky.
[You have possessed CYRUS]
[Former possession data found]
[Retrieving data…]
[Stats successfully adjusted]
[You have gained experience!]
[You have leveled up! 16 —> 17]
[The [Rot] ability has leveled up! 1 —> 2]
[You have gained the [Strength of Soul (Rare)] title]
[Strength +2, Agility +4, Constitution +1, Mana +6, Will +9]
Slowly, Regis sat up. He raised a hand, curling his fingers into a fist and opening them again. They moved as commanded. He’d managed to repossess this vessel without issue, it seemed. A quick glance at his status screen revealed the same abilities as he’d had before, the only differences being the addition of the [Strength of Soul] title and that [Demonic Possession] was once again on cooldown. His stats, too, seemed to have survived the repossession.
“You know, I didn’t think dying would make you more crazy.”
Regis turned to Hal, who was sitting on the ground beside him. The demon raised an eyebrow.
“It really was not such an outlandish idea. It is reasonable to assume that a creature formed from dead souls would not be able to handle the addition of a living one.”
Hal just snorted and shook his head. Around them, the animated bodies had fallen back to stillness with the creature’s destruction. Only a few wisps of black smoke remained, the rest of the souls having scattered elsewhere. The chunks of grey flesh that had formed the creature’s body were already beginning to melt away into a thick, viscous liquid.
“Thank you for preserving my vessel,” Regis said as he slowly rose back to his feet. Some of his earlier wounds were still present; the angel’s healing ability had its limits, it seemed, or at least it did at its current level. He would need to study his injuries more closely later. For now, he focused on his new title, summoning its individual screen. It appeared to grant an additional +10 will.
Hal gave a lazy salute and stood as well. He glanced around the ruined village, gaze lingering on the last few wisps of smoke remaining.
“So, that was really all souls?”
Regis nodded and willed his status screen away. “I believe the creature formed after enough souls merged together. I simply dispersed them.”
The angel frowned. “How’d there get to be so many souls wandering around anyway? The fuck’re the reapers doing?”
Regis opened his mouth to respond, but paused when Hal stilled. Pale eyes narrowed, fixed on something behind the demon. “I shouldn’t have talked,” the angel muttered.
Regis turned around.
Beyond the edge of the village, a single figure stood in the center of the withered fields. Long grey hair billowed in the wind, the color of the strands matching the simple clothing the person wore. The entirety of their face was covered by a plain white mask, and those carved, lifeless eyes peered blankly ahead. There had been no footsteps, no sound to warn of the being’s arrival. Reapers always moved silently.
Regis felt Hal tense beside him, the angel’s jaw clenching. He adjusted his own grip around his sword, but did not move from his current position. In their diminished states, all they could do was watch and wait.
Slowly, the reaper raised a gloved hand and removed the mask, letting it fall away. It landed soundlessly on the dead grasses below.
Slate grey eyes met theirs, and a familiar name fell from Regis’s lips in recognition.
“Frey.”
How would you classify Regis?
