Nearly total darkness surrounds me, as slowly one by one countless children appear. Their voices fill the whole area as every single one of them start begging me to stop hurting them, for me to forgive them, and the pain to stop. I know and remember every single one of them, their faces are burned deep into my being, so that I never forget what I have done.

Every single one of them was either killed by me or died because of my actions. Their numerous wounds continue to bleed as the whimpering fills the whole area, but I continue to stand immobile with no possibility to more, help them, or change anything. And in the middle of them all stands a small girl with black and white hair in pure white dress. She stares in my eyes silently. Her tiny lips move, and accusing voice reaches me, silencing everyone around.

"You lied."

"You are not my father, never were. You took me because you wanted to feel better. You never cared about me or what I felt"

"You did what you wanted, and I died because of that"

"I died because of you, because you decided to show pity to me."

"DID I ASK FOR PITY?! DID I ASK FOR THIS?!"

"You should have left me alone, than maybe I would have lived!"

"Someone would eventually pick me up. My life wouldn't be easy, but I would live!"

"I would find a loving family, and they would care and love me the way you never could."

"But because of you, your past, and what you are, I am dead, rotting alongside mountains of body parts!"

Slowly a blue mark in form of two big hands appears around her tiny neck. And I easily recognize the owner of them, as the prints belong to me.

This is not real.

They all are dead. And what I see before me is simply a nightmare, created by my sick mind, to torture me, to make me suffer, nothing more. But I do not dare to dismiss them, to stop the, to look away. I should not, and I will not. Burning hot tears continue streaming down by face. They themselves no longer suffer, they simply ceased to exist. They are dead simply because their fate crossed mine. I am the reason for it all.

No one will remember them, no one will avenge them, because no one can. Most of the people who caused their deaths are dead themselves, and those that aren't dead, will either never be found, or never be punished.

And so I will not look away, because the moment I do, they will disappear.

I will not allow their deaths to be a tiny milestone in a failed ritual of summoning the fallen.

Their lives meant much more.

Their lives will mean much more.

I will make sure of that.

...

My eyes shoot wide open and he world around slowly fills with dim light and clarity. Standing up from the old wooden bed I purge the last bits of drowsiness and start wiping away the cold sweat from my back.

The inn's room, in which I am currently in, is quite dark, with it's windows tightly closed by wooden planks, but the sun light still breaks through the cracks nevertheless.

Looking down on my toes I evaluate their status, and the results of experiments to restore the missing limb. Out of four missing toes, and four different experiments, one utterly failed with some kind of meat and bone amalgamation growing in place of a healthy toe. Two toes grew crooked with a piece of bone sticking out, and the last one more or less looks as it should be.

I sigh.

So the bone and cartilage should come first, and only after they are fully restored should the tendon healing start, which should be shortly followed by nerves, muscles and skin. But that makes no sense. When I saw healers restore limbs, all the parts grew together, steadily, as if a tree.

It would be much better if I would experiment with healing other body parts, but toes are the only things I can spare right now. Even if missing several of them makes it much harder to walk, it is nothing compared to what would happen if I tried experiment with finger on my left hand, the only hand I have left.

I sigh again.

Am I doing something wrong? Or maybe the way healers restore limbs is a bit different? Is the cause the external mana, or simply my lack of skills? I will have to make many more tests before I will be able to start healing my arm. And one way or another I will have to succeed.

I put on a simple shirt, Wendigo coat and walk down to the first floor of the inn. When people see me they immediately turn their eyes the other way and start whispering between themselves. The inn owner quickly brings several bowls with soup, bread, meat and much more to the table I sat, asking again if I do not want bear or wine. I gesture back that water will be enough. People continue to whisper between themselves, trying not to make an eye contact with me, while I am eating.

It took quite some time to reach this small city, thankfully before that I was able to acquire a horse, which is actually not horse, but some kind of local breed of moose with it, not sure exactly, but the travel speed increased significantly.

Sadly, none of the people speak language that I know of, and the communication is hard. People generally didn't want to speak with me, because usually, cripples in Wendigo fur do not have money. But few shiny coins that I took from the previous villages, and their aggressive 'residents', made a big difference.

There were few villages who wanted to give many more things for 'liberating' them, slaves, houses, land and more, only if I stayed and continued protecting their village.

Some local bully even tried to use the fact, that I am cripple, who doesn't speak local language. Because let's look at it frankly, who will even care? I must have been lucky to find money, and don't even deserve it, I will waste it on useless thing, and people around could use it much more efficiently. Right?. Several crushed skulls later, those that witnessed the event had a sudden change in heart, they even decided to convey their insight about my 'rightful' possession of gold to everyone in the city.

Anyway, in the end, after an attempt to recruit me into local Lord's personal guard, my refusal, several disfigured bodies of sneaky assassins, which were sent by the almighty Lord, who was offended by my refusal, a short discussion that I organized between myself and the Lord, his head on a pike in the middle of city's main square, things started changing, and everyone around suddenly calmed down a bit.

There were many more 'events' between the failed assassination and Lord's death, but they don't matter anymore.

I am still in the city, only because I am waiting for the damn ship, which will travel north to much bigger 'kotr', thought I do not know what that word means, I assume it is either island or continent. The ship has been ready for quite some time actually, but it is burried in deep ice, which is at least several meters thick. Thankfully spring is around the corner, and this temporary stop in my travel will come to end.

As I found out, I am currently on the south-east most island of a small archipelago of islands. Search for a good map of the area did not yield any good results. By local standards a 'good map' is map of the whole island, and the best map city has contains only a small fraction of nearest island. When I spoke about the land north from the archipelago the usual reply was usually that they nothing about that area.

I could attempt travel further, through the frozen archipelago, which by my estimation is nearly thousand kilometers of islands, snow and ice. And even after all that, I would still need to take a ship further north.

Finishing my huge meal I walk outside, and looking at the snow covered city proceed in the same direction, as I have been every day, to the ocean.

When I reviewed the local map, and tried to understand what path I took, it came apparent that there are no lakes around here at all. And the area through which I was walking, the fog covered one, was actually frozen ocean between two islands, and only by a chance I did not turn the wrong way, which would result me ending up in the middle of frozen ocean.

I have never heard about frozen ocean, and this fact made me more careful with the direction and area I plan travel through.

My knowledge of south hemisphere is very limited. I know that there is a continent, commonly called twin south continents, it is actually a single continent, divided by huge canyon and shallow ocean water. The region in general is not well explored, and any major attempts either brought no real result, or was generally unsuccessful.

I sit on cold stone and instantly the freezing wind starts blowing in my face, making my skin feel as if thousand tiny blades are cutting it. Breathing deeper I start healing my toes, and at the same time continuing experimenting on how to heal my right hand.

If I reach a big city I can find either a healer or high priest, and 'politely ask' them to restore my limb. If the healer won't be cooperative, and the gold won't work, there is also an option of using force. But in the end, for what is to come, I need to be able to restore nearly anything myself, muscles, bones, heart and more.

One of important milestones was to restore my body to the original state it was before. Only when I arrived in this city did I notice how much my body was truly deformed. Back in the mountains, I felt that there was something wrong with the bones, tendons and muscles, so I tried to changed them the way they should be, and I believed that I fully succeeded. But when I saw the reflection in the water, what looked back at me could hardly be called a human, with misaligned eyes, deformed skull and much more. I looked more like deformed ghoul, with rare hair that grew on my head, which were all dirty grey in color.

The more I restored my body to original state, the better I generally could manipulate the bones and muscles in my body. It got to a point where could change my body structure so far, that I could become a totally different person. Maybe at some point I will be able to even change my flesh so much, that I would look like a totally different race, or even species...

Even though I said Alan is dead, he should not disappear.

This hate, this wrath, this dark things boiling inside of me belong to Alan.

And he should be the one unleashing it all.

Quite soon I am interrupted by a group of kids that have come again, as they have every day before, to ask me to teach them how to fight. The rumors travel fast, and unlike adults, fear in children disappears quickly. Maybe it is because children do not fully comprehend the concept of danger. I have rejected them many times, but they still continue to come, hoping for different result.

What for do you want to become stronger, to steal, plunge and destroy?

Even these innocent kids will one day learn how to take lives, and innocent kids will be no more.

[So 'innocence' is in not taking someone's life?]

[Weapon can be used in two ways, to protect lives, and to take them. In the end, the mind makes the decision and hand only takes the action.]

[If you won't be the one to guide them, someone else will, someone with different goals.]

[And we know their goals all too well.]

When we hear something that contradicts with our world view, we instinctively reject it, try to find a flaw in what was said, or outright dismissing that piece of information.

That happens because of really simple reason, we do not want to die.

Our world view, all out sense of right and wrong, the sense of 'us' itself is build upon many pillars of experience and knowledge. If the pillars crumble, there is a chance that we will die, not death of flesh, but rather death of mind. Because upon than new piece of information, a new pillar will be born. And upon that pillar new being will be born, maybe someone stronger, maybe someone smarter, but that someone will not be us.

Not us.

And so we continue to dismiss, ignore and reject what threatens us, and so we continue to live in our bubbles of ignorance, self righteousness and absolutism. The instinct of survival is burned so deep into the flesh and mind, that ideas themselves become threats to survival.

It is easy to live with people and ideas that support 'our' world, as it takes strength and courage to plunge yourself into what can kill us.

And so fear and weakness rules us.

But we call this fear with a different name, because calling what we fear with it's own name, is a threat to us itself.

Standing up I walk to the children, and without a single word gesture for them to stand in position.

Hundreds of them will follow darkness.

But maybe, maybe one will start asking questions, and so the cycle will continue, so that one day it could be broken.

...

The ocean is not as nice as the ship captain believed, and right now the ship crew is trying their best to make the ship survive against today's storm. The last storm, which was several days ago, nearly destroyed this oversized fishing boat, and killed us all.

That night the ship lost three crew members and two unlucky passengers. But this storm is much stronger. The ship has been creaking non-stop the whole time, maybe because the ship is old, maybe because we started the travel too early, or maybe because the damn idiots in greed took too much luggage and exceeded the ship's capacity.

Doesn't matter.

I already gathered my supplies, new steel sword, and a light coat. The Wendigo coat, with which I have been traveling for some time, had to be quickly exchanged for something much lighter, because if you get into water with it, it will drag you down to the ocean's floor. Even if the ship goes down I will not follow it, I have been in several shipwrecks, and I already have a general idea what next events will be.

The problem is, that after people saw me preparing and gathering my things, they started panicking and running around the ship, gathering their stuff, screaming something at the ship crew and the captain. Even though I don't understand the language, I kind of know the questions.

'Is everything okay?' 'Will the ship sink?' 'What is happening?' 'Are we going to die?'

I continue to stand near the ship deck, listening to the sound ship produces, the crashing waves and keeping my eyes on the horizon. There are more than dozen travelers standing behind me, and most of them have their stuff in their hands. They are breathing shallowly, with sweat visibly dripping down their faces, awaiting what is to come. After about half and hour I see something on horizon, that tells me that the time has come and I can't wait anymore.

Leaping to the deck I take out my sword and start chipping off a big piece of ship's wooden hull. The ship crew are trying to stop me but I simply throw them away. Finally chopping the damn thing off, I make it fall down on the deck.

Putting my sword back and fixing it strongly to the rest of my gear, I pickup the wooden plank. Looking forward at the horizon I curse at the rapidly rising, nearly hundred meters tall wave, which looks like a greenish mountain, which is about to fall upon us. The fucking ship crew slowed me down too much. I grip the wooden plank stronger, and running of the ship jump into the water, submerging much deeper than I expected.

After more than dozen long seconds under the freezing cold water, the plank starts dragging me up towards the surface. It takes even for me to finally break out of the water and start breathing again. Few moments later my eyes find the ship, and the sheer number of people who are jumping out of it. The next instant the ship starts rising up the wave, and tilting at very sharp angle. I lose sight of the ship when the tip of the wave turns white and slamming down, swallows it entirely. The whole event happened nearly unheard because of the very loudly blowing wind, that drowned all other sounds.

The waves continues to grow and slam against the ocean, as slowly the number of people I see in the ocean decreases, until I am alone, fighting to stay alive as the freezing cold water is stealing warmth away from me.

I will survive.

...

Sitting on the wooden plank, I let few drops of my blood fall into the calm, blue ocean, as sweat is slowly dripping down my face. It is hard to imagine that only few days ago I was freezing in water, fighting for my life, and now the blazing sun is cooking me alive as if some kind of food on frying pan.

There is another fight happening right now, but this time it is because of hunger.

Dozen long minutes pass, with me quietly awaiting the result, until finally I see a big fin appearing out of the water, and quickly traveling in my direction. A smile breaks upon my face. Gripping the sword harder I prepare for the only chance I will get, as this little fish is a coward, and will swim away the moment it understands that it can't eat me.

With a roar I jump and plunge the sword through the area where I believe the shark to have a heart. There is a very high chance that I missed the area by few centimeters as I am being dragged away, under the water, with my hand still tightly gripping the handle of the sword, which is deeply embedded in the shark.

The damn fish starts thrashing around, and even jumping out of water with very high velocity, one particular jump, nearly made me release the handle, but somehow through sheer willpower I held onto the it. Shortly after the fucking fish tries to submerge into deep water, but fails as too much blood was already lost. Slowly the shark falls silent and stops moving. Gripping the handle, with the only hand I have, I swim to the surface. Breaking out of the water I take the sweet air in. Breathing more I start searching for my wooden plank, until I finally find it quite far away, at least hundred meters away. It looks like the shark swam quite far from the original point.

I will need to be careful next time, because this time, there was only one shark, and the plank didn't drift that far away in the calm ocean, but that may not repeat again.

I wanted to throw the shark on the wooden plank, because the damn thing does not float, but rather starts sinking as if a rock. I quickly have to reconsider as the fucking fish is simply too big for the thin plank, and doing everything with a single arm will not yield result. Somehow holding the fish afloat with legs, I start cutting chunks of meat and placing them on the plank, one by one.

After about half an hour of suffering with the damn piece of shit I let the carcass drift down to ocean floor. It would be really great if I would get up on the wooden plank and rest, but I will not do that, as meat will simply fall off, and all the work would be wasted. Resting several minutes I start eating the thing raw.

I know regions where raw fish is considered delicacy, but for me it is more of barbarianism. Though hungry shitheads, with a single arm, which ended up in the middle of ocean, like me, do not have much of a choice.

...

There are many questions going through my thick skull, most of them are on the theme of 'Why am I here?', 'What the fuck am I doing?' or 'How the fuck did it end up like this?'

I was drifting for many days until a ship with black flag and a skull picked me up. The ship was filled with dozen of nearly naked, dirty, smelly thugs with rusty weapons. They are commonly called pirates, and I believed that they would try attack and enslave someone like me.

But the moment they saw my stump, more than two dozen pirates on the ship, lowered their weapons down and started laughing between each other, several even clapped me friendly on my back. Few moments later ship captain, with a huge hat arrived, and when he saw my stump he also joined the group laughing.

The captain looked at the scar on my chest, which was slightly visible through the light shirt I wore. I did not even try to hide the scar, because if they would recognize the symbol, I could simply bully them into following my orders in getting me to the continent. If I killed them all, managing the ship would become 'much' harder.

The captain looked at the scar with furrowed brows and few seconds later barked some kind of orders. He clapped me on my back with a sad smile, which was missing many teeth, and those that were present were deep black. Several moments later a person with meat and beer arrived and the captain gestured me to eat. After the short meal, people gave me a broom and together with several other crew members I started cleaning the deck.

I am not sure what level of irony this is, that the pirates, those that are hated by the most, with nearly no exception, accepted a random cripple into their team within few minutes.

No interrogation, no tests, no oath of loyalty.

We do not understand each other, don't speak same language, or look the same, but I somehow ended up being fully accepted by this bunch.

This would be very funny if it would not be so sad.

Somehow pirates ended up being more welcome than the nobles, merchants, and peasants all together.

Do they think that I am just another pirate with missing limb? Or maybe they thought that the scar is a mark of a slave, and decided to take me in.

This fucking world.

...

I stared learning the local language, or at least the pirate dialect of it. A lot of swearing and shortened words, but enough to understand the basic ideas. I quite soon unexpectedly noticed several correlations with Elvish and ancient Tasar, which nowadays can only be found in old books in Empire.

I am sure there is a valid reason for that, some kind of ancient historical event, which I believe to be more likely arrival in the 'New' Land. The books believe that original place of arrival in 'New' Land is the 'Ancient' capital of Empire.

Empire actually has three capitals, Ancient capital in South-West, Royal capital in North-West, and Holy capital in Zeronel, which is the central province, with each capital serving it's own purpose.

According to books, starting from Empire, humans spread throughout the whole continent, and then to the South Twin continents. But that makes no sense, because if that would be true, than the language people speak in far south would be more similar to either common language of Empire, Malari, or the Vosel, the common, in desert Alliance or South regions, as those appeared during the age of expansion.

Many questions and no answers yet, nothing new.

Anyway, the speed of learning of their language is quite significant. Few days ago I spoke few simply words, and now I kind of can construct sentences. Though that result may be simply because I genuinely cared about learning it. The original goal was to get to the main continent, and from there start the hunt. But I 'involuntary' was sidetracked, or at least that is what I am trying to convince myself.

Yesterday we encountered a storm, a much smaller one than the one, which destroyed the last ship I was on, but still, a storm nonetheless. Strangely this ship crew was ready for it, the ship was generally more stable, it was not overload with any goods, and the crew worked like a clock under constant berating of the ship captain.

After the storm calmed down the ship crew started cheering and laughing. They also said something about Ulria loving and sending her blessing to them, a sea goddess as far as I understood. Most of their words of gratitude were bordering insults about her ass, tits, and cunt, which majority of people would believe to be grave insults, a blasphemy, and that would generally warrant capital punishment from religious groups.

But maybe thats the way they say their prayers here.

Prayers huh.

I know that someone or something exits out there, simply because HE exits. But whoever or whatever there is, it simply does not care.

With each day I grew closer to the people, despite their flaws, they were an interesting bunch. They gambled and fought, they drank and feasted, and during the whole process they looked so alive, so happy, with absolute no care in the world. Not understanding that I started talking with them, asking questions and reasons for them being here.

Every single one of them had a different answer or reason, money, adventure, freedom, sea and many more.

Lakor, a tall and thin youngster in late teens, said that he wanted to see the world, that he didn't want to end up as farmer for some local lord. He said that his uncle was a sailor, and told him many stories about lands far away. Lakor said that his uncle never returned, and no one knows what happened to him, but someday he wants to return home and tell those stories too, about adventures and life in the sea.

Itar, a huge pudgy guy in late forties with shaved head, reluctantly told me that this is the only thing he knew how to do, that even if he wanted to 'settle down on land', he would not know how things work, or where even to begin learning. He said that he fears staying on land for too long, and wants to die in the sea.

Ghaj, proudly boasted to me how he screwed a lord's daughter, that she was a screamer and very good in bed. That after the event she lied to her father in fear of punishment, and now there is an open hunt for his head. Ghaj said that one day he will buy his own ship and make his own crew. He also joked that he would want to live to his eighties and spend time with the best whores land kingdoms could offer.

Many names, many stories, sad and happy, ridiculous and stupid. They all somehow ended here, on a ship in the middle of nowhere.

The more I listened the better I understood the language, and the people on the ship, their fears and dreams. They are all people with past, present and future, with stories to tell and goals to fulfill.

Each day we would wake up, clean up the deck, hunt breakfast, do whatever the captain said and enjoy the warm sun. In the evening we would sit and play different gambling games. I would usually sit with them and listen to stories, but soon I started playing too. In the begging the only bet I could make was a task or duty to fulfill in place of the person, but quite soon I started gathering a wide range of coins and items. Some accused me of cheating and we ended up playing the games bare naked, with balls hanging and such, but that didn't change the result much. The things got so bad that no one wanted to play with me anymore, and I ended up simply sitting and listening to stories as I did in the beginning.

I also felt that something was missing on the ship, that the crew was restless, that they were on edge, and waiting for something. But I did not look deeper into it as I had my own task.

During the nights and moments I had free time I continued experimenting with healing. While the main goal was to find a way to heal my right hand, there were more important task, which is find a way, that even after I am ripped apart I can continue moving.

I will not underestimate them. I know perfectly well what they are, and what they can do. If magic is fully denied to me, I will reach the limits of human flesh. And on path to that I have already reached a significant milestone.

For each experiment I have to cut a single toe, and restore it from zero. But improving the speed and efficiency of healing was the only traditional way of becoming stronger I knew, but now, there is another path. The first step was try to make my bones denser and stronger. And I somehow succeeded, the toe, whose bone I made thicker, was much harder to cut off.

I am pretty sure if someone saw me cutting toes and experimenting on healing would call me mad, that is why I had to usually do the bloody part at night, away from everyone else. The spot I usually do the experiments quickly turns to place, which looks like someone was murdered there. So I had to clean the spot after each test and be extra careful.

...

Everything comes to end.

And I finally understood what was missing.

We encountered another ship, a merchant one. It was a much bigger ship with white sails and in nearly perfect condition. In the back of my head I understood that we may encounter someone else, but maybe I hoped that I would get off the ship and not encounter such an event. Maybe I just didn't want to see the real, ugly part of pirates.

The moment the crew saw the ship, their faces turned the same as everyone else I had seen before. They started chanting, shouting and cheering. I somehow naively believed that they were 'noble' pirates, that they were only after gold and would leave people, but I was wrong, very wrong. Before I knew it, several young crew members of the merchant ship were lying on deck, either dead or severely bleeding. Some part of the pirate crew already started capturing women, and tying them, touching them and promising to play with their bodies later.

Moments later everyone started screaming in horror as I slowly walked, and ripped apart one pirate after another. I didn't use weapon, only my bare hand. I crushed skulls, ripped off legs and hands, slowly filling the deck with dead bodies, coloring it deep red.

The pirates, which would have called me their friend, even ally, just few hours ago, looked back at me with mix of astonishment and disbelief. They thought myself to be part of them, to be like them, and the person they sheltered and saved, betrayed them.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

They screamed at me, asked what I am doing, why did I turn against them. With every life that I took it felt as if an invisible and cold knife went deeper into my heart.

Less than a minute later I was standing on the deck of merchant ship, covered in blood, breathing calmly as I looked at the bodies of dead pirates, that I believed to be good and noble.

I chuckle as I remember my own words.

'People are neither good nor evil. They simply are.'

Walking to middle aged man with grey beard, who I assume is the captain I say in broken local language.

"You. Go. Me. Land."

...

The merchant ship crew was a bit too subservient, more likely result of by actions on the deck, or specifically what I did to the pirates. Some still flinched and froze when our eyes met or I walked near them, even more than a week after. Few that didn't, were constantly asking if everything is fine, if I require anything.

I spoke a lot with the ship captain, a chocolate skinned lady in early thirties. As I was explained, the middle aged man, I thought to be the captain, is her right hand. The ship belonged to her father, but he died of decease, leaving her in charge. The middle aged man was close friend, and right hand of her father, and decided to continue serving on the ship and helping her.

Most of the talks though, were about general questions like 'where are we', 'what ocean', 'where are we going'. The talks I had with the captain and the crew of the ship improved my language skills quite a bit, as the version pirates spoke was so unstructured, so broken, that I don't even know where to begin describing my issues with it.

But good things end here, because I asked for any map the captain had. She was astonished at first that I knew how to read a map, but I did not elaborate how or where I learned that, and she did not try to pry more. I do not look like scholar at all, so the the confusion is not misplaced. She laid down a huge yellowish parchment on the big wooden table in her cabin, and pointed with a finger where we approximately were.

However many times I looked, however many times I rotated it around, what was on the yellowish parchment before me was totally not what I expected.

Nothing.

I recognize neither the letters, nor the names of islands on the map, even their forms are not familiar. Worse than that, the twin south continents are nowhere to be seen, not even a hint of them. There a significant area of a big continent drawn on the map, but not a single part of it, even remotely, looks like anything I have ever seen before. The continent is smooth, with many edges but still, nothing like the twin continents, which look like two huge deformed letter.

There is something very wrong here.

I thought that I was on the 'unmapped' region, which is simply area south of the twin continents. That area is not even mapped in the Empire maps. Lizardmen who inhabit the west twin continents and the people who live on east part are not very welcoming. To my knowledge, and the information spies were able to gather, the terrain on the twin continents is so harsh that none would voluntary live there. The temperature there fluctuates highly, with snow, drought and rain seasons, which are never on the same date.

I started having doubts when it became a bit too warm and tropical during my drifting, but this is a totally different story. Just to make sure, I look south of our position and find many small and big islands. When I asked the captain about the islands, she replied that it is south pole archipelago. The area is sparsely inhabited, and the ships rarely go there because of harsh storms that surround the area, but the area produces many goods which they export north.

I have spent quite some time looking at the map, again and again, trying to think of a reason to explain what I am seeing, but after the captain got a bit worried and told me that I can find bigger maps in specialized shops on the continent I was only able to calm down. She also said that if I am searching for something specific, the Adventure Guild could help me in whatever I require.

Maybe she is right, and the map is simply too small, maybe the south hemisphere really is that big, and no one just knew about that.

So I did the only thing I was left to do. Wait.

But I didn't just sit without a task. I resumed the testing and experimentation, making bones thicker, muscles faster and stronger.

Whatever happens, my main goals will not change.

First of all, the people, the nobles, the senate, everyone who ordered the destruction of the Brotherhood, everyone who even remotely had something to do with that order or the death of my brothers.

I would really like to take a single life more, the next Legat, but this sadly won't happen.

I am not even sure if it is right to call him the next Legat, as he already took on the majority of responsibilities of the current Legat, the Legendary Grand Novus Maniel Yarkar.

Everyone tries to keep life in the over hundred years old Legat Maniel's body, as many Empire treaties were made with and in his name, they are even called Maniel's treaties. And the moment he dies, all those treaties in his name will lose their power. Every treaty of peace, cooperation and non-aggression with every single power in the world will be lost because of death, of a single, old man. And when he dies, people will rush into a bloodthirsty war over the power vacuum left by him, only to be crushed by a single human, his successor, the almighty Saint Protus Ghalor. But the continental war may have already forced people to act earlier.

Human huh, it is wrong to even right try to describe Ghalor, as living, or even human being.

Because Ghalor is the Avatar of Light Element.

He has full control over every single spec of light, and even total darkness of the night does not hinder his powers. I have personally seen him turn a mountain into a dust cloud, with a single spell. And to top it all, he is not overpowered, turned feral by the element as the failed blood avatar, who nearly killed me, was.

Even if you take away his Avatar body, his abilities are beyond anything I have even seen. When we were traveling with him, he announced that he wanted to test the strength of Blood Brotherhood, and organized a 'small', 'friendly' match. The battle lasted less than five minutes. He crushed us as if children with only his sword skills, without using even a single spell. His space awareness, agility, speed and strength was indescribable. You see him several dozen meters away, and after a single blink of your eyes, he is before you with his sword coming for your life. Even movement he makes creates a sonic boot, every attack he does is simply to fast and powerful to evade or block.

Even before he became Avatar, it was well known that his magic abilities exceeded those of Grand Mage twice over, a true genius of strength, sword and magic from birth, but now...

How do you even kill being made out of light?

But even that is somehow theoretically possible in comparison to my second goal.

HIM.

HE wanted to posses this body for a reason. HE must want something, he must have goals, maybe even dreams.

What does even the greatest corrupter want? Simply corrupt? What is the end goal? Rule the planet? Kill everyone who inhabits it? Or simply destroy the life itself?

I do not know, not yet. But, whatever it is, I will make sure that everything he ever wanted will crumble, his every goal fail, and his every dream fall apart and become but a memory.

I will fail and die. I can not change that.

But before this body perishes, I will show this world a glimpse of what real nightmare is.

And the sun is already setting down.

...

During the the short period of time nearly no one bothered me, but people continued to whisper around. With better understanding of language I mostly understood what was being said, nothing new, demon, monster, creature of blood and carnage.

At least something did not change.

Anyway I continued testing and experimenting, and yesterday I reached a new milestone. After more than two hundred cut toes, I was able to make the toe not grow into deformed and grotesque amalgamation of flesh and bones. The solution was to constantly have the image of the result in my head and at the same time destroy the flesh around the the growing area. During that process, flesh and bone of the toe is constantly exposed and bleeding.

It did not grow correctly, but that is already a huge step forward. Right now I need to continue experimenting more, but it has become harder with people constantly looking at me, and holding me in their sight, even at night.

My thoughts are interrupted by sound of ship crew members running around and screaming something happily. Quite quickly the ship passengers join them, and start running on the ship deck. I slowly walk up to the deck and look in the direction everyone else is gazing. Slowly a line on horizon grows and takes form. At first I thought that it is a small island by form, but it quickly grows in size and it becomes apparent that it is a huge land mass.

Quite soon ship vice-captain, the middle aged man with grey beard, came onto the deck and started barking orders and insults at the crew members, while asking people politely to calm down and proceed inside of the ship.

The land mass continued to grow until ships started appearing near a single area. Soon the area started taking form, and what stood before me was a huge stone city which was partly crumbled, but still nonetheless, somehow bursting with life.

Half an hour later the ship docked in the corner of the stone port. Nearly instantly people in official uniform appeared and started looking for captain. They announced that they will conduct registration and checking. The officials started checking documents and baggage of every single passenger thoroughly, and when they got to me the captain started telling the story about pirates and how I saved them.

There was a thought of simply walking through them, but right now it is better to try and do things calmly. If people believe me to be dead, there is no need to prove them wrong. There is also the issue with the brotherhood symbol on my chest, but if I don't show it in open, than everything should be fine. People already saw part of it, and may have told the officials, and if I try to hide it, that would only make them suspicious.

I may also look suspicious because of the missing hand. I heard somewhere that caught and convicted pirates are punished with cutting of their hand. Simple statement that it was a 'fight' neither fully explained nor convince the officials. They took me to a special room and started asking more question, about how I got on pirate ship, and where I come from. Even though I more or less understood the language, it was a totally different story when I had to talk myself, so I tried to explain where I come from with my very limited vocabulary and simple gestures.

I explained that I was traveling north and the ship came under storm. And after surviving the event, I was picked up by pirates. They looked at be suspiciously, and only when they noticed the upper part of scar, the brotherhood symbol, which was visible through the shirt, they calmed down.

Huh? This is new. They didn't fully see it, so maybe there is something I don't know.

After the change they started asking something about 'Yantaputraka', my owner, how I lost my hand and which family do I belong to.

Ah. They think I am a slave.

They started asking more questions, even repeating them, asking where they can find my owner or where I am from. This is taking too long, and I was reaching my limit with the delay, but the final drop was when they said that I will spend several days in cell, while they look for my master or find a new one, and I simply... showed them that they are wrong.

With guard captain on floor, with broken and bleeding nose, and my sword on his neck I stated shorty.

"I not slave. I tired. I go city. Question, you find me city."

Removing the sword away from the captains neck I walked to the door, which was blocked by a big guy in full-plate armor and with huge shield. Fed up with this bullshit, I kicked him, hard. The idiot in full plate armor, flew through the door, ripping it out of it's hinges in the process.

Guards tried to run after me, but I was already was too far, blending into the crowd.

I could start cutting them one after another, but more and more of them would come. Two will be followed by five more, than ten more, than twenty more, and soon the whole city would be after me. It would only slow me down and hinder the travel, also a single missing person will cause less issues than dozen dead guards.

Also, there is a change.

I can feel it.

Before I would be burning with wrath, barely able to contain it in myself, as if barrel of dynamite just waiting for a spark, as if a beast inside of me was just waiting for that single opportunity when I would let my guard down. But now it is different. It is contained, and... ice cold. Now I can control it, even compress it, direct it, and release at the exact moment I want.

And at the exact target I need.

...

I have already been in two small and a single large shop, looking for a map. The small one's had map smaller than the ship captain had, with only simple structure of the current kingdom. In the last shop, the large one, woman in early fifties, told me that they had the biggest map in the city. I asked the shop owner to show it to me, and she reluctantly agreed to show it, but only for few seconds. I wasn't even trying to read or remember what was on the map itself, but rather the forms, trying to compare it to anything I have seen before.

It took me less than three seconds, until I looked back at the shop owner and exploded.

"I said big map!"

She looked back at me in confusion and replied harshly.

"That is the biggest! Will you buy it or not?"

I did not reply as she folded the map and put it away.

The only things that were on the map, was the south archipelago that I came from, two huge continents with slightly circular form in the center, and several large island north of them, nothing more.

What the actual fuck...

I slowly walk outside of the shop to reanalyze everything, and understand what the hell is happening here, but my mind simply can't find any points on which to build the theory.

While I mindlessly walk through the street another issue becomes apparent.

There are too many different races that I have never seen before. I mean the people in the south islands looked like average northmen, a bit different but still. The pirates were dark skinned, like the people who can be found to south-west from Dead Desert, between the orc and ogre kingdoms. But just walking through the city for this few short minutes I have found dozen species that I have never seen before, and I have traveled quite a bit around the world. The most standing out for me are the greenish four handed rhino-ogre, and purple skinned humans with lizard hands and tails.

But that is not all.

People are staring at me, and I am not sure what the reason is.

Before I knew it I ended up near a huge building with a very familiar sign.

An adventure guild.

Something similar, a start point, they may know something, anything.

My legs move by themselves, taking me inside of the building. I find nearly exactly the same picture as I have seen in each adventure guild around the world. Same drunks, same young female receptionists with guards behind them, and same atmosphere.

Something similar, something same.

I walk to absolutely empty counter and greet the girl.

"Hello."

She doesn't even looks at me and apathetically asks resting her chin on her hand.

"What do you want?"

Before I know it, I ask the same question I have asked beforehand.

"Do you have a big map?"

The young girls deeply sigh and in same monotone voice replies without even looking at me.

"This is adventure guild. There is a big map in a shop down the road."

Her attitude is an issue, but I asked a stupid question and got a stupid answer, my mistake. Whatever.

Before I can say anything she continues in same monotone voice.

"If your master wants to register you as adventurer, he must come here together with you."

She end with a slight disdain.

What? Master? Does she think I am slave?

A two and a half meters tall greenish mass of orc fat appears beside me and grins widely with teeth so yellow that it is even hard to describe.

"Hi Mani. What wrong? Don't make such a grimace, you will ruin your pretty face with that."

"Hi. Nothing is wrong. The damn 'Yantaputraka' is broken and asks stupid questions." girl scoffs back.

The orc smirks and takes out a short dagger.

"I can throw it out if you want?" orc continues, while playing with dagger.

"And then the owner will come here furious, and blame me."

"Not you, only me, I will do that and even take the full blame, that is of course if you are free tonight."

The orc slowly draws the blade of his dagger across my face, as if testing the sharpness of the blade against something. A fraction of a second later he falls on ground screaming in pain, as I break another leg. Slowly looking at the wailing creature I grab his arm and rip it out, painting the floor red.

I calmly turn and look at the young girl, which continues to scream in horror, hiding behind the guards which drew out their weapons, and only now looking directly in my eyes.

"Did I get your attention now?"

She stutters as guards in front of her, have their eyes jumping between me and orc with their weapons unsheathed. She lifts her trembling hand and points at me.

"You are bleeding..."

Touching my face and looking at hand I find few wet red drops on it.

"Yes. You are observant." I reply back coldly.

Her eyes shoot wide and she screams in confusion "You are a human?!"

My head starts throbbing because of the useless excuse of question and answer board before me.

"B-B-But you have a mark, a-a-and you-you-you feel just like a 'Yantaputraka'."

Huh?

Guard said something similar.

"What is 'Yantaputraka'?" I ask

Few seconds later a small group from second floor arrives, and stares at the still wailing orc on floor in pool of his blood. The receptionist leaps to the older looking lizardman with nearly black scales and starts a rapid fire of explanation, on what happened. She specifically points at the that 'Potmal', the screaming orc, and says that he thought that I was 'Yantaputraka' and cut my face as a joke, after which I 'responded'.

The older looking lizardman barks orders and 'Potmal' is quickly dragged away by group of similar looking orcs, to 'Bright Seer', which I assume means healer.

The black lizardman looks at me suspiciously and asks.

"Are you really not 'Yantaputraka'?"

"I will ask again, what is 'Yantaputraka'?"

The moment he hears my question his eyes shoot wide in astonishment, and he bows deeply.

"My greatest apologies for everything that happened today!"

He raises his head up and start talking politely.

"Oh, um, how do I explain... 'Yantaputraka' is a puppet, a magic doll. They look like humans, but are not, they are common household object in Eternal Empire."

Huh?

A magic doll?

Wait.

Do they mean the mana automaton? But... they are Emperors personal attendants, they are huge and don't even look human. They are simply ancient machines of destruction and carnage, they can't talk.

The hell is he talking about?

"Why did you think that I am automaton?"

"'Automaton'? You mean 'Yantaputraka'? Well... Um, there are several reasons. Your hair... I have never seen color like that, and the... scar on your chest looks like a house crest."

After a small pause and a quick glance at me from legs to head, he continues "And you give a feeling of 'Putraka'." he quickly adds "I mean you don't feel alive-" the elder guard stops sharply as if he crossed a line.

"I am deeply sorry if I offended you."

The young receptionist injects "The only one to blame here is me." she finishes while bowing.

Looking at me again she says cautiously. "You looked so damag-.. hurt, and spoke so poorly, that I thought that you were just a broken 'Yantaputraka' that..."

The young receptionist continues the barrage of apologies, while I am standing and trying to process everything.

...

I look at the mug with bluish liquid, which is a local alcohol beverage, and think that maybe it would be better to just drink it and get wasted as many people do. Some say that it helps to calm down.

But I won't.

And so the thought continue violently swirling inside of my head.

Once more I look at the crystal ball in my hand, which is actually an Adventure Guild 'card'. As I was explained several times, everyone in the world uses them, and whenever I go everyone will accept them. For the 'inconvenience' they caused, they registered me as an adventurer and gave a guild... ball, for free. They also answered many questions I had.

It has already been two days, and the more answers I got, the more questions appeared.

There were still a thought that this is simply some far island near south twin continents, which did not interact with the rest of the world, but looking at the world map again and again, those thought crumbled.

The areas on the map are simply too large, even by modest estimation the continent I am on is at least twice as large as both south twin continents combined, but that is not all, except the four huge islands to the north, there is another continent east which is nearly the same size.

There is a tiny chance that I ended up in another world.

I mean the world of summoned exists, so maybe, there are more of them.

This is not the world of summoned for sure, because there are no flying iron 'planes', or high speed steel wagons on 'rails'. Most would laugh about the very idea of metal structure flying or moving with high speed, but I won't. I myself had designed something similar long time ago. So much time has passed since, that it feels like it was a totally different life.

A big green figure appears near my table, and puts another plate of what I could only call marinated octopus on it. I say thanks again, to what I assume is a female ogre-rhino, as she walks away.

Races is another reason that point that I am in different world. When I started reviewing the features of people again, there were just too many differences. People are generally shorter, most of them have skin color closer to dark chocolate, and I have yet to see anyone with features similar to those from Empire.

And not just differences, however many times I have tried to explain, it looks like people have neither heard, nor seen elves and dwarfs. And by general explanation, most of the demi-human live on east continent, which is called Brahmiam Kingdom.

But there is still something in me thinking or maybe hoping that I am wrong. And one of the core reason for it is the language. There is no way different worlds could have language so similar.

My eyes look across the room at the staring people, and they instantly turn away, trying to make it look as if their eyes weren't glued to me few moments ago. After the incident with retarded orc, the black lizardman, which is actually the guild master, made his best to sort the things out with local guard, so I would not bothered about it.

The whole experience was something new. I am used to fact that people randomly attack and accused me, it quite commonly leads to situations where the perpetrators try to capture or kill me. But something very unusual happened, after the 'attack', people asked for forgiveness and gave me a 'gift'. I am not complaining, but somehow the whole thing feels... wrong and suspicious, or maybe I am just not used to it.

Staring at the 'gift', a spherical crystal ball, I sit lost in my thoughts.

What do I do?

If this is other world, what do I do?

Find a way to return back?

Where do I even start the search?

Suddenly someone sits across me, some kind of feline demihuman, with features closer to human than animal, and only black ears and tail tells me that the woman before me is not a human. Two other demi-humans are standing behind her glaring at me, with their hands already on pommels of their weapons.

Here goes the old story again.

The catwoman smiles toothily and gestures to her friends, behind her, that they should calm down.

"Hello there." she says happily

"Hi."

"My name is Lekana." she continues with the same happy voice.

A cautious one.

"Alan."

"Alan?" she repeats "Alan, hmm, I like it it, sounds strong and very exotic." the catwoman continues blinking her eyelashes several times coquettishly at me.

No request or demand yet.

"I heard that you are human. Is it true?"

I never said that I am a human.

Oh. An information broker.

I should be careful, any word said will be used against me.

"Sorry for prying, it just that you don't look like one, and the strength, when you... subdued... that orc with bare hands was nothing like I have ever seen before. The only ones who can... rival orcs in strength are the Amazons, so I thought that maybe you belong to some kind of rare species that I have never seen before."

What?

"It's just, the way you look, and behave is so... different, that I thought that may-"

"Anyway. What I want to ask, is if you are interested in joining us for the Amazon tournament."

What is she talking about, the Ama-

Wait.

"Amazons. Where do they live?" I ask instantly.

"What?"

"Where do Amazons live?" I growl back as the demihumans behind her put their hand back on their weapons.

"On the Amazon island. Where else could they?" she replies dumbfounded

I take out the map I bought from the shop and open it on the table.

"Where?" I repeat again.

"No one knows. Somewhere west of the Endless Empire she points at the west most region on map."

I flip the map around, as Amazon's island is to the east of Patu. Did I look at the map the whole time wrong? Was the South actually the North?

After flipping the map around, I look at it for a very long minute, but it makes even less sense.

Something in me screams to turn the map back and look at it the way I was looking before.

Something is wrong here...

Wait.

What if nothing is wrong, and everything is right.

What if I did come from south pole?

What if the Amazon island is to the west from here, and is to the east of Patu.

Then realization hit me. As if hit my inspiration I start drawing areas on map with charcoal that I took out of my pocket.

Amazon to the west, Patu furtherer, and finally the main continent after that.

I fold the map into cone as my eyes open wide upon the realization. This is the other side of the planet.

This is the region behind Ancient Ocean, the place no one passed through, no one returned from. That means that I am on the region west from main continent, the region where Humans originally came from, the Primordial continent which was believed to have been destroyed in the aftermath of World War.

It was alive this whole time.

And the Amazons knew about that.

Did someone else know too? The Emperor? Senate? Or maybe even Ghalor?

That is not important.

The Amazons, those fucking cannibals, if people know about them, that means that they travel here somehow.

Using them I can return.

But in this state I will not be able to do much.

Doesn't matter, I will solve it, heal the limb.

There is a path, it exists.

Path is open and the night is close.