Hatred And Apathy

Admittedly, I didn’t know for sure that plague doctor looking fucker was responsible for this, but I’m spiteful enough to blame him until I get definitive evidence proving he didn’t. Of course, I’m still gonna kill him regardless for that stunt he pulled in Kurzebald’s labyrinth.

Not anytime soon, of course. I have no idea what is average for stats in this world and even if stats mean different things for different races: I could dump two thousand points into strength, only to find two thousand is totally normal or that a human’s two thousand is worth more than a rat’s two thousand. Of course, it’s also entirely possible that creatures that start out as a lesser creature and evolve are stronger by nature than those that are born as mightier creatures. So far, I have no evidence to suggest either way; for all I know, everyone is absurdly superhuman. Without a base level, I can’t tell just how high tier that laser shooting maniac is.

Even without an objective scale to place him against, I’m not about to challenge a man that can vaporise a tunnel in one shot any time soon.

I settled myself as best I could, taking a deep breath and just allowing the marginally less smoke tainted air of the bleak alley I found myself in to settle into my veins and cool my aching lungs. As my adrenaline cooled and my mind stopped racing, a cold terror settled over me, the kind I had not let myself feel until relative safety and a sharp adrenaline crash allowed it to seep through. I had never felt so afraid, so alone and hopeless, as I did beneath the tattered shadow of foreign flags and foreign stars; the constant state of panic and desperation had kept it from truly sinking in, but I would never see home again. I suddenly found myself stranded on a hostile and alien world out of nowhere, impossibly far from anything I had ever known, without even my own name let alone my admittedly meager possessions. Everything I’ve encountered has been unflinchingly hostile and I have every reason to suspect this trend will carry on to literally everything. To top it all off, I have lost even my very species and found myself bound seemingly forever in the form of a verminous rodent.

A deep sigh rattled my body as my roilling emotions came to a boil, the sheer violence of them overcoming their muted nature for a time and leaving me woefully unprepared to handle them. Fear blended together with pain and despair into a raging storm of dread and sorrow shot through with the formless grey fog of hopeless depression.

As I felt tears stream down my cheeks for the first time in twenty years, I grit my teeth and crushed my storming emotions beneath a solid wall of rage. With a mental cry of hatred, I took that stark horror of seeing onrushing death so close and so implacable over and over, of being lost in a foreign world and hunted like the animal I’ve become, and turned it into simmering hate and burning anger.

I rose to my paws, ignoring the sting of the many cuts, bruises, and burns all over me as my vision turned red. I feared that bird masked monster, but I drowned that fear in anger and loathing. I hated him for making me afraid, for making me flee from unstoppable death like some insect. I hated him for being a threat to me, for presenting a hurdle I wasn't sure I could surpass. I drowned my fears and doubts beneath a boiling red ocean of hate and rage, knowing they still simmered below the surface but pushing that breakdown back and doing my damndest to smother and burn them out.

I basked in it, letting hate wash away my worries and soothe my aching body, letting rage run my trauma and fear out of my mind. The burning, violent energy of hate and anger is like a soothing balm compared to the sharp ice of dread and despair; itchy and aggressive though the feeling was, I much preferred it to a mental breakdown.

Hate Engine +1

I hated fear. I knew it had its uses and that my ancestors never would have survived to create me without it, but even so I loathed the emotion that hounded my every step and chilled my every breath. Fear and I were old companions, the kind that tried to shank each other to death in the mud whenever we met eyes, but I had lived with a hanging sword of terrors both rational and not above my head for as long as I could remember. I had found many ways of mitigating the never ending horror of existence in that time, but none were more effective than simple distraction for those that can’t be solved.

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For those that can be dealt with, dealing with the problem does tend to help. I’m sure sliding a knife into that plasma thrower’s heart will be the sweetest relief I’ve had in a while when I manage to remove that fear, but I’m willing to live with hanging dread if the alternative is a fight I don’t like my odds in. Even with that fear smothered beneath a sea of hate, I wasn't about to let myself become stupid for it; for as much as the boiling rage I felt wanted to just rush and attack him recklessly, those cold bubbles of fear that made their way to my concious mind and synchronized with the cool logic I so preferred staved off that illogical rush to action.

I had a chance here, a chance to finally be free of all fear and sorrow, to be truly immortal and unassailably strong; I wasn't about to throw it away for fear or anger. I wanted to strap that fucker down and peel his skin off almost as much as I wanted to flee to the other side of the world to escape him, but I wanted to live more than either and I knew neither impulse would help that. I didn't have the power to confront him outright, and knowing nothing of this world I didn't doubt I would wind up dead sooner than later if I just made a run for it.

Besides, where else was I going to find a large mass of decently powerful life forms that aren't actively on alert than a human settlement? I'd have a much harder time killing enough people to evolve however many times it takes to become truly immortal without such easy access to prey, even if said prey was dangerous and the area hostile. If I simply fled to the wilderness, odds are good I'd be killed by some existing predators or grow old and die trying to hunt far more wary foes.

A sigh escaped my lips as my raging feelings began to settle; as was always the case, my bursts of emotion faded quickly. The boiling sea of rage and the terror crushed beneath it melted away just as fast as they came, leaving only a lingering dread and hate I was far more accustomed to. I had lived most of my life with a mild current of fear running beneath my active thoughts whenever I couldn't distract myself enough, I could live with a slightly worse undercurrent now; having an image for that fear to swirl around was hardly any worse than the many more generic terrors that lurked in even my more mundane life before.

I shook myself, scattering the ash and dust polluting my fur all around and dispelling my uncomfortable feelings alongside the particulates. There would be plenty of time to deal more thoroughly with these nasty little emotions after I stacked enough corpses to ascend to godhood, repressing them and moving on as I’d done for forty years would have to suffice for now.

A nearby building collapsing and sending burning rubble all around in an avalanche of fiery death not a hundred feet from me reminded me of exactly why I couldn’t afford to get caught up in all this emotional shit. With another sigh, I began walking once more towards danger.

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Sulphurous eyes watched the city sector burn from atop a half collapsed apartment building, the orange light dancing across them seeming feeble compared to their own feverish glow. Smoke and ash danced around the pale figure attached to those unblinking eyes, though not a single particle actually made contact with them despite their close proximity to the inferno. They watched without blinking as untold hundreds of souls faded into the smoke, watched many succumb to the homogenous grey of the Blight, watched some throw themselves into the flames to escape it with their souls intact, watched others take their own lives to escape the agony of those same flames.

Their gaze swept across the wreckage, seeing a thousand little stories come to painful and sudden ends as they sought the source of the blaze. They took note of a strange rodent with an unusually large soul for their species, but dismissed it as a possible culprit upon seeing no affinity to flame in it’s oddly grey soul. Eventually, they found a section of the city sector wreathed in infernal flame and notably more badly damaged than the rest; where most of the conflagration appeared to be mundane fire burning out of control, it was clear this section of molten slag and crimson flame was an outlier worth investigating.

The ashes swirling around them distorted for an instant before the figure vanished, reappearing atop a burning but otherwise intact inn closer to the demonically tainted area. A glance was all it took to tell it would take centuries for the corruption to fade, if any even cared to bother expunging it. Ignoring the desecration, their burning gaze swept the area for a moment, taking in the slagged buildings and melted roads before movement drew their attention.

A lone figure stood unsteadily in the center of the apparent blast zone, missing an arm and appearing for all the world to be dead on their feet. Were it not for the colour of the blood leaking through the uneven stitches covering their many visible wounds, they would have been easily mistaken for one overcome by the Blight.

Luminous eyes tracked them for a long moment as they slowly trudged along, taking in their attire and bearing; a member of the Order Of The Burning Feather if the mask was anything to go by, and most likely a rather skilled fire cultivator or pyromancer given their apparent lack of concern for the demonic flames and molten stone around them. All in all it painted a rather obvious picture to the observer’s ancient eyes.

Their orders fulfilled, the figure vanished without a sound.