“I… It’s the innkeeper… we are hired to steal from the new guests…”

As Aleir heard this, he wasn’t surprised. He knew that the innkeeper was most likely involved in this as the man were staying right in front of the doors of the room he just bought.

“Alright.” Aleir pointed his hand and this time he put his whole palm on the man’s body. Dark energy was surging into the man’s body, slowly devouring his life force. He tried to improve his control by disabling the man’s organs one by one. It was a very cruel method to make someone suffer, but in his eyes, this man deserved nothing better anyway.

The man was grunting, however, he didn’t even have enough strength to scream. He was experiencing an unbearable pain, but a part of the dark energy was disabling his vocal chords, making him unable to make sound.

In a few breaths, the man’s lifeless body dropped on the ground. His organs weren’t able to bear the energy and started to fail one by one. The man died in excruciating pain.

“I need more subjects.” Aleir then looked at the door, he could hear someone quietly talking. It seemed as if it was just some random people talking but he couldn’t say for sure. He decided to approach the doors and have a look himself.

When Aleir opened the door, he saw a group of 6 men standing right in front of him. They didn’t look friendly and it was quite clear that they were somewhat related to the 2 men Aleir just killed and experimented on.

“Where are they?!” One of the men asked, fiercely looking at Aleir.

“They are right there.” Aleir then pointed at the two corpses inside his room.

The man’s expression changed and the whole group immediately drew their weapons.

“You will pay for this!” They then started coming at Aleir, aiming to take his life. However, they messed with the wrong person. Aleir didn’t move as he didn’t see a reason to. What he was fighting were just some casual bandits and thieves. Enemies of that caliber weren’t even worthy of his attention was it not for his urgent need of subjects.

The dark energy bursted out of Aleir, shackling the whole group. The men were shocked and scared. They didn’t expect the person who killed their comrades to be this terrifying. This was too one sided to be called a fight.

Aleir then moved all of the men into the room. The dark energy that shackled them, also disabled their vocal chords, so even if they wanted to scream, they couldn’t. Aleir then started conducting experiments, one by one. The expressions of the men, before they died, was terrifying. That one last look was saying enough about how much pain they had to suffer before they had died.

After a while, Aleir was done. He could control the flow and precision of the dark energy a bit better, however it was still far from enough. If he wanted to maximize his efficiency he would need hundreds of test subjects. If he had that, maybe he would be able to undergo a qualitative change before the army arrives.

Unfortunately, it seemed that there was not enough time.

At that moment, an idea came to him. He thought of a method that could work. He then left his room and went down the stairs.

In a short moment, he reached the innkeeper. He was obviously shocked when he saw Aleir and his expression stiffed, however he still kept his cool and asked. “I-Is there something I can help you with?” He then forced out a smile.

Aleir smiled back. “There actually is. I need you to mobilize your men and gather as many people as you can here. From this district. I don’t care how but I need you to do it.”

The innkeeper’s expression changed. When he looked at Aleir’s smile he realized that he had no choice. Aleir had killed 8 of his men and was completely fine. Let alone unharmed, it seemed as if no one even touched him! The innkeeper then squeezed out another smile as he was looking into Aleir’s eyes. “S… Sure…”

“Call me when everything is prepared.” Aleir then said slowly and left, going back into his room.

While he was waiting, he was pondering about his strategy during the war. His idea was that he would ambush the smaller forces of soldiers and devour them. But now, he had a better idea.

“This should work.” He separated a part of his energy and planted it into the ground. Once someone got closer, the dark energy would manifest and devour him, then when it gets filled with life force it would travel back to him. This strategy would improve his efficiency while he can focus on other things. The only downside of doing this, was that he was losing a part of his strength, making him a bit vulnerable. However, it was still incomparably better than using the dark figures. This way he was using way less energy for more or less the same results.

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He then spent several hours perfecting the spell until someone knocked on his door. He didn’t respond, just waited for the person to talk.

“Uh, sir, we have gathered what you needed. They are all in the main room.”

“Good.” Aleir then got up and opened the door. Behind, there was a robust man, looking at Aleir with a slight hint of fear in his eyes. The man must’ve had heard from his boss who Aleir was and what he was capable of. Both then made their way down the stairs, into the main room.

…

A huge amount of people were gathered at the main room of the inn. The amount of people in here was staggering, even the innkeeper didn’t expect this many people to gather. He sent a word around the district that he is recruiting new people for various positions. The amount of people interested in that actually flattered the innkeeper, he didn’t expect this many.

The innkeeper was looking around the room, sitting, while his bodyguards were making sure nothing happens to him. He was sad about the fact that his reputation would probably take a big hit after this. Although he was leading quite a big group of criminals, around this part of the city, he had a name. He was someone here. However, this could very well change today.

Suddenly, the innkeeper could hear someone coming down the stairs. Even though there was quite a bit of sound in the main room, he could clearly hear someone coming. He looked towards the stairs. There was Aleir along with the man he sent for him. Aleir then started coming towards him which was enough to make the innkeeper nervous.

“I-I gathered as many people as I could.” The innkeeper nervously replied, as he could feel himself starting to sweat, not knowing what will happen.

Aleir casually looked over the full room. Some of the people were looking at him and some were talking to others, not paying him any attention.

“You did well.” Aleir indifferently replied. He then imbued some of the energy into the walls. The energy was coursing throughout the whole building, the walls, doors, slowly starting to turn black. A lot of the people started looking around the room, noticing the sudden change. Some were scared and started panicking.

“What is happening?”

“Why are the walls turning black?”

“What the hell?”

Some of the people then tried to reach to the doors and get out, however they were unable to. The doors were wielded shut. It wasn’t because of the doors themselves but the dark energy reinforcing the whole structure.

The innkeeper was looking at the people trying to get out, hoping that he wouldn’t be one of the victims. He knew that Aleir wasn’t a person who cared about life and probably wouldn’t hesitate to kill them all in here. He could understand that, after all he used people and threw them away whenever he felt the need to. In the end, they might not be all that different.

He continued to look at Aleir, as he was hiding behind his bodyguards, ashamed of what he had done. But he knew that he had no other choice. It was either him or them. And as he saw it, his life was above all else.

Some of the people who realized that they can’t break through the doors no matter what, turned at the innkeeper. Everyone here knew who the innkeeper was. He was a cruel and heartless man but he valued his reputation. That was one of the reasons why so many people gathered here, they believed the innkeeper and saw it as their chance to climb up in the hierarchy of this god forsaken part of the city. But they were betrayed.

“You bastard!”

“I will kill you!”

Even though they used to respect the innkeeper, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t turn on him if something like this happened. After all, they grew up in harsh conditions. Out there it was tough life, filled with constant danger and suffering. To live in those conditions, one had to be able to adapt to the situation. This was such a situation.

A bunch of men started charging at the innkeeper’s bodyguards. At this point, they had nothing to lose, they either kill or be killed. When they reached the bodyguards, some of them tried to swing their swords at them. But that didn’t work as all of the people keeping the innkeeper safe were the best of the best he could get around here. The people charging at them were nothing more than preys falling to a predator. They had no chance. All of them died a gruesome death, some with their limbs cut off.

After the men died, there was silence in the room. They expected this to happen but it still hit them hard when they saw it. They silently hoped that they would be able to kill the bodyguards and free them. However, that didn’t happen. A lot of them were too scared to do anything. Now, with how the men ended up, their hope was completely extinguished.

Aleir was watching the whole scene unfold. He knew that these people would most likely try to put up some resistance. However, at his current power there was no way for them to retaliate. If he wanted to kill everyone in the room, he could do so in a few moves. But that wasn’t what he wanted to do.

As Aleir was watching, a big amount of dark energy already moved under everyone’s feet. They couldn’t sense it nor see it. However, it was there, prepared to be used.

Aleir then gave the people one last look. An immense amount of dark energy bursted out from the floor, entangling everyone in the room, except for the innkeeper and his bodyguards.

“W-What is this?!”

“Burn it!”

“Save m-”

The people tried to resist, trying to get rid of the dark energy with spells or brute force but to no avail. They all ended up fully covered in the dark energy, completely defenseless.

“Around 140. Impressive.” Aleir grinned.

The innkeeper behind him was looking quite pale from the sight. He then turned around and didn’t look at further.

Aleir ignored the innkeeper and others and started walking from one person to the next. His plan was to do the same thing he did with the innkeeper’s men. To use their bodies as a training subject to improve his control and drain their life force.

When he touched one of the covered bodies, it started violently swaying. It was clear that the person was suffering immense pain. However, they couldn’t make a sound or move. They were just stuck there, suffering and dying slowly.

The process continued. As the time flowed, more and more people died. It didn’t matter if they were men or women, to Aleir it was all the same. He didn’t feel anything. To the innkeeper, he seemed like a monster who enjoys the suffering of others. But Aleir just saw it as means to an end.