I stared down at the child as they panted and looked around in panic. I got a better look as I awaited an answer and saw that it was a girl, probably around 13-14 ish, with several ragged clothing and several old injuries covering her arms. I spoke up and said "Well? I ain't got all day and your answer decides your fate, so even think about lying." By now there was a constant stream of read mist flowing from my eyes, and I realized it now, but my Nercon Heart somehow made me feel like it was natural. I had more stuff to think about so I just let it slide and refocused on the girl.

She made a small eep when I asked her a second time and clenched her fist before replying to me. "I was j-just hired by someone wearing a fancy s-suit to follow you! T-they paid me money and told me to say everything I find out into this magic tool..." Her voice trailed off as she pulled out an item the size of an apple and handed it over to me. I looked at it suspiciously before using mana sense on it.

I saw that it had no deadly mana within it so I stored it in my inventory. I thought about her answer. Someone was trailing me and looking for info on me? Who though? I didn't make any enemies and the only person I messed with was that noble bastard who had a bunch of slaves, but he didn't know my identity.

I turned back to her and asked "Do you know anything else about the person who hired you? The more information that is true you give the higher of a chance you go free. Remember that I can tell when you lie." I added that small threat to make her more likely to give me real information and used mana drain on her for a split second before turning it off.

She winced and started to think of information and finally sputtered "I-I don't know much, They wore a mask all the time and always met me in the sections of the slums that no one visited. U-uhm He also had some weird bumps on his head underneath his hood. I-I don't know much else! He didn't give a name or anything."

I gave a hard stare at the kid and used mana drain once more for a second and turned it off, before absorbing this new information. I watched the kid as she hugged her knees and scooted back to the tree trunk. While keeping an eye on her to make sure she didn't make a break for it, I tried to puzzle out who was after me. There was barely any information given that I could even work with. Bumps under his hood? What good does that do me!

I kept thinking but heard a voice suddenly chime in, saying "OH! The p-person had a black hand on the back of their cloak outlined in purple! I-it looked like a monsters hand!" She seemed relieved that she could think of something else to tell me.

I suddenly remembered something that happened back in Namph. During the fight with the necromancer the necromancer screamed out 'The Demonic Hand will make sure you pay for this'. Could the people that are after me be a part of this so called Demonic hand group? "Finally I have some good information to go off of. Now I can at least find out who the hell the Demonic Hand is and why they are after me."

I turned back to the girl and wondered what I should do with her. The safest option was to just kill her and be done with it, but I couldn't just do that. I might have become a necromancer for real but I wasn't some cold blooded monster. Not yet at least. "Shit, this is troublesome, what the hell do I do with you? Do I really have no choice but to kill you?"

I was just muttering out loud like I sometimes do to help myself think, but it seemed the girl heard me and started to tear up and cry. I was contemplating what I should do when I felt something slam into my back. I heard whistling and dodged to my right and several black and blue arrows slammed into the tree I was standing next to. My eyes widened when I saw them. They were the same arrows that the moon elves used! I turned towards the direction of where the arrows came from and saw that there was a few moon elves sitting on trees and a few in the bushes. Moon elves were seriously scary. I didn't even hear a thing even though I was actively listening for monsters in the area.

I cursed myself for not having better detection skills and yanked the arrow out of my back before lighting it on fire with magic. I stared back at the moon elves and dodged a few more arrows coming at me and heard "Identify yourself!" along with someone's shout of "Just riddle the bastard with arrows! He's clearly torturing that child! Look at the scars on her arms and that bleeding injury on her leg!"

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I decided I should just dip and started to run when I got hit with an arrow in the chest. The arrow pierced through my armour and stabbed into my chest, before it finally stopped. I slammed into a tree and gasped, red mist once again pouring out of my mouth. Strangely, there wasn't any blood, just red mist coming out of the injury. I didn't think much about it and the moon elves didn't seem to notice either.

I yanked the arrow out of my chest and saw the injury was already closing thanks to my armours regenerative passive and the Nercon. I was still in pain but grit my teeth and powered through it,. My mind was racing as I made a wall of earth and once again ran for it, but the moon elves wouldn't let me go that easily. I once again dodged several arrows and but was flung backwards towards the girl by a large impact in the chest. The impact was so harsh I felt my ribs break instantly. There was several more thuds as daggers flew and stabbed into both my eyes and my heart, as well as my neck.

I was dying. I knew it, but I was still calm. My Nercon Heart pushed the arrow out of my heart and I yanked the daggers out of my eyes and neck but still couldn't see. I felt the red mist pour out of my eye sockets and realized I could still see, just not in the way I expected to. I saw everything with shades of red and people gave off different amounts of red mist. I could see the red mist from the various life forms nearby, the moon elves being the ones giving the highest.

I knew I should run, that I should make a break for it because my Nercon Heart was definitely running low on health after that, if not already empty but I still felt that sense of calm. I noticed that the moon elves were not moving and staring at me. I heard one say "Is he undead? How is he not dead after that? Even someone level 50 to 60 would have died from those enchanted vampire daggers piercing them through the heart and neck."

There was argueing and I could see the shift in the red mist, several peoples mist moved different and looked agitated. I didn't know what this meant but guessed it meant they were cautious or afraid.

"Why the hell am I not leaving? This is suicide..." I muttered to myself and tried to will myself to move and my body finally listened. I turned to leave but saw the red mist from the girl and it made me freeze. The mist looked far more vibrant, and red. It was so alluring. I also saw some dark red mist within her torso, lower half and brain and this drove me into some strange hunger. I didn't know why but I instantly grabbed the girls neck and fled. I was far quicker than the moon elves because my Nercon was burning mana at a dumb rate to help me flee, enhancing me legs with the mana.

~~~

After several tense minutes I had finally escaped and was alone, with the girl. The injuries in my eyes had healed and I could see normally again but I could still see the red mist vision when I wanted to. My mind as trying to sort through the shit that was going on, and I was being driven mad by this unknown hunger. I couldn't think straight. I was going insane from this crazy hunger. I needed food.

My vision went red again and I saw a snake-like form of black mist come through my arm into her neck. I heard some pleading but it was ignored by my insane hunger. I needed food or I was going to go insane. The tendril pierced into her neck and the red mist from her was drained through the tendril and into me, the black mist pulsing with red red as it drained her of the red mist. My Nercon Heart shivered in glee but I knew something was wrong. Something was going that I wasn't aware of that was wrong. But the hunger drove that down. I watched through the red tinted vision as the vibrant red mist was all gone and finally the dark red mist was drained from her head as well as her upper and lower halves.

Once it was all gone I saw that there was only a black void left behind in the shape of a human and my vision turned back to normal. I collapsed, gasping for breath on my hands and knees. "What the hell just happened?" I weakly managed to say before I turned to the girl to see how she was. I saw that she had no life left behind. The body was dead. She had a mask of horror mixed with shock on her face.

I collapsed onto my back and cried silently. "Looks like I'm already more of a monster than I thought I was..." I vowed to figure out what the hell the Nercon Heart was in detail and ensure this didn't happen again. I felt like there was an immense weight on me, threatening to crush me into the ground. I let it crush me while I sat there crying for who knows how long. The Nercon Heart wasn't all good it seemed, and now I also had a group of crazy necromancer cultists to deal with on top of this mind numbing mess. Life was cruel sometimes.