[NSFW]

“So… what’s your story, mystery man? I’ll tell mine first to get you a little more comfortable. Basically, I found a stray cat in the city, I took the cat home, the cat was actually a girl, the girl’s brother came to take her home, I followed, I got imprisoned, I freed myself, the girl’s family got attacked, I attacked the invaders and accidentally set the forest on fire, I got captured again, I broke out and took this kid with me, and then I met you. That's pretty much the whole story.”

“...”

“Welp, he’s not talking to us. What about you kid? Do you have a fun and interesting story?”

“...”

“Wow. So you guys are just going to give me silent treatment? Let’s not play this stupid game where we keep our secrets because of this and that. I’m going to destroy this city tonight so if you have anything you want to say, say it now. You can’t blame me for killing someone or destroying something important if you didn’t tell me not to.”

“...”

“How boring. There’s no interesting stories here. Guess I’ll just finish what I started then.”

What a waste, I really wanted to try living out a noble drama story. Since they wanted to play the ‘let’s see how much time we can waste’ game I would just do what I came to do. I shifted back into my beast form and broke down the nearest wall.

“Stop!”

“What? You wanna join?”

“I cannot allow you to harm innocent people.”

“That sounds so familiar… I can’t quite recall who said that but I swear I’ve heard that before. Just go on your way, I gave you your chance to talk.”

“Take another step towards that building and I will be forced to stop you.”

“Oh, ok. Do whatever you want.”

I took another step inside and immediately felt several foreign objects introduce themselves to the insides of my body. According to what I saw your body would remain in the form it was in when you died so I went limp and played dead. His footsteps approached me before going past and further inside the house.

“Have any of you been harmed?”

I stood back up and silently walked behind him.

“They look fine to me.”

He turned to me in a panic while shifting and sent several spikes in my direction. I let myself be impaled and calmly stood there waiting.

“You can’t kill me dumbass. You can try telling me your story though, if I decide that it’s good enough I might decide to leave this city alone.”

“...I’m here to root out those who seek to destroy the peace of our world.”

“Wow, very noble and kind. Who exactly would those people be?”

“Those who come from the other world and the ones who collude with them.”

“Ok, good enough for me. Where’s the kid?”

I left the house and found the kid standing there staring blankly like an idiot. I picked him up and slung him over my shoulder then turned back to the mystery man- who was now encased in a suit of metal like I was due to our clothes being shredded.

“Lead the way, I don’t believe in my navigational capacity.”

“...”

How’s our soul looking?

Are you stupid? Or dumb? If you can’t find it then neither can I. We already talked about this.

My bad, my bad. What are your thoughts on this? Should we follow the storyline or just destroy this city?

Think about the long term, if we can get this world and its people on our side we can get anything out of them. According to what I’ve observed our body grows stronger simply by consuming these people, there's no need to kill them. I think it’s quite possible that a single drop of blood will have the same results as consuming them. Destroying them now means all the future generations they could have produced will be lost to us. A single drop of blood to save your world isn’t too much to ask for.

That’s actually given me a great idea.

…

“So uh… do I have to stay in this cave specifically? Or can I wander around?”

“You can go out but don’t leave the courtyard.”

“I’ll just stay here then. Please continue training me!”

…

That didn’t work.

Good try at least.

“So are we going straight to business? Or like, what’s the plan?”

“We have to root out all the lackeys before removing the ones in command.”

“Why?”

“Because if we don’t they will just replace the ones in command with someone else.”

“You’re saying that like they won’t just recruit more people.”

“We won’t give them time to recruit more people.”

“Then why don’t we start from the top?”

“It’s harder to catch a scattered swarm of rats than to kill a bear.”

“I have no idea what you just said but it makes sense to me, let’s go boss!”

“...”

As we meandered through narrow paths and corridors I attempted to spark conversation with the kid.

“Do you prefer sweet or savory? Personally I prefer savory. It’s just a more complex flavor profile. Plus it works with textures. Sweet also has different profiles such as honey sweet, sugarcane sweet, coconut sweet, or pure sugar sweet. But the textures just aren’t for me, except coconuts, I love coconuts.”

“...”

“According to what I’ve heard I just realized you guys live in a completely different world. This means you guys have food I’ve never tried before. Hold on, do you guys have like- viruses and diseases and stuff? I never thought about all the bad stuff that exists in other worlds. Like air composition, natural toxicity, and all that other bullshit.”

“...”

“How have viruses from both worlds not destroyed the inhabitants? This kind of defies the rules of logic, you know?”

“...”

Is he a mute? I never checked if he was, it’d be awkward if I thought he wasn’t talking to me this whole time on purpose when he just couldn’t talk. I pulled him back in front of me and pulled his mouth open, there was indeed a tongue in there. I grabbed it and wiggled it around a few times, there was definitely some movement. He really just didn’t want to talk to me I guess.

Stolen novel; please report.

Check if he’s deaf dumbass.

Fuck, I forgot about that. How was I supposed to check if someone was deaf though?

“Hey if you can hear me nod… If you don’t nod in three seconds I’m going to set you on fire.”

His head began bobbing so fast that it looked as if he was being possessed.

“Okay, stop. I wasn’t actually going to burn you. Maybe I should get you some writing utensils? What do you guys even use to write in this world?”

“We’re here.”

I looked in front of me and saw a ramshackle building.

“This place? Can I just set it on fire?”

“Not yet, they have tunnels underground. We need to seal them first.”

“Take the kid with you then, I’m more likely to receive attacks.”

I forced the kid into his arms and turned around and sunk into the ground before transforming. After gaining the earth manipulation abilities I felt a strange kinship with the ground, like I belonged in it. Testing it out had been a great idea, it felt like how floating in a dream felt. The earth could split like air as I passed though or harden into footholds for me to push off of. If I was feeling lazy I could propel myself forward using the dirt around me and although I couldn’t see, I could feel the earth around me. The range was limited to what I estimated was a hundred meters but within it I could still tell where every oddity was.

Every pocket of air or every empty space. I happily swam around underground and filled every tunnel I found. How was I supposed to know when to attack though? Should I go back up to meet him? Should I just collapse the building? Were there hostages inside? I had traveled to the very edge of the building and could feel the shifting weight of people on the soil. While worrying about how to approach this I felt some earth start shifting towards me. Must be my partner in justice. The earth began to vibrate and sound directly entered my mind.

I will attack from below, you will attack from above ground. Make sure no one escapes.

How did he do that? I tried transferring what I was thinking over to his head through the soil. The ground began to vibrate and I felt like what I had been trying to say had been passed over.

I will send a spike above ground, attack then. Destroy everything if you wish, just make sure no one escapes and innocents are not harmed.

Seems simple enough. I just have to make sure I don’t kill my partner by accident. I had also come up with an idea I was desperate to test out. I went back above ground and started slowly spreading out a net made of thin metal wires. The amount of metal I could control was limited so spreading out thin metal wires allowed me to cover the largest area. It was amazing how much control I had over the metal though, I was even able to sharpen the wires to make them more efficient at cutting. That wasn’t their main purpose right now but it was still a pretty good bonus.

After completely enveloping the building and some of the ground beneath it I waited for the signal. Within a few seconds a metal spike shot out of the ground and I immediately contracted the net into a tight ball while electrifying it with everything I had. The wires sliced through the building like it was air and continued shrinking into a ball while pulling what I assumed to be people with it. As the net shrunk I regained access to more metal and started launching more wires to pierce through the people I had captured.

I wasn’t sure how things were going on my buddy’s side but hopefully not too bad. All he had to do was clear out the people beneath ground. The wait for him to return didn’t last long as he popped back out of the ground right after I finished tightening the net. I wasn’t sure if everyone was dead yet so I closed up all the gaps in the net with a thin metal film and began spraying a mixture of flames, frost, and poison inside. If this didn’t get them the suffocation would. I continued reinforcing the metal ball and sending spikes to pierce people from time to time.

“What are you doing!”

“What? I thought you told me I could destroy everything.”

“You nearly caught me with your attack!”

“Oh, sorry I guess. Didn’t think I was capable of hurting you. Why didn’t you just use a net like me?”

“I am not yet capable of using such complex techniques.”

“It’s not that hard, just make smaller longer versions of your spikes and wrap them together.”

“It is not as simple for me as it is for you.”

“We can work on that later then. Sorry for almost killing you. Did we get them all?”

“Yes.”

“Give me a second then, we can go finish the big man off after I do this.”

I rotated the inside of the metal ball and crushed everything into small chunks then heated it up with some flames. After liquefying everything I made a small straw into my mouth and drank the blood flavored slushie I just made. I grew slightly larger and my power increased by a small factor.

“Let’s go get the boss now.”

“...Follow me.”

“Wait, give me a description of the target while we travel so there aren’t any accidents.”

“Our target is a noble in the king's court. He is the king’s trusted aid and military commander. His name is Zoreal and he bears silver hair, he is accompanied by a squad of soldiers wherever he goes and it is suspected that many of the soldiers have joined his side.”

Silver hair?

Sounds like the guy we fought earlier.

“He really only had one base of operations?”

“No, he has a few more hidden around the city. We will remove those first before removing him. The one we just attacked was one of the smaller ones.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll just net them again, you do whatever it is that you do.”

***

If she wanted to take a piece of his soul she would first have to remove all the seals and curses. The next step was more difficult, convincing him to give her a piece of his soul. Taking it forcefully had great room for error and even greater potential for disaster. More than once had a world destroyer's soul been attempted to be stolen. Everytime had resulted in destruction on an unimaginable scale, they would much rather take everyone they could with them than surrender their soul.

There was one instance in which someone had gained a portion of a world destroyer's soul. It was gifted to her mother by the last known world destroyer shortly before their death. That piece of soul wasn’t the only thing gifted to her mother by them, she too was a gift from that being. Her origin had long been a mystery among the other leaders but the strength gained from being the owner of such a powerful thing granted her mother the ability to dismiss their questions. Her mother had been able to convince them that it was a weapon of extreme power but truthfully they had never understood its capabilities.

It didn’t possess any of the characteristics its owner had and it couldn’t be used to create anything either. It simply existed. It was clear that its power was unimaginable but they had no idea how to access it. It had been passed down to her when she was powerful enough to hold a seat at the table of leaders despite her never being given a seat. However, ever since she came into contact with this new world destroyer the soul fragment had been more active than ever before. Maybe…? She pinned the man down and pulled the necklace out of her inner realm.

“Woah woah woah! Relax! I’m not ready for this kind of activity just yet.”

The closer she got the more active the soul fragment became. She placed the soul fragment directly on his chest and it became so active that the necklace itself began shaking. She unsealed the locket and a red light instantly shot into the man's body.

“I’m just letting you know right now. It will never be true love!”

Glowing red lines began to spread from the point of entry and slowly covered his entire body.

“The fuck is this? You- fuck! You fucked me over!”

Once the red lines finished spreading his shut down body reawakened. This time she could see that the person in his eyes was different. His eyes scanned over her for a brief moment before he spoke.

“My daughter?”

***

The next place we arrived at was similarly as run down as the previous place so I just quickly enclosed it in a wide net and tightened it. After drinking the other guys the strength and range of my net had increased by a noticeable degree and I was reassured in my ability to capture everyone. The building quickly crumbled and a storm of dust and debris rose up. Just as with earlier I enveloped my captured fish with metal film and filled the net with poison and flames. This time I didn’t wait for them to finish dying before starting to grind them up and turn them into paste. I also made a straw and coated it with flames to facilitate my drinking of their flesh, blood, and bones.

“I think at this rate we can finish them off by tonight. Let’s keep going.”

“Let us continue then.”

…

“How many more before we finish?”

“There are only three more hideouts after this.”

It had started to get repetitive after going through six more attacks that were enacted almost exactly the same. The massive increase in strength had been nice though and my range of control had jumped up to one hundred seventy-one meters which indicated an amplified strength of one hundred seventy-one people combined.

My natural form possessed the strength of nine people combined and the shifter form amplified my strength by a factor of around nineteen, my weight also seemed to be around nineteen times that of my normal form in my shifter form. What the hell is she doing? Why is my other body restrained?

…

“I’m just letting you know right now. It will never be true love!”

What’s up with that necklace?

Could be some kind of mind control tool.

Stop jinxing us you dumbass? Should we transform?

Go ahead and try.

Fuck, I can’t transform. I watched as she placed the necklace on my chest and opened it to let a red light shoot into my body. I instantly lost feeling everywhere the red light spread and my body stopped responding to my thoughts.

“The fuck is this? You- fuck! You fucked me over!”

I was sent into darkness and left there.

“I guess we’ve had our soul attacked again.”

“Yeah, but where’s the fucker who did it?”

The little ghosts had all swarmed around something and were ferociously attacking it despite being beaten back. This time I could tell that our bodies were different, we were much stronger than the last time we were here. Precisely nine times stronger… I tried breathing out flames or poison but couldn’t. How were we stronger then?

“It’s our training. Our training in the outside world has brought our natural strength up.”

“Why can’t we use our abilities then?”

“They aren’t naturally a part of us, we should be happy we managed to cheat the system with our training.”

“That’s true.”

“I beg of you! Please do not kill me just yet! I only wish to speak to my daughter for a few moments!”

I stopped the attacks of the ghosts and made them disperse so we could see who they were attacking. Inside the swarm of ghosts stood a devilishly handsome man who now had his dashing looks slightly ruined by copious amounts of scratches and bites.

“Hey buddy, explain yourself!”