There was once a great Empire that ruled over this world and many of its peers in the galaxy.

Named after the continent on which it was born the Argus Empire was the birthplace of some of the most powerful practitioners and Magic Users that had ever been or would ever be.

Their legacy was carved into the very fabric of reality. Their name was hung up in the mantle of the stars. When they fell a good portion of society fell with them. Falling into chaos, into madness and savagery.

Now a few thousand years later the world could be said to have recovered, but in truth it really hadn’t. The stars weren’t as bright, and within the eyes of men there now lived a frailty and ferality.

Only three of Monde’s nine continents were habitable for humans. Only the homeworld still flickered with the fires of life. With most of the neighboring worlds gone cold, if they still remained in the skies at all.

*****

If you were a Mondian there were three scenes one would learn to dread. Three things that boded ill.  

Three sights that folked prayed to the gods and the ancestors above, that none of them ever lay waiting for them when they arrived at their homes.

The first was the sight of towering greasy black columns of smoke hanging above one’s hometown.

The second was your child’s discarded shoe lying in the middle of the road.

The third was an open door, your open door. The locks broken. The door itself torn off its hinges. The hearth's fire gone cold. The halls littered with signs of struggle.

*****

Billy had been running home when he looked to the sky and saw smoke. A dark wavy line that rose up towards the sky, making it halfway before it was defused, blown astray by the wind.

He frowned as he saw it, thinking that something might be afoot in Garland. However as he grew nearer he realized that smoke wasn’t coming from Garland, it was coming from a spot a little ways away. A place just to the side.

“No…!”

He ran, running full tilt, making use of the speed he’d gained after using the miasma to bolster his body’s base abilities. There was a crack and a muffled sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier many times over, and ran faster than the wind.

He arrived at the lodge within a few seconds time. He saw the gates were bent, torn open and knocked down from  their hinges.

He ran up the walkway into his front yard and saw a crowd of sixty or so men in light armor and road leather milling about. They’d lit his yard ablaze and he could see a few at the front were trying to do the same to the lodge.

A million and one thoughts went through his head, but there were only two emotions to color them. The first was fear and the other anger.

Outraged he surged forwards, announcing his presence with the screams of his apparent enemies.

Right now he was all sword and all business. There were no innocents to protect, no youths to save and no problem for him if he wanted to act with reckless abandon. He entered the yard, his movements instantaneously transitioning into a series of kicks and throws, jabs and punches.

Sending men flying through the air before the mob finally got itself together, realizing they were being attacked and trying to respond in kind.

At some point Billy got his hands on someone’s sword and then the blood really began to flow. Swords, blades, knives, razors, rulers, sharp angles and lines of any kind. He had countless years of experience with them. He knew how to make them lethal. He knew how to make them more  than lethal.

These were foundations of “his” magic. He could use them to end lives, save lives and pull new life from out of the void.

He knew how to make them sing for him. How to use them to make the world dance to his tune. If one so much as left him a line drawn in the ground, given enough time to figure it out and gather the required energy he could use it to cut down the very heavens themselves. Tearing the stars from their moorings.

It became a slaughter. A red rain fell, a blood mist spread across the land, body parts were minced into a sort of meat powder and the men began to panic.

As they panicked he, Billy grew stronger. Fear created miasma just like death did and that miasma fed him. Dark shapes rose from the world within his shadow. Drawn out, wanting to join the fun.

Amorphous blobs that exploded on contact. Static motes that released bolts of dark energy that sapped one's strength. Flying tadpoles that attacked, tearing through flesh and spirit like a school of piranha. He hadn’t wanted to use this yet, but right now he didn’t have the luxury of caring.

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A few men held strong, practitioners of the ruler layer. Three were king-ranked and the last was an emperor. Though they were below him in rank it wasn’t enough for him to be able to underestimate them.

Monde was a dumping ground for dead gods, and the weapons, secrets and failures of all manner of angels, demons and spirits. It was filled with divine bastards and their children had left bloodlines and magics that were still being stumbled upon till this day.

Add in the fact that the children of practitioners tended to be born with a portion of their parents strength and the days of chaos after the empire’s fall where rapacious supermen roamed the wastes and one could understand how the creatures known as “Ordinary” men had gone extinct.

Not to say that Billy was worried either. This meant that he’d fight them leaving them no quarter.

He swung his sword, sending his aura running along the edge of the blade. He sliced through two of the king ranked men, cleaving them in twain with a single swing. Not even allowing them to act.

The third king ranked man he’d grabbed with his free hand. The man pierced Billy’s arm with a pike but he ignored it, driving his hand forwards till he could grab hold of the man’s face. Digging his fingers into the man skull and mashing it in his palm. Bone and brain exploding from between the gaps in his fingers.

The three men died miserably but Billy’s attention was already on the Emperor Ranked-Raider.  He cut the man’s legs off and then turned his attentions to the lodge. He ran to the front doors, standing in front of the lodge and going into his mental stores to find a spell that would put out the fire.

After a brief blank spot born from the panic he’d found spell that would steal the oxygen from the flames. With the fire gone he ran to the door, relieved to see it still closed. It was only to be expected, the house was his demesne.

Owned by him legally, conceptually, and magically. A world within the world, a sub-reality that could only be entered by those he permitted. He ran inside and heart in his throat, he started shouting.

“Ed? Ed?! Edna-Rae are you there?”

Eventually the young woman appeared, hair tousled like she’d just awoken from a nap.

He didn’t know that she’d recently started making use of the little cultivation guide he’d been writing for her in his spare.

He didn’t really care about that at moment either, though later he’d be a little pleased to have been of help. Right now he was just glad to see her. Glad to see that she was okay. Endlessly grateful that this wasn’t one of the days that she went to town for an errand or just to hang out. Cold sweat ran down his back as he imagined the possibility of it

being her who had just come home. Running into the gang as they’d surrounded the lodge.

“Something wrong, Billy?” she said, with  concern and curiosity in her voice.

As he realized that she was alive, his heart still pounding so loudly that he couldn’t believe that she couldn’t hear it. He calmed himself or at least he faked a calm.

“Nh…? N-, Nothing.”

“Really? ‘Cause, you were shouting and ‘you’ never shout.” said Ed.

Billy just shook his head.

“Er...high spirits?”

She frowned not believing it for a second. She wasn’t stupid and she certainly wasn’t blind. Her childhood friend stood before her, completely covered in blood and while this wasn’t the first time he’d come back bloodied. Not only did it seem that he’d been bathed in the stuff, this blood was still wet.

“Um...how about I cook today since apparently I woke you. Sorry about that by the way” said Billy.

“.....Sure. Don’t mention it?” said Edna.

“You can go back to sleep if you want...I’m gonna just head out for a bit.” said Billy.

“...Sure.” said Edna.

Billy turned on his heel heading back towards the front door, that still lay ajar. Slamming it shut after he went through it.

Outside the lodge he saw the bandit whose legs he’d just sliced off. Trying to crawl away.

“...You!” he roared, sending his shades to surround the man and cut off his retreat.

The bandit saw him and turned, shivering in fright.

Billy stalked forwards, his aura turning in a towering shadow. His eyes filled with a flame that scourged his skull of reason or pity. Glowing mist came from out of his mouth, appearing like dragon’s breath. The air grew increasingly cold and it was at this point that the bandit realized that he was all alone.

“L-, look. What do you say we call it squares? Even stevens, you go your way and I go-” said the Bandit. Who was either an idiot or a comedian.

“....Who sent you?” said Billy. His voice empty of emotion, made weighty and echoing by the death energies he was channeling into his flesh.

“I...I...can’t say. The boss man just ordered us to come here and kick a fuss.” said the Bandit.

“Who’s the ‘boss man’ then?” said Billy.

“Come on, mate. You know I can’t answer that. Honor to kith and clan and all that. Employee-client confidence?” whined the bandit. Still backing away, crawling from the sinister specter that stalked towards his direction.

“Okay then...I don’t need you to speak  anyway.”

In that moment Billy closed the distance that lay between them. He lunged forward and grabbed the back of the man’s head. Lifting him into the air, not caring about the blood that splattered onto him as he did so.

He pulled the man toward him, brought him close enough that their noses were almost touching and looked the man deeply in the eye. Staring at the soul that lay within the man’s flesh. Staring at the mind that lay nestled between his body and soul, birthed from both, ruling both.

Then he pulled. He breathed in and a glowing mist was torn from out of the man’s eyes, ears and nostrils, flowing into Billy’s mouth. The man howled, screaming bloody murder as he felt his life being torn away. As he felt things that shouldn’t be touched being ripped opened and torn out of him.  

He tried to struggle and dark light came from Billy’s eyes and mouth, sinking deep into the Bandit’s being. Limbs of pseudo-soul and aether penetrated the bandit’s being as Billy’s soul engulfed his soul. Swallowing the totality his being, tearing what he needed away, draining it’s strength.

Spitting out the inedible remnants as a mostly invisible, faintly rainbow colored mist. The flow of energies was intensified and the legless man began to weep feeling a pain that worse than could be described or imagined.

Finally Billy got what he needed and he dropped the man, discarding his now emptied corpse. Showing mercy by driving his blade through the heart of the ruined vessel in front of him. The empty eyes dimming as the last thing that kept the body living was brought to a halt.

“Hmph…”

Then with that done he stood in the middle of the yard, that was covered in broken and ravaged corpses. His shadow extending out from beneath him,spreading like ink in clean water.

Covering the entire yard in a deep pool of shivering black. Then in a single instant he swallowed all the bodies, pulling them into his inner-world. He’d let his shades feed on them and use anything that remained and seemed promising to further increase his body's base strength.

For now though he decided he’d head into the lodge. He needed a nap, and a bath. He needed to convince Edna that he hadn’t lost his mind and that everything was okay. Since he could see her standing at the front door, staring at him. She’d seen what he’d done and he knew he’d have to explain that.

He couldn’t help sighing in dejection because this meant risking her leaving him. If she didn’t go running for the hills, he’d also already promised he’d cook today. He decided a quick pasta carbonara would do. After that there'd be hell to pay. This wouldn’t stand. This wouldn’t stand at all.