Black Heart (4—Last Part)

POM PUM PUM! Pam pam pam pam...

Barely entering the room, having broken from the outside with a final leap and immediately caught in his clutches, the same person who spoke of him, trying to ridicule him before he even showed himself in their presence. Without wasting a breath’s worth of time, he grabbed the man by the neck, which was already exploding with blood clutched by Ciemnosc's right hand's claws. Ciemnosc flung the man with a cultivation base half a step before the Ashes Apperception realm, treating him like a helpless ragdoll as the rest of those in this tiny hall were recuperating from the debris pushing them down or away and were staring in terror at the mangled skeleton with some flesh left in it.

After flinging about the carcass, the corpse of that man where only its left leg and part of its upper body remained held by Ciemnosc’s right hand’s claws, Ciemnosc threw away the deadass and looked around for another victim. Setting his eyes on a woman and man, he immediately pushed them both down with his feet, pinning them against the ground with several ribs breaking in their bodies, all with Ciemnosc’s self-restraining working.

Bending his body directly and without any fashion, Ciemnosc began punching the shit out of their necks, then their heads. He wanted them to go through the pain first, before letting them die, before allowing their brains to turn into mush and their bodies to cease all functions quicker.

“S- st- stop! I get t. I get it!” By the time he was biting down the man’s head and showing his actions to all those around, the hair of the man’s head being ‘cleansed’ into ashes as it was consumed by his All-Devouring Force Chronicles, the pavilion head stood up and yelled out trying to stop Ciemnosc. “You are showing- ahk, demonstrating your hand, to show your dominance. We get it, please! We will accept you, our pavilion-”

“WHERE IS HE?! The man who isn’t from this world, your master. WHERE IS HE?!!” Ciemnosc, at once and for the first time in his life, raged with all the intensity of his life and more, shocking the earth and breaking apart the walls that cracked with every word he shouted and barked in rage.

“Ab- uk, ah…” The pavilion head responded to the strong shouts of this ‘behemoth’ with babbles and confusion, not understanding anything other than ‘out of this world’ - which made everyone’s eyes in the hall open wider with understanding. He knew of the outside world!

But his might semi-paralyzed everyone too. All they could feel was a fear to speak out, even if they wanted to help him. That was when the pavilion head stepped forth and put on a smile on his face - terrified and crooked, but a fawning smile nonetheless. “Which man is it? Which- gulp, one? We have friends outside of this world, indeed. But please don’t harm us anymore, we are of no help to you dead, and our leaders guiding us are too powerful that you can’t imag-”

“Where is your master?” Ciemnosc’s voice had changed. It became calm, quiet, and soft. But it ‘somehow’ made them grow even more terrified, which was visible by how their pores flared open wildly. Ciemnosc stepped around, gazing everywhere, but he could find no traces of anything. There was no deceit, no foul smell, and even less so trickery.

“Tell me who your master is and wherever the hell… he is hiding,” Ciemnosc spoke again. And as he stepped towards the pavilion head - to face him just a few inches from his face. Ciemnosc looked into the latter’s eyes as the latter began feeling dizzy just by being looked by them, much more when he took a fleeting glimpse at them.

The pavilion head looked shocked, seemingly comprehending a little as he looked sideways to his right, and the young boy and 2 pretty and young girls from before sneakily pressed buttons of their devices there and then. Ciemnosc, however, simply ignored it.

“Well, we have some time to talk about it. There are sighting of outsiders coming close to th-”

Phhshk! SLAP- PLUUGHHSH BUGSHH.

Without giving any hint, Ciemnosc quickly plunged his right hand into the pavilion head’s chest and took his heart out. The very same hand to grab the first kill in the room and of the massacre to come. The pavilion head was utterly shocked since Ciemnosc only gave fluctuations of the Conflagrate realm 1st stage, he thought he would at most be very decisive even to peak Obsidiafying realm cultivators, but that was it.

None of the Power Energy the pavilion head condensed at his chest, head, or neck was taken into consideration, though. Ciemnosc’s hand simply passed through with pure physical strength! Not an ounce of Power Energy, only his blatant, ridiculous bodily strength pushed away the Power Energy from a half a step into the Ashes Apperception realm cultivator.

“You know what is it you all lack the most?” Ciemnosc’s hushed, dragged-on, and hoarse voice was like the tendrils of temptation and despair of the darkest abyss, spoke close to the pavilion head’s left ear. “Despite reeking of pure energy and medicinal effects I never knew of. You. Lack. Knowledge.”

“!!...” The pavilion head felt his head spin, not only because his heart was dug out of his chest by Ciemnosc, but because he felt like he could sit in meditation and try to find a way into the ‘next realm’ once and for all! But that was then, when Ciemnosc raised both his hands after throwing the heart to the dusty, dirt ground with debris all around to slap the pavilion head’s head.

At a moment’s notice, the pavilion head’s brains turned to a flat, squishy substance that Ciemnosc didn’t even bother looking at for a second time, let alone grow hungry for. Everyone saw the pavilion head dying and then saw Ciemnosc’s eyes. The former paralyzed them. The latter terrorized them.

… Phhshk! Crrreeesshhhhkk~! Ckrsheeeeeerrrrr~! Bugsh… Sssshhglaaagghhh… Pshift, pshift, pshift… pshift pshift…

What followed was what Ciemnosc’s chest longed for the most, the promised massacre. As soon as the pavilion headmaster’s headless corpse fell on the floor, Ciemnosc’s blurred shadow went into motion and action. His claws cutting air sharper and more powerfully than any sword ever, met flesh and bone alike and with the brutal force behind them and their respective might… tearing everything to shreds.

From the weakest members of the pavilion to those with higher statuses, Ciemnosc tore bodies nonstop, sending them flying with just his claws and punched, kicked, and bit on others for a simple, quick yet bloody and messy death. Whenever that itch in his chest urged him more, the current victim before him would turn tragic, more than most, and be played by Ciemnosc’s Claws Out however he wished it, to the point he would destroy walls, pillars, and the flooring without realizing there was no longer any piece of living being before him. Or its carcass.

Although some other times, they were at least eaten in chunks by Ciemnosc before being left with some of their body intact.

“Huff, HUFF… HUFF HUFF…” In just a few tens of minutes Ciemnosc found himself within a highly illuminated hall. It had a much greater space, much more whitey, and countless pieces of art glass lay around and hung from the ceiling, what’s left of it. It was the main hall, and it was really lavish. Only a place like this should be considered the strongest of all others in the entire world.

This main hall was also the center of the Crystalglass Pavilion, which was not long, just over a few tens of kilometers, all encompassed by buildings and corridors that lead to more buildings. Nothing like a city or a town around or within, simply the pavilion itself. They naturally showed no ambition, but from the information Ciemnosc received from Schnell, this was the vassal of whoever was in charge of this world. And also… much likely…

“...!” Ciemnosc’s eyes grew evermore furious as he thought about it. His memories churning and seemingly beginning to distort with the faces, words, and emotions of many, he took his Vocón Link out from his left palm. Its tenebrous noiseless sound went out, and Ciemnosc lifted his arm clasping onto the Vocón Link with his right hand going over to grab its base.

His whole body began trembling, his arms holding onto the Vocón Link as they sent their prowess into it as he slowly lifted it. Not only were his arms empowering it, his entire bodily strength was being placed into his Vocón Link as he lifted it higher and higher. In retrospect, along with its respective strength, which was literally just part of Ciemnosc’s bodily strength. The Vocón Link had its lower body, which had been grown to a mere 8 meters, bent while the rest was hanging on the main hall’s floor.

In this manner, Ciemnosc’s body ragingly trembled, shaking as rage overwhelmed him, and he was itching to let it all out. His face had veins bulging. Just as his arms, legs, and back were. Clenching his teeth, perfectly protected despite gnashing so shrilly against each other, he let a slight breath out of his lungs.

“... haa.”

WHOO- WHIIII-PLAAAAASSHHHH!! CRAAAAAACCKKKTOOOOUUM!! Rumble, rumble- CRAAAACCKKK PLAAAAAAAAASSSSHHHH~!!

The entire world rocketed up and down, surrounding tens of meters around the epicenter of where the whip hit. The main hall immediately collapsed, its center point cleaving into two into the earth. While its structure fell apart to all sides, exploding outwards or imploding.

But it did not happen only once. Ciemnosc floated up after debris self-destructed when colliding with his body, as the dirt tried to push him down and even as 5 to 10 meters thick pillars slammed against him. They all became debris as soon as they touched him, much more so for those moving at fast velocity with the inertia from Ciemnosc’s Vocón Link strike.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

WHIIII… WHIII… WHIII… WHIIII… PLASH PLASH PLASH PLASH PLASH!!!...

From afar, the terrifying sight of what was once the most lavish and beautiful organizational territory in the world becoming a tattered land with a heathen wasting the ground and creating rubble and thrashing all beauty, was somehow shadowed by the effects that all this made to the world outside of that range.

Outside the pavilion’s buildings, as it was all becoming wasted. Waves and tremors of the earth kept happening with such intensity and at a short consistency that it ended stacking all those shockwaves up. Its effect began to show as cracks started to form in the ground, like an earthquake brutally separating without considering any life.

But that was not everything, and it was far from over. Ciemnosc kept floating, and as he did, he neared the settlements close to the Crystalglass Pavilion that were part of the pavilion itself. Whether because they seemed to be connected to the Crystalglass Pavilion or just because they were close to it, Ciemnosc went over there, greeted no one with anything that wasn’t his Vocón Link, and lashed it around, down at the ‘mortals’ whose daily lives were about to meet their end.

Ciemnosc moved by instinct, crossing over the lands, prairies, and desertic land around the gigantic hill for hours nonstop…

… Whooooosh.

… It wasn’t until the last few minutes of the morning, already at noon, that a whooshing sound was heard and seen coming from the west. By then, hundreds of villages, dozens of towns, and several cities had been razed to their grounds. All by the same and only: Ciemnosc!

But the whooshing sound wasn’t Ciemnosc. Ciemnosc, who had been hard at ‘work’ moving hundreds of kilometers here and there during the last few hours, was ‘resting’ as his eyes were unfocused and wide opened. He looked like in dismay, and his shirt showcased his slightly more muscular back, hiding his scarcely pale skin as his hair was sweaty and a little sticky.

“... Ciemnoooooc!!” From a distance, a shout made Ciemnosc’s pupils dilate, and his irises stopped trembling, making him stand back up with a straight back. He floated over the last city he visited before getting ‘tired’ and taking a break in the middle of nowhere. It used not to be in the middle of nowhere, as despite the hot temperatures, many villages and towns surrounding this rich city now in ruins.

Turning his face around to look at who approached, it was darkened as he looked at the raging headmaster coming right to his back. His eyes stopped the next shout that the headmaster was about to shout. He became silent and lost his composure briefly as he stood there, kilometers away from Ciemnosc and looking at the young boy’s darkened face.

Whoooosh…

Floating towards Ciemnosc, the headmaster, this time had a face of peacefulness and sorrow. He approached Ciemnosc, and Ciemnosc let him loom over in return. As soon as 500 meters was the distance between each other, the headmaster stopped as Ciemnosc turned to face his front, no longer looking at the headmaster.

“...” The headmaster somehow felt different this time. He had grown old, older than he already was. His hair was now almost completely gone. What little hair he had became just some strands of darkish gray hair to the back of his head. He looked pathetic. But also sad and carried a heavy, burdensome aura on his back.

The more he looked at Ciemnosc’s back, the more he had all kinds of emotions surge to the sides of his body; upwardly. As if trying to figure out the ‘best way’. As if… trying to convince him of what to do. The back of the young boy half a kilometer before him, also floating in the air, reminded him of an animal tired of hunting and… currently feigning cowardice and fear.

“Ahk…” Deciding, the headmaster felt pain in his heart. He took out chains from his Covert Space bags that held a sticky-looking Power Energy to themselves. It was an array formation Ciemnosc was unaware of, but probably the headmaster. It had the same category of mysticism as the grand array surrounding the Rocaloi Academy, now in shambles.

He looked down. His wrinkled skin, which was growing a grayish tone, looking like the oldest image that could be in the entire world at these moments. He stepped into the air, forward, and held the chains tremblingly as he prepared to speak. His lips were, too, trembling. “Ciemnosc, I-”

WHOOOSH- CUUUH- PHHSHK!

The next thing the world saw and experienced after so much life was destroyed and its history erased was the interruption of the old one’s words and the subsequent shock of the same. And as the young one’s figure dashed into the air, straight towards the old one. Claws Out, the hands cut through the air, facilitating the floating speed as it became higher than an Obsidiafying ream cultivator at the peak.

“...!” The eyes of the headmaster, who was now not only half a step into the Ashes Apperception realm, but he also had a shaky foundation. The headmaster had clearly taken many medicinal pills, not for protection, countering poison, or in case he was injured and had no time to gulp down a pill when fighting someone so impossibly strong as Ciemnosc. Those were medicinal pills that forcefully strengthened one’s prowess. And the headmaster not only took many of those, it was also for ‘each and every’ single card that a cultivator can employ.

Spirit Sense, one’s will, Power Energy’s fluctuations, flowing speed, ‘control, and even physical strength boost.

Yet, it wasn’t enough. Despite all that, Ciemnosc was faster than the headmaster ever thought he would, and Ciemnosc’s intentions were as murderous as he feared they would be. And Ciemnosc wasn’t being thoughtful, merciful, and much less crazed.

It would be one thing for him to have lost his mind when he went around massacring the innocent and destroying all signs of life from whatever he found. Even the insects, who were digging and tunneling the ground, shivering in fear and collapsing to death from their instincts, were not spared. What more of any life form at any stage of their lives within those intelligent race’s settlements.

It would also be ‘better’ if it wasn’t… because he enjoyed it. He felt no wrong was being done on his part, nor did he feel like needing a purpose to do this. It was for sure inhumane. Oh… but he is so used to being anything but human!

The headmaster had no chance whatsoever, and just as he thought he did have it, by raising his arms and holding the chains that were 70 meters long and covered in that ‘sticky’ violet Power Energy. Ciemnosc’s claws— hands still —shielded by his dark Power Energy effortlessly went through them and directly penetrated the headmaster’s right chest and left arm.

Crasshhh~...~...

As they broke, metallic shards blasted around, and as Ciemnosc moved his hands to inflict pain, time seemed to slow down. He looked at Ciemnosc’s face, as it was simply… serene, his eyes were also as darkest as always, but he wasn’t tormented by anything, mentally or physically. That’s without adding his increased prowess from just months ago.

‘This boy had this much potential, ah… and I didn’t protect it.’ Though the old, injured headmaster. His left shoulder was clasped tightly, his bones flattening with the smooth tightening of Ciemnosc’s right hand. His chest was penetrated by Ciemnosc’s left hand, and it seemed to wiggle around for a bit before finding a spot deep enough… before expanding and spreading his legs, causing even more damage to the headmaster.

While his upper left arm’s bone was becoming a sheet of paper but made of bones, and his right chest was crushed from the inside. Ciemnosc closed in on the headmaster’s left ear and whispered, his dragged-on, hoarse and slow speech hypnotizing the headmaster to forget he was in such a precarious situation.

“Your sister was abandoned by you. Were you envious of her potential? Of her relationship with an eminence’s descendant?” Ciemnosc wore a dark grin as he looked at the shock on the headmaster’s face. Grief so powerful it could shock the ‘beauty of the world’ overwhelmed; but the headmaster did not respond, or maybe couldn’t. Seeing the lack of response from the headmaster, Ciemnosc egged on, “Your friends died? Too soon? Not talented? How can one be talented in this world when you take away all that they had?! Even that old whore manipulated you like the spineless imbecile you were back then. It’s all in ‘your’ academy’s grand array, headmaster!”

His words were like the truths coming from his own devil. The headmaster shed bloody tears, but only a few, while Ciemnosc’s hands let go of the mangled, completely thinned-down left arm and right chest’s insides of the headmaster. Ciemnosc clutched the headmaster’s neck, just as the headmaster, perhaps, though he once held others like.

“And lastly, me,” Ciemnosc venomously said. His forehead tapped with a slap against the headmaster’s forehead, causing no damage. But his hands began tightening his grasp of the headmaster’s neck. “You could’ve protected me, saved me from those things the Rocaloi Academy was planning ‘behind my back’ and without no one the wiser. But you were clearer than anyone else about that, yet. You. Did. Not. A. Thing.”

“You could’ve sent me to a spying mission, away from the overly arrogant thoughts of those surrounding you! Sent me on a more difficult and lone mission. Sold me to the Preferential Light Justice Sect or the Eagerburning Flames Sect when they privately negotiated with you! You could’ve done any of those - but did not!!”

“You knew they were different. And that, if anything, I would be hidden from the world until I had grown strong and influential enough, silently behind the hands of any of those two sects!!” Ciemnosc was face to face, his nose directly against the headmaster’s as he continued, his rage seeping into the air, into the world itself!

His teeth baring at the headmaster, Ciemnosc’s face calmed down out of the blue. Becoming like his eyes, serene and ultimately cold. And as Ciemnosc spoke a few words more, his vision fell into darkness. The same as those bottomless pools… of pure darkness.

“But you did not…”

… whiistle… whoosh, swish whoosh… thu- splash splashk.

Slowly, his body already no longer floating in motion, simply stagnant in the air. Ciemnosc did not watch as a head fell from its body and became a splatter of skin, organs, blood, and bones. Decorating the land colorfully and dully and painting the world with a devastating stain.

“...” Ciemnosc let the body follow the head down. Though it would land a few meters after the first decoration, it finalized by making another work on the land below. He was abruptly changed as if turned off, his entire body motionless and his thoughts empty…

… Until they began to grow chaotic.

…