Chapter 120 - Twisted Parts

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Ramiel went alone oddly.

He realized that this wasn't easy as he thought.

At least the hiding part was easy.

But right now he saw them along with their slaves. Ramiel knew that there was something like this, he noticed that most of the people in Tinople were collared once. So seeing slaves and them being used as either as experiments or sex slaves didn't surprise Ramiel. He smelled the squid-like scent in the rooms, stone walls, rough edges, and torches burning the ceiling.

Blood fused with the miasma, and corpses made for a rough odor. Ramiel stood up at the sight of a cultist heading to a corner. Taking something out of his pants, the cultist was ready to pee on the corner. Ramiel took this chance, he slid near the cultist, draw the hidden blade and punctured it on the cultist's neck. The cultist wasn't able to speak as he slid down, revealing only Ramiel's lunatic expression.

Ramiel wasn't sane.

Not at all.

Sure he acts normal but he is far from sane. He lived only this far simply because he lost all reason to care. The effect of losing his sanity didn't disappear just like that. Ramiel had always this insane mentality. He doesn't really care about anything other than surviving. Yet here he is alone in a den full of cultists and heretics trying to prove something.

What drives Ramiel to do this?

Out of wanting to impress? Or is it because he didn't want to be seen as a useless while everyone did their best. The reasons are unknown to Ramiel but he didn't care as he hugged the wall, lowered his posture and slowly sneaked to where the cultists are. He saw some slaves, chained to the walls, dimmed eyes, bloody and cold. He ignored them with a glance, a cold feeling of emptiness, as he sees passes by them.

Ramiel arrives on three pathways, one pathway leads to a blocked wall, the second pathway to a room filled with tools and the third one, where the injured ones are located. He went inside the injured room, saw the various cultists laying down groaning in pain. Seeing them, Ramiel took something out from his pocket. It was a flask filled with oil. He uncorked it, poured it around the room.

After doing that, Ramiel took out a flint that would produce a spark that would lit up oil. He bought this flint from one of the peddlers in the village, using this he threw the flint and let the sparks fly. The sparks lit the oil, and within a few seconds, the room was burning well. Ramiel heard some footsteps, with widened eyes, he evades and went back to the darkness with his repeater crossbow and camped on the corner. If there is anything, Ramiel had the idea of waiting and taking a shot at anyone who comes by.

It took minutes until someone arrived. Seeing the cultist with his back turned, Ramiel with an unflinching cold gaze pulled the trigger and shot the cultist in the back. The cultist screamed, tried to look who's the shooter only to see Ramiel with a stone attacking towards his location. The last thing that the cultist saw Ramiel's blood crazed figure.

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Ramiel felt his hands numb as bashing the head of the cultist vibrated his hand. He has leather gloves on but it wasn't enough to mitigate the impact of smashing someone's skull. Ramiel thought that it was hard to kill someone, but as he got used to this oddly, he immediately went back to position and waited for more to come.

...

Ramiel stayed for a good while at the corner cramped. Right now he just went done killing at least five cultists who got lured by the dead bodies. It was a simple tactic, and even though some of them manage to fight back, it didn't matter because they are always caught surprised by the hidden blade on his right arm.

Indeed the hidden blade wasn't a great magical item but it had the element of surprise. So once the cultists tried to grapple Ramiel he would bury the blade on his enemy, surprising the enemy was enough for Ramiel to take them down. Ramiel wasn't that great in fighting, but with the protection aura he casted upon himself, he was able to deflect some damage from the cultists.

Ramiel was also wounded all over. He got a stab in the arm, hit by a rock on the chest only for Ramiel to gloss over it. In fact, the pain made him feel alive, and the empty feeling that burns him got a bit relieved.

It was wrong for Ramiel to think that. In fact, the cowardly parts of Ramiel have long cowered inside his head. That snap he felt when the guard pushed him over made Ramiel feel like he was driven for the twisted part of himself to appear.

It wasn't a power, merely a sick mental personality disorder caused by suffering through a lot. Back in Tinople when Ramiel got his head poured with hot warm water, beaten and he tasted his first kill, Ramiel's mentality changed, instead of sobbing he laugh at the face of despair, thinking it was all a big joke. And it made Ramiel develop a personality named Ludak, a tulpa he once created to relived his lonely self.

This Ludak personality made Ramiel feel secured, simply because, with this Ludak, he thought he could protect himself. while the  Ramiel personally cowers while Ludak does the job for him.

A mental disorder, a split personality, this made Ramiel feel like there was a hole carved inside his heart. And now that he was left alone in the dark, armed to the teeth with a mission to do, Ludak, the other Ramiel took control of him. At least that is what Ramiel wanted to believe, that Ludak controls him.

When he betrayed Sheriwn, Ramiel made an excuse that Ludak did it, making him free of guilt. In fact, the only reason why he was able to kill this easily is simply that Ramiel himself didn't realize that he already lost a few screws on his head.

The reason why Ramiel want to stay inside, cooped inside a house was this. He doesn't know what to do with his suicidal and violent tendencies. He is afraid of it all, hence why he is always cowered on the fireplace.

No normal man would stay insane in an unfamiliar world like this. After all, what he has gone through, the only obvious outcome would be Ramiel becoming a bit insane.

So as Ramiel reloaded his repeater, he went to the last room where the cultist who casted the brand should be.