Time passed in a fugue state. My instinctual response had been to shut down completely, my body becoming a slave of the decimation that we wrought.

But no, I didn’t allow myself that luxury. I struggled against my own mind that wanted so dearly to recede into the back of my skull, to ignore the violence and the pain that my every movement whispered, promising my targets a final end.

Each blow added to the revulsion and horror that laid within me, but I accepted and embraced those emotions, clung to them so dearly in the face of my actions, to make sure that I never truly lost my sympathy. The mortifying empathy for those that I killed.

The first wolf that I had killed wasn’t so bad. Its death was practically pre-ordained by God. It was truly me or it, with no room for emotional arguments. At that point, my mind could only believe the world was a constructed game of sorts, stupid ideals of the world still clouding my mind.

But here I was now, so clearly more powerful than the poor beasts that I hunted, with otherwise no danger to me. It left a lot of mental power for me to consider my actions.

What I was doing could be considered horribly amoral, or moral due to its service of the wider community. Whichever one it was, almost didn’t matter to me. I felt bad anyways. If this is how I felt when killing a wolf, a beast about as low you could get on the totem pole, how would I feel when I killed something with human equivalent intelligence?

Would it feel worse? Would it feel better? Did it matter?

No, it didn’t matter.

What mattered was that me and Rethi had spent a lot of time doing the hunting, taking turns in between packs. We weren’t going so far as to make a sport out of the exercise. But we were trying to kill them more efficiently, with less hassle. It was not only important for the time we spent on the actions, but also for the beings we were killing. I had made it obvious that there was going to be no playing with the beasts, and Rethi didn’t argue, basically standing in lockstep with my opinions on the matter.

It didn’t, however, stop there from being accidents. Thankfully, none of mine were terrible, only once or twice did a blow of mine glance and not properly kill in one blow. It may not have been terrible, but I could only think of the disrespect I’d be showing someone by allowing them to die painfully with needless moments from an inevitable death. It was something that I slowly, but fiercely tried to rectify in myself.

Rethi’s accident was something more severe than mine. While Rethi may have taken to killing the beasts with less qualms than myself, though the boy could barely stand to look at the pups we inevitably left behind. At one point, while he was set to hunt the entire pack himself, he accidentally cut the stomach of a pregnant wolf.

The sight was horrific, and while it stood to make me deeply sad, I think it quietly broke something in Rethi. I still wonder if we would have left the animal, so deeply pregnant that is was of no practical use to kill it. Maybe it, along with the pups we left behind, could have helped populate the forest once again after the issue had been brought into line.

From then on out, each swing of his sword was more careful, more calculated. He used to swing with such fervour and a disregard for what it was that met the bade. Maybe it was a product of training with two people that were so completely above him, someone capable of healing from anything and someone a hell of a lot more experienced than himself. But now that he was facing true living beings, it had drastically changed how he acted.

He leaned further into the preciseness of the Sharah that I had slowly taught him, rather than the pure power that he had sought out of the steps. I nodded approvingly. I wasn’t a master of the Sharah, or of battles, but the way he approached a fight now was far superior to how he had only hours ago. The blessing and curse of practical experience

My hands were sticky with blood, holding them far to the sides of my clothes and the rest of my skin that had remarkably seen very little contact with blood, leaving me basically unscathed from blood or injury. It was partly due to my aura of safety that I had not been hit even once. I probably would not have been hit a single time without it, but the aura undoubtedly made it easier. My enemies just a smidgen less alert, less reactive than they would have been otherwise.

It was something that I also felt bad about. I was using an aura of safety, tricking those within it to feel as if there is less danger than there was, and then killing them. It was necessary, I knew that much. I was going to see battle, and not using the aura in battle was a good way to get myself and others killed. But I felt a severe opposition within me.

That opposition was a divine thing, less a moral quandary. The source of my power, my domain, was looking down on my actions. It wasn’t condemning them, otherwise I expect that my powers would be entirely shut off, but the domain itself was at odds with the actions caused within it.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the other Gods of the Hearth Court felt like this when they killed. Or maybe they weren’t capable of doing so, the price that their more powerful Divine forms demanded of them, in contrast to the freedom of choice a mortal existence might offer.

Rethi quickly finished up the rest of the killing, leaving the few pups and another clearly pregnant mother, something that we’d silently decided was appropriate. He quickly walked further into the forest away from where I stood. I followed him slowly. Rethi had started to be more and more effected by the hunt that what he let on. His face was still as stoic as ever, but the emotional toll on him slowly increased and increased, leaving his emotions in a twisted coil, his stomach churning from the strain.

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I found him couching by a tree, hand up against it, bracing himself. He was dry heaving, so desperately trying to keep the bile and undigested food down. His bloody sword had been thrown into the grass by his side, too much for his overstimulated mind to handle in his weary state.

I picked up the sword and slashed it through the air, splattering the forest off to my side with speckles of blood. I felt a familiar tingle in my fingers, one that only appeared when I picked up and started to use a weapon other than my soul weapon. It was an insidious feeling, one that slowly crept into an intense pain and writhing disgust, similar to what Mayer had once subjected me to all those months ago. I gently laid the now shockingly clean sword down next to the boy, who had managed to keep his stomach contents down, and now simply looked drained.

I reached over and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The protective clothing rigid under my fingers, but he could obviously feel the added weight. The boy quickly stood and turned to hug me. He was so much taller than when I had first met him that you could easily consider the boy to be a short man.

Rethi didn’t cry, or even speak. In fact, neither of us did. There was no point, after all. He just hugged me tightly, gripping the back of my shirt hard enough that the weaved fibres strained and a few snapped sharply. We stood there for only a few minutes before the environment changed around me.

The forest had been getting quieter and quieter from the empathic point of view, the emotional weight of the wolves had reduced the anxious energy in the air significantly, but in only a moment the world burned with anger and fury.

It was hard to nor fall into the emotion myself, its weight was truly tremendous. I tore myself away from Rethi and began to listen, and Rethi immediately caught onto what I was doing and turned the opposite direction, searching deep into the forest, instinctively seeking the source of my distress.

We heard it before we saw it.

In only moments, a thrum began to quake at my feet, the forest floor transmitting the charging steps of something big.

“Max!” Rethi called, his voice stripped of anything but urgency as he called me. I turned quickly in time to see a massive tree shake and, with an ear-piercing crack, fall heavily to the ground with a thunk.

I moved forwards, pushing the boy away from me. This was clearly something that Rethi wasn’t capable of handling. The fires of rage that surrounded me gave me a good idea of what its temperament was.

The massive steps continued towards us as I prompted Rethi to run a good distance away, seeing the shadow of the beast emerge from between the trees. As soon as I saw its form, my mind took me all the way back to the first night I had been on Virsdis.

As I was wearily dragging my hammer down that river side, I had seen the form of a huge, bull-like figure. This beast, if I was correct, was the same one as I had seen so long ago, returned from the past to face me once again.

It was hulking, its face was twisted into a cruel and vicious snarl. The bestial appearance of a gigantic bull hid the very real and wicked intelligence that it possessed. As soon as I set eyes on the beast, I knew there was no choice but to kill it.

I raced forwards toward the beast, quickly going through a set of words that have become second nature to me on very short notice. I approached with a speed I wasn’t able to fully display in any other situation, and just before I reached the beast, I slammed my foot into the ground drawing on that kinetic force and blasting it in the face. The exemplified force brought its full charge to a dead halt in a split second.

The beast and I looked directly at each other just as it began to shake off the admittedly minor force that had actually been used in that kinetic blast, and it let out a screeching roar only metres away from me. The roar left my ears ringing, blinding me to the thing’s vicious headbutt that sent me scrambling across the ground.

The beast continued to approach, trying to get its hooves to crush me as I nimbly propelled myself from the leaf-littered forest floor, and slipped away from the beast’s advance.

I quickly dusted myself off, the dirt coating my clothing coming off in droves. We circled each other, the anger in the beast’s mind subsided minutely to allow it to think more clearly. I could see it start to take me more seriously, despite the fact that I looked no more dangerous than a forest wolf in appearance alone.

The beast took a lunge forward, probing me with its mighty tusks, but I simply met it head on, punching the tusk directly and forcing the lunge to a standstill, following up with a good knock to its head, the beast was forced to retreat. I don’t think I had ever truly realised how practically strong I was until then. I was able to fight a creature that was the size of a small elephant like nothing, matching it blow for blow.

The anger returned with a vengeance, the beast was furious at its inability to defeat me as it had its other prey. I extended my aura of safety, but it was only momentarily confused before it snarled and reasserted its anger. The beast charged again, but I just caught it and tried to flip it to its side, hoping to allow for an easy kill.

The beast didn’t let that happen, using my grip on the tusk and the force of the charge, it tried to lift me off the ground, trying to fling me away from it. I didn’t budge, however, my grip on the tusk too strong for it to shake me off or give me anything more than a rattle around.

The beast had begun to realise just how hard it’d be to kill me, and I felt that it was considering its retreat, so I decided to give it what it wanted. I gave the beast a mighty push, the tusk pushing and twisting in an odd angle, making the beast roar with pain, but beginning to capitalize on its sudden freedom despite what had to be searing pain.

Its freedom was not for long.

With the beast running away, I took a deep breath in and prepared myself. I could easily catch the beast, and bludgeon it to death with my fists, but that was hardly the clean death that I wanted to grant it. I gave a brief thought to letting it go, but that really wasn’t an option. It would continue to perpetuate the same issue as long as it lived here.

So I took a powerful step forwards. I drew on the energy that existed inside of me and empowered each step with meaning. The first step was to approach, covering meters with simple steps, the second was precision, the third was of strength, and the fourth was an offering.

With an offering, I swung my arms down from over my head, pulling from my soul deep and fast, the usually cool liquid was burning hot as it leaked from my hands and formed the familiar shape in them. The massive hammer hit the floor with what I’d swear was the sound of a gong being hit. Deep and resounding, the kinetic energy—far more I had ever handled before—coursed through me, and multiplied on multiplied, the force going from formidable to terrifying in moments, and then it was pushed forwards with the exact edge of a razor.

I heard the sound of trees and flesh being cut, but I didn’t let my eyes open for at least a minute. When I did, I saw the gruesome splatter of blood and the neatly bisected beast laying on the floor, cut longways, leaving a legged half whose hooves were still twitching with the suddenness of its death.

I just sighed, mind weary and laden with the weight of empty emotions.