An Essence Cord linked to his harvesting array lit up within his mind’s eye. Hantal had paid a sizable fee for it before coming to this iteration, equal to a full quarter of the growth he could anticipate from the reduced amount of Essence he expected to collect. But, alas, some was better than none. And, if Brundox stayed stuck in Sadie’s fading soul any longer, he would get none and lose even more. Moreover, the Array was linked to a unique physical avatar core design he had spent several Ka Nexus rotations developing himself. It allowed the usage and amplification of mortal Essence in his Immortal state without spending the usual eons to purify it to the state of Immortal Ka. This Essence-harvesting expedition was his trial run. If his concept was proven, there were many, many Immortals who walked the dark side of adharma willing to pay a hegemon’s ransom for his design and metaphysical grafting to their Immortal Ka forms. There is no way I’m letting Senyak or his Master handlers get their grubby spiritual mitts on that!

He pulled on the Cord with Sadie’s Essence sensitivity... Her capacity was as feeble as her affinity, to say the least, but that was the benefit of the Cord. Even her pitiful power was enough to open an item much greater than herself, which the Anima Array unquestionably was. A key would exceed the significance of the door it could unlock... but as with any lock, the ‘key’ made all the difference. Something that a mealy-mouthed blowhard like Senyak would never understand.

Exposing mortals to the densely concentrated Soul Essence the array contained would kill them outright. Plain and simple. Being at ground zero of such a metaphysical detonation, the energies brought forth would weaponize their undeveloped cores and create a lethal disunion of their soul tethers from their physical bodies... That minor complication, along with the inevitable and complete corporeal annihilation into sub-atomic particles from the very brief but quite potent infusion of energy into all of their atomic electron valence shells at once. The irony of the situation was that this very process was very similar to Aura absorption performed by cultivators ... About as similar as drinking from a wide-open fire hose instead of a water fountain.

It is a pity that the mortals in this Essence-deprived armpit of the multiverse lack the cultivation control necessary to absorb and utilize the incredible advancement opportunity of infusion I’m providing them. Such waste. Brundox’s dark mind laughed at his twisted irony.

Hantal knew for a fact that no human on this planet had even achieved the necessary seven foundational Karmic Attunements to complete their Spherical Core. Much less having advanced the three core stages beyond that to the formation of the Dodecahedron core necessary to exercise such control. No, the feedback from activating the Amina Array will kill Sadie and all the mortals within one thousand meters. Even more than that, the exposed mortals’ physical to metaphysical gateways–what the local mortals called the soul–would essentially cease to exist and become incapable of sending their tiny spirits to the mortal nexus for rebirth... Hantal smugly recognized that even with the incredible forces he was about to release, most of the surrounding infrastructure would remain intact. Everything would be magnanimously left in place to allow the still-existing mortal herds to flourish through its continued use. It was important to maintain the resource should he ever make it back here to gather more. A derisive mental chuckle slithered through his mind as he realized how this result was unlike what usually happened in the disputes between the so-called ‘superheroes’ the humans of this cuboid were so vacuously enthralled by. Bah! None of them have even advanced beyond their spherical cores. Even the mythological ‘hero’ in the red cape and blue tights they worshiped as a ‘god’ possessed a comparable power to a cultivator on the verge of forming his Tetrahedral core, and he was responsible for the destruction of entire cities! Unlike that amateur, I wouldn’t be leaving even a single city block choked in smoke or rubble... With that said, it was true that the complete dissolution of the surrounding mortal’s souls and their physical bodies is not absolutely necessary to get out of this current predicament... But the sapient primates of this world did have a fitting phrase regarding too much toil and not enough amusement. One has to enjoy their work!

Hantal grinned one last time at his own cleverness in Sadie’s quiet mental space. He eagerly activated the Essence Cord attached metaphysically on one end to the center of the host and his shared core. On the other end, it was attached to a pocket dimension holding the Essence collection array.

Bringing it through to such an Essence poor material iteration as this reality instantaneously warped the field lines of time and space. Transparent sigmoid waves started whipping up and down in expanding concentric circles from the center of Sadie’s chest as the immature Essence Array materialized in front of her rapidly disintegrating body.

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The luminous brilliance from the unrestrained Essence of countless souls filled the back of the ambulance. Its energy crackled with violet arcs of power. Surged out unrestrained in all directions, causing the desired incidental effects of instantaneously disassociating Sadie’s body and soul. Complete expungement. No physical or metaphysical traces remained to prove that she had ever existed.

The same was true of the EMT next to her, the ambulance driver, and 4,094 occupants of cars and buildings in a 1000-meter circle.

Now free of the restraint of Sadie’s living corpse, Hantal began the transfer of the Essence into his core as his avatar manifested. A broad-chested, dark-haired man with a tall frame and full but closely trimmed beard. The brooding mystic returns!

His physical form floated through the open doors of the now out-of-control ambulance and hovered over the street. Essence from the array was still being transferred to him and flowed directly into his core.

Rolling his shoulders and stretching away the tension built up from the confinement of Sadie’s dead mind, Hantal took a minute and admired the devastation he had caused. Why not? He still had several remaining seconds for the array to transfer its torrent of Essence to him.

Driverless cars all around careened out of traffic. Some flipped over each other before crashing into others, spraying tumbling showers of shattered glass and plastic. Others catapulted over curbs and drove straight through the windows and walls of the surrounding buildings. Small but intense orange and yellow fuel fire explosions erupted into blossoms that cast wavering illumination in a 360-degree arc.

Finally, the transfer ebbed down to a trickle. Hantal began to convert his physical avatar into the Immortal Ka necessary for travel to the nearest aspect doorway—

Before he could Intend the shift... Hantal sensed the last thing he had expected. The slightest trace of a specific mortal’s Essence. It would have been easy to miss if he hadn’t been intently aware of his surroundings. But now that he had perceived it, the mortal’s signature was unmistakable. Reflective of Karmic balance, the mortal in question was also traveling in the back of an ambulance. In fact, his vehicle had just collided with the freshly created massive pile-up and was, even now, still sliding on its side to rest amongst the growing snarl of wrecks clogging the road.

“Senyak’s anomaly!” Hantal hissed. If anyone should pay for my losses, it’s him!

Even so, for a moment, Hantal’s cautious nature warred with his depraved motives. The soul harvester needed to leave before the Marztanak heir arrived... Yet... As much as Hantal would prefer not to consider himself a bitter bitch about failed plans, that would be a lie. He may be a genocidal, self-serving, soul-devouring god of death to the sheep of this world. But he wasn’t about to start lying to himself about what he was ... Hantal had his standards after all.

A murderous smile slowly spread over his features at the satisfaction he would have in torturing this mortal. Hantal would only give the anomaly the release of expungement when he had tired of the mortal’s begging cries for the peace of death. Unfortunately, such peace would not be available to him for several dozen millennia.

With cruelty frozen on his face, the chaos agent streaked over to the flipped ambulance and pulled the backdoors off. He flung them over the nearby skyscrapers for effect. There was a dead EMT in the compartment, and an unconscious driver belted in the front seat. Joshua Elias Tanner, the divergent anomaly who had cost him so much, was working over the dead EMT to no effect. Hantal leered as Joshua flinched at the ambulance doors ripping from their hinges.

“Sweetheart! Remember me!?”

* * * * *

Josh froze in the middle of checking the EMT’s missing pulse. Until then, Josh had wondered how he’d even known the medically correct method of checking for signs of life. Somehow, he just knew. It was probably part of the CPR information smashed into his brain...

Looking up at the bearded, dark-haired man that Josh had honestly never seen before, but who also happened to be... floating... he had no trouble recognizing the smile and the dark glint in his eyes. The monster that had forced his way into Sadie. No mistake, one thousand percent!

“Ahhh... yeah, sure...” Josh started slowly rising to his feet in the wrecked med bay—.

“—You’re the reason my balls are aching!” Josh yelled as he stood with a quick pivot to his right, swinging the broken top half of an IV pole in his closed fist. It smashed the monster in the left side of his face with what should have been crushing force. It was a good strike. A solid hit. The monster hadn’t even tried to get out of the way. A crack across the dome like that would have taken out Sadie at the beginning of their fight, and she had been an absolute animal! Even the half-inch, solid-steel improvised weapon had bent into a U around the monster’s head. But, against this... thing... it did nothing but make Josh’s hands and shoulders hurt from the impact.

The floating man tsked. “Foolish, foolish, foolish... I’m an Immortal. You can’t hurt me, Joshua.” The hovering man said, straining the pronoun, then cheerily adding, “But I assure you that the reverse cannot be further from the truth!”

The chaos agent’s hands flashed into the back of the ambulance and facepalmed Josh’s entire skull. He then nonchalantly slammed Josh’s head into the asphalt. For the second time in so many hours, Josh again knew nothing but blackness.

An evil cast came over Hantal’s face. “I think our future conversations will be very fulfilling... for one of us, at least.”