Scarlet

“Scarlet,” Tar says amidst the silence.

I hum, indicating that I heard him.

“I think this might be a bit overkill,” Tar continues.

I hum again with a light nod of my head as I look out over the wasteland that I’ve accidentally created.

What was once a beautiful green forest on the coast of whatever continent I am on right now albeit filled with some spider demons of some sort that I didn’t even bother to identify due to their low Class has now turned into a wasteland of red ash. Red ash in the air, red ash on the ground, red ash even in the ground in some parts. In fact, I think the ground was turned to red ash itself.

What’s worse is the writhing Red Plague that’s just going over the red ash and devouring that further, using it somehow to self-replicate even faster than it normally would.

The very instant that I let the Red Plague out and directed it to infect the first spider demon near us, the plague jumped straight to it, shooting across the air to the point that I could only see a red streak before it struck the demon, sending it flying in the process. Then the usual glowing red cracks began to spread from the point of impact rather quickly until the demon’s entire body was covered with the cracks. And then it became like the cloth from earlier.

All either without feeling any pain, or without being able to show that it was feeling pain.

Probably the latter, considering my experience with the plague. Which wasn’t pleasant.

I raise both my hands, directing them in front of me as I attempt to reign in the Red Plague. But the plague doesn’t want to be reigned in, instead fighting against me and seemingly moving away from me instead.

So I grunt and put in some life energy to enhance the skill using Blood Empowerment, which strengthens my control over the Red Plague enough to begin dragging all of the Red Plague in the area towards me until it all begins to seep in through the pores on my skin and into my body. Then I let out a sigh the moment all of the plague is back inside of me, almost collapsing in the process.

“You…” Tar mutters, making me nod my head as I sit down on the now barren land that doesn’t even have much red ash anymore, the Red Plague having devoured most of it leaving only the edges remaining with a large crater.

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Yeah. I can’t use this skill on the frontlines or near humans. Not until I get more control over it.

Because if I went to the frontlines right now and used the Red Plague I’m sure it’d go crazy and most likely kill more than a few humans along with the demons.

“I think you’d have a bigger problem than simply killing some humans…” Tar mutters, and I can’t help but glance at him with a frown due to it.

What problems would those be?

Tar appears in the air and looks at me before stating, “You didn’t see it at the time, but even the Knights were having to give the Red Plague all of their attention to keep it from spreading. And the moment they stopped watching it, the Red Plague managed to slip out and began killing people until you withdrew it back out of them, restoring them to normal again.”

Wait, wait, wait, I restored them to normal again just by withdrawing it?

I frown.

How?

And if I did that, then how do I return my armor back to normal?

“That…” Tar mutters, only to shrug. “No idea.”

I stare at him for several seconds. He stares back.

“Sorry, but I’m not an expert on any of this,” Tar says with another shrug. “I’m only repeating what I’ve been told and have been able to deduce myself. No one alive other than my father has seen the Red Plague active before now. So no one but him would know for sure how the Red Plague acts.”

Okay, can you make any guesses at least?

“Sure, but they might be wrong,” Tar answers while floating around the air. “If I had to guess, the plague most likely won’t harm whatever it infects as long as you withdraw the plague quickly enough. And since the Red Plague directly infected your armor immediately, you couldn’t fix it.”

Hmm. That makes sense.

Maybe I should try testing that out a bit too.

I frown at that before turning into blood again and flying through the air to a new location. Because this place doesn’t exactly have anything living to test it on.

After flying for a few minutes, I find another batch of spiders. But unlike the last test, I go ahead and use Blood Manipulation and some of my own blood to grab the thing and lift it up into the air. Only to realize my mistake when the small amounts of my blood touching it immediately infect it with the Red Plague.

Oh, right. Forgot it infects in every single way possible.

Oops.

Almost immediately after the red cracks begin to appear across the spider’s body I yank the Red Plague back out of it, immediately making the cracks vanish as the spider lets in a coughing screech and falls down to the ground.

Looks like you were right.

I watch the spider lying prone on the ground for several seconds before realizing it’s got a bunch of broken limbs from the fall.

Oops. Again.

Didn’t happen because of the Red Plague though, so there’s that at least.

I’m going to have to start using something else’s blood to pick things up like that though. Unless I want to infect everything I do that to.

Shouldn’t be much of a problem though.

Now I just need to figure out how long it takes for the infection to truly settle into place.

So more experimentation is required.