*Boom!~*
A wave of pressure rolled through the forest, but its only living inhabitant was shocked awake.
“Ah, what?” Jay raised his head off his arm, still asleep on the edge of the stream.
Since he was lying on the ground, his whole body felt the tremor and it was enough to startle him awake.
“What the fuck am I doing...” he said to himself.
“Get up.” he thought.
Noticing his arm, he quickly remembered. The little parasites in the boil were still curled up into little balls. Thankfully it seemed that they had used up all of their reserves of whatever they were pumping into Jay's blood and he felt mostly normal again.
Physically normal anyway.
Mentally, he was bitter, angry, annoyed, pissed off. Much more than he should be.
Jay let his anger out.
“Well, what the fuck are you waiting for? Pick up the throne and keep moving” he bitterly spat orders at his skeletons as he went to sit on his throne.
After a few moments of being out of the cool water, the parasites in his arm unwound and went back to their long linear forms, but were neither causing Jay any pain or any euphoria.
“Little fucking shits.” he glared, “making me sleep on the cold ground.”
“And what was that noise that shook the earth?”
Following the deep booming noise travelling through the earth, some more sounds followed, coming from somewhere north - where the mushroom desert crossing was.
The sounds of a large rock slide came from the mountain range. Giant boulders the size of houses tumbling down the mountain and crashing into each other, splitting apart or being split apart.
Jay only barely heard the crashing boulders, but compared to the deep boom which shook the earth before, they were of no concern.
He couldn't figure it out, and his strange hangover was only making it worse.
“Ah fuck it. Fuck everything.” he angrily said, “who cares anyway.”
His anger was seemingly out of control after he woke up. He wasn't sure why but neither did he care.
“Burn the forest down.” a thought popped into his head.
“Hmm, burn it down? Well, that might be fun... but it could give away my position. Plus I wouldn't get anything from it and -”
“Burn it down.” his own thought interrupted his other thought.
He just reasoned with himself, but it was like a different part of him didn't care.
“No, I'm not going to burn the fucking thing down.” he told himself sternly, shaking his head.
“What the fuck is wrong with me today.”
For the next hour, Jay continued to argue with his own thoughts. Argue with himself.
Every time, a thought would pop in his head, telling him to burn down the forest, or thrust his arm back into the water to feel amazing again, but after some time his thoughts became more sinister.
“To turn back to Losla to massacre and pillage. Kill Devin.”
He thought that perhaps he was going crazy.
His own thoughts wouldn't stop yelling into his own mind. He almost felt like his brain was getting hotter from all the thinking.
He tried to close his eyes and just be still for a moment and relax, but his thoughts only got louder and more demanding.
Slowly it was like he was being mentally drained from arguing with himself. A part of his mind just wouldn't shut off.
“What the fuck is wrong with me...”
Gritting his teeth in anger, he jumped down from the throne and pushed his arm back into the water.
For a small moment, he felt good again, a small relief.
His anger was gone. His thoughts became quiet again.
With a sigh, he jumped back onto the throne and had the skeletons continue.
Soon enough his anger was gone, however, his own thoughts began to rattle his mind again, even yelling at himself in his own head.
It was tolerable at first, but after another hour it was annoying, then another hour, and soon enough he was gritting his teeth in anger.
“Argh just shut the fuck up!” he yelled at himself.
“Have I lost my damn mind?” he asked himself.
For whatever reason, he felt like his thoughts were more clearer if he said them out loud, and he had noticed a strange pattern.
Some of the other thoughts he was having were simply okay at first: 'eat all your rations, thrust your arm into the river'.
And then, he would reason with himself: 'I will need to save those for later, and no I need to keep moving'.
It was somewhat mentally exhausting arguing with himself though.
But that wasn't the problem.
His thoughts were become more evil, more... crazy: “Send skeletons to kill peasants. Kidnap. Burn. Punish. Slay mercilessly.”
Even though he reasoned with these thoughts, they simply repeated themselves, and kept repeating themselves until he was screaming at his own mind to shut up.
“Did these worms do something to me...?” he wondered.
Suddenly, he had a thought about the worms.
A few thoughts.
“Kill them.”
“Eat them.”
“Burn them. Cut yourself.”
Jay paused for a moment. A confused look on his face.
“I just thought to harm the parasites and nothing happened...”
He quickly drew his sword and thought about cutting his arm off - however, the parasites quickly gave him a shot of warning pain.
“Argh, fuck. I won't then, don't worry.” he shook his head, and the parasites stopped the pain.
Storing his sword away, he realised something strange though:
“If these parasites sense my own thoughts when I want to harm them, and they harm me in response, then before when I thought to kill, burn or eat them, the parasites didn't harm me?”
“So either that means, those erratic thoughts are undetectable by the parasites...”
Jay felt fear rise in his heart as he realised,
“Or those aren't my thoughts... or the parasites...”
At this moment the voices in his head started yelling into his mind, trying to distract his train of thought.
“But if that's the case, then who's, or what, are they?”
The other thoughts stopped. His mind returned to silence for a moment.
But only for a moment as they returned even louder and angrier.
“BURN! KILL! SLAY! DESTROY! STEAL!” the thoughts rang through Jay's mind with a commanding anger. It was so loud that Jay was shocked.
He even covered his ears with his hands but it didn't help a single bit.
“What the fuck? NO!”
“BURN KILL SLAY DESTROY STEAL HARM!”
“NO! JUST FUCK OFF!”
The voices continued to yell through his mind, so Jay gathered his own thoughts by speaking out loud.
“They're not my thoughts! Somehow they're in my mind. How are they getting in? They must have entered, somehow, so how do I get them out?”
Jay felt helpless. Whatever this was, he had no clue how to deal with it. It was something he could barely even describe. Something immaterial.
“Detached thoughts... disembodied voices... I wonder if they have a soul.” Jay began to smile as a spark of hope rose in his heart.
Suddenly, Jay used his own ability on himself, one that he had not used for quite a while, simply because of the dire warning it came with.
The last time he used this ability, he felt like something was fighting him, pulling the soul upwards, and strangely he felt like he committed an offence of a higher power.
It was the strange ability which he had only used twice, and only had two clues:
<[Soul Sense]>
[- Grasp the intangible]
[- Offend life and death at your own risk]
“Grasp the intangible...”
Jay sighed, “Surely if I use it on myself it won't be an offence to a higher power... right?”
“BURN KILL DESTROY STEAL!” the voices continued screaming in his mind - right up until the point Jay activated the skill.
As soon as he did, Jay himself felt a sense of fear, though he someone could tell it wasn't coming from himself. Somehow, he could tell that the voices in his head were trembling.
When Jay used the ability on himself he felt his own soul, nursed above his heart as if it were sitting on a throne.
Apparently his mana was too oppressive as he felt like what he was doing was simply wrong. There was no pain, but more of a sense of utter emptiness and aloneness when he applied too much pressure to his own soul.
Relieving it, he felt much better again.
Next, though, he sensed... other things. Something which he couldn't describe, though compared to souls they felt different. They felt wrong.
As his mana wrapped around each of them, the voices said nothing but he could still sense their fear.
He was just glad they were finally quiet. It felt peaceful. He even just stared into the forest for a moment not thinking anything.
“I bet people take their quiet minds for granted.” he nodded, “I probably do too.”
Three of these invisible and intangible entities were attached to Jay; Each having bodies like snakes which were aligned along his spine, their long bodies coling upwards around his head and then entering his mind through the middle of his forehead.
“Eugh, right into my damn head” he thought, feeling disgusted.
“What are these... things.”
Jay paused for a moment but realised he didn't have time to be flustered.
He focused and began the removal process before whatever these things were could hope to harm his mind... or even his soul.
First he detached the tail of one of them from his spine, as it seemed to stick to different parts of his body. Almost like it was plugged in.
As he went up, it required more mana to pull away but it was manageable.
Compared to wrestling a soul from whatever higher powers were above though, it was much easier and used much less mana, so he wasn't worried about running out of mana before the process was over.
The first of three snake-like creatures had its body removed, and now it only attached to Jay through his forehead.
Taking some inspiration from the parasites in his arm, he rolled its body up into a ball and then thrust his mana out with it, away from his head.
It took a second attempt, but after adding enough mana he pulled it out.
Thankfully it was painless.
The strange intangible creature was helpless against his power. Jay wondered where all its strength was. It couldn't even move its body.
This was insulting to Jay - to think that such a weak creature had tormented him for hours, sneaking into his mind, mimicking his thoughts, trying to convince him to do evil things and then screaming at him.
Such a weak creature dared to bark orders at him?
He was now as offended as he was annoyed.
Since he was sensing it with his ability, he couldn't actually see it, but it basically felt like a snake, with some strange nodes along its body which he could tell were thicker, filled with some sort of energy - the same nodes which seemed to plug into Jay's back somewhere, though it wasn't a perfect fit and seemed wrong. Unnatural.
“Well... I can't hold onto it forever...” Jay shrugged.
“Now, what was it saying before? Destroy, burn, slay, harm? Good advice.” he smiled with the eyes of a predator.
Using his mana, he mercilessly twisted the strange creatures body into all sorts of shapes. It was powerless against him.
It was a bad day to be whatever this creature was, as Jay was not just trying to kill it, but releasing some of his stress and even practicing his mana manipulation on it.
It shriveled up and was crushed. It was twisted mercilessly. Finally, its body was torn apart.
Jay released a little stress as he made it suffer.
Strangely, something felt right about killing it. It was more than simply justice being carried out, but more like judgement, or even like he was a harbinger of destiny.
Strangely, as it died, something like a soul but smaller than one was left behind as its body disintegrated. Then another. Then soon about fifteen of these small half-souls came out of its dying body.
Jay didn't let a single one escape.
This time though, there was no force from above fighting him to lift the souls upwards.
The non-souls were just simply there. Uncared for. Alone.
“Weird...”
It seemed that whatever force above wanted nothing to do with these fake souls.
Jay released his grasp on them and slowly, they descended like falling pieces of pollen.
As Jay's concentration was on the parasite he ripped out, the other two began to cry out again.
“MERCY! Please, spare us! Send us into another creature that we may live!”
Jay ignored their pleas for help. They did not show mercy, so he wouldn't either.
He repeated the process with the next snake-like being, torturing it for a while before ripping it to shreds. Each time, Jay smiled with glee. Something about killing these evil things brought him great joy.
However, Jay was also annoyed at himself for not realizing it sooner: the evil voices in his head were not even his own.
He though they were more like demons, though not an accurate term, it was close enough. They were at least like some sort of soul parasites, feeding off evil or simply just there to torment him.
As Jay removed the third immaterial creature, he felt the last group of the non-souls fall into the cold earth.
Compared to his own soul, and the souls of others, theirs felt like empty. Hollow. Smaller. Wrong.
“If I were a better person, perhaps I would have sent them into another creature, if there were any around.” he shrugged, “But based on them falling into the earth, it seemed that they were destined to be destroyed. Killing them now really didn't change anything.”
Afterwards, he focused his mana around his forehead - the spot where these creatures, these demons which pretended to be him, somehow entered.
Unlike the rest of his flesh where there was like a subtle barrier, here there was a hole in the barrier, and coming out of it was something like a tree. Or a whirlpool.
It was like it was pulling in something. Not mana, but something. Perhaps information.
“Dammit. How the hell do I fix this...” he frowned.
For a moment he felt hopeless, like somehow he had done irreversible damage to himself in a way which couldn't possibly be fixed.
“Will I have to rip out these soul parasites for the rest of my life?” he frowned.
“Maybe the barrier will heal itself? Or perhaps I can just keep my mana there to cover the hole... until I try to sleep...”
His options were abysmal, simply treating the signs rauther than the problem.
Hopelessness set in.
Suddenly, he received a strange notification - one that disappeared as soon as he read it.
[Your seal has been healed. Beside me there is no other; above me there is no other. Mercy comes at a price. Forgiveness, has a price.]
“My seal has been healed?”
Jay felt a drop of water travel across his brain and mind - instantly his hopelessness was turned to joy.
Strangely, it made his head feel cool and refreshed, as opposed to feeling hot and irritated like it was before. He couldn't help but smile as his heart also seemed to respond with joy.
“What was that...”
Compared to the way the parasites in his arm made him feel, there was no sedation and he didn't feel dirty, but his mind felt more clearer.
He felt like he had woken up from a deep sleep and was filled with energy and life. Using his mana, he found that there was no hole in the barrier anymore.
“What... is going on?”
Jay felt like he had perhaps won the blessing of a higher being - and by the sounds of its brief message, it is the highest.
