Chapter 1: Corruption

In a cave, there was a body, in full decomposition, but it wasn’t dead. An individual was there, finding himself in a struggle with death. After sacrificing everything he had for power, or rather, for the preparations for his ritual, he had to risk his own life, a gamble that could yield high profits, or culminate in his complete corruption, and later, probably his own death.

Unlike other sorcerers who had already tried to perform the same ritual as his, Henri found in the experiment something fulminating, challenging, that would open a new passage for his tedious life. Since childhood, he knew he was an aberration, but he always found splendor in the individual’s internal conscious struggle against himself. He has already gone through depression and numerous mental crises, however, he never really distanced himself from the abyss, quite the contrary, the abyss fascinated him, because the abyss would mean revelation, and nothing pleased him more than to hate his own being and try to analyze his own existence and nature itself, so that his understanding of it would foster his search for goals and a meaning for his actions.

His last defined objective resided in that same cave, because spiritual beings that carry large amounts of spiritual energies will exist there for a long time.

He didn’t believe in the soul, unlike other sorcerers, at least not in the way they believed they would serve his. Instead, in order to directly access and control spirit beings and their powers, he thought it was necessary for his to become a pseudo-spectre, creating an astral spirit and controlling it through the body’s nerves. his brain would be busy materializing the sensory vision to visualize other spirits and survive as long as you can using the body’s own power residues.

The cave he chose held history, and was infused with enormous amounts of hate. Any light user would sense this, and would be able to tell how corruptible the place is. Henri saw in this pressure only a prelude to what was to come, for he planned to consume the hateful souls of that place and obtain their spiritual powers, along with their unhappiness and curses, if he thought he was capable of it, for he will not fear death and there was a plan to get away with it in that case.

Of course, however, there were many limitations. First of all, to create an astral spirit and control it required an enormous amount of spirit energy. Second, while on the astral plane, the individual would completely lose track of time. It wouldn’t be surprising if his body died while trying to consume the other spirits, and then, naturally, he would lose control over his astral spirit and vanish with it.

Furthermore, it was necessary for his spirit pressure to be strong enough to control the spirits and make their essence circulate through his veins, something that would be impossible even if he expanded his limits and accumulated the maximum of mana throughout his entire life, while forming as many spiritual contracts as you could, all due to several reasons. Furthermore, what makes wandering spirits so conducive to consumption is the fact that the only thing keeping them in existence is hatred, hatred that could be suppressed with enough power, however, any amount of mana that Henri would acumulate couldn’t still be enough to supress them for long periods, let alone consume their essence. Normal spirits live normally from the essence of nature and it is impossible to consume them, unless you are an individual capable of interacting with their existence physically, and humans in their vast majority are not capable of that.

To combat these weaknesses, Henri opted to perform sacrifices to demons to gain the necessary power, since demonic power is much more maintainable as long you know what you are doing. The first was his brother, who was creative but naive. His love affairs caused him to fall into a deep depression. Henri sacrificed him before he killed himself or let himself down to the point of complete despair. Henri did not do this because he wanted to free his brother from the suffering of his life, but because he was no longer able to give a damn about the notion of a life that has no clear meaning that fascinates his, and therefore, he sees himself entitled to seize an individual’s life if there is a reason for it. Of course, he doesn’t even know what the source of this imaginated right is, it’s something that arose and installed in his mind in a way that he doesn’t know exactly how, but he still sees that sacrifice as an essential action.

His second sacrifice was his mother. She wasn’t terrible, and despite having some bad memories about her, he doesn’t remember being abandoned or anything like that. But her inability to control her desires caused her to make bad decisions, to become poor and miserable, and to fail herself.

His third sacrifice was his father. An intelligent and capable man, but seriously mentally challenged and unable to learn from serious past mistakes. He had always let himself be taken advantage of, and had lived in squalor, constantly letting himself be taken advantage of by others while thinking he was making an fair trade, and bordering on insanity after the death of his mother, whom he always cared for and loved.

After making these sacrifices and more, Henri sold everything and fled, seeking to preserve his life for a longer period of time by learning to control demonic power and not letting it consume his body. He joined various organizations, and did everything to prolong his life, even for a few more seconds. Eventually he surrendered his former companions and received pardon for his crimes against the state, as he had already managed to obtain everything he needed for his long-awaited ritual.

After creating a spirit spectrum and virtually inhabiting it, he made it release all the negative energy he had obtained through his sacrifices to demons, atracting and absorbing all the spirits that inhabited the cave while injecting them into the nerves of his original body. He continued using that energy to contain the spirits and concentrate their spiritual pressures so that they circulated, dissipated and circulated again, so that the spiritual pressure did not destroy his body. Knowing it would be a long process, he began to draw on demonic energy to fuel his body and keep it alive, knowing full well that there would be side effects in the future.

So he continued, repeating the same actions for a long period of time, until there was no risk of the spirits escaping. He united the newly created specter with his body, something possible because his spiritual being was made purely of demonic energy, and soon, it would return and become virtually part of his body again.

Inside his body, he could feel the spiritual power circulating through all his nerves, violating his mind to the point of making him border on complete insanity. The spirits plagued him with all kinds of curses and negative feelings, and even Henri, who did predict something like that, didn’t know it would be something like this. What he suffered mentaly was much worse than any mental crise, the energy made him hate everything to the point of wanting to make him tear his own skin and hit his head repeatedly against the floor and wall on several ocasions.

Henri was also immensely weak. The demonic energy only kept him alive, but his deteriorated body made him feel countless accumulated hells, such as hunger, thirst, immense heat and cold, and pain in all parts of the body. The food that Henri brought with him to travel was already rotten, but in order to increase, even if slighty, his chances of survival in the long run, he had no choice but to feed on it and anything he could find in the cave. To drink any water he could only get it from the ground, because he couldn’t get rainwater since he was in a deep part of the cave, and he was too weak to walk and climb, he could only crawl.

It went on like this for who knows how long, maybe months, maybe years. Eventually there was nothing left to eat, and although he was already used to the pains and torments of the spirits, it only intensified even more, to the point that he had to suppress it using his demonic energy which would eventually deplete because of excess use, and the longer it went, the more he needed to use to maintain himself alive, leading to more waste of demonic energy.

But the positive side of all this is that he was already learning to tame the spiritual energy and use it, and even if it was corrupted, it helped him move around the cave. He was in a very desolate part of the cave’s basement, not counting on the company of monsters, which were not out of the ecological influence of the rabid spirits that inhabited there, and therefore, they hardly dared to enter, sensing the danger inside the forest and the cave trough their instinct.

As he stepped out into the sun, blindness infected his eyes, and again he had to go through a painful period of adjustment, thrashing and digesting whatever he could in the forest that followed the cave. If someone were to look at him naked, they would see a man with long hair, and without almost ny flesh on his body other than these of his organs and whatever held them together. His outfit, an torn and dented black garment lined with a line-reinforced overcoat, only served to highlight how thin he was, and the fact that he was still carrying these clothes with his body in such a situation could be considered a feat in itself.

The forest through which he walked also suited the style of the cave he would emerge from, the ground was dead, and the trees were dry and with the inertia of life. But there was still some kind of aura in the air, which prevented the branches from falling to the ground, as if they were tormenting the trees and their roots in eternal torment, preventing them from dying. Henri had already studied the area for a long time, knowing that it had a lot of history, and the fact that so much hatred inhabited the place was not surprising, considering that the spirits were cursed, taking everything out on the nature they inhabited.

Spirits were not tangible beings, and normally could not alter reality to such an extent. But these have the ability to turn their negative desires into tangible realities, to shape reality the more their never ending negative desires accumulate. These spirits had been created by the lamentations of countless individuals, and had no rationality other than the desire for hatred and destruction.

Henri did not exactly know their origin besides the stories and legends he studied, which he didn’t completely believe, but it is clear that the barrier that surrounds the region serves to contain all these spirits. If such spirits roamed around, they would only bring destruction and chaos. But his current condition was somewhat curious: he would be taking with him a large number of those spirits, which devoured him but gave him power. If it continued without being put down, he would eventually go insane and be controlled by them, serving only as a puppet for their desires.

Continuing to wander and crawl out of the forest, he needed to find a user of light magic to eliminate this corruption. It only took one vulnerable moment to let the pain and torment take over, and to stop that, he didn’t sleep and hardly wasted energy thinking. Still, he memorized the way to the nearest town. For a long time, a squadron had been established to guard this forest, but over time, the customs of inquisition against the spirits that resided there were lost. Because it takes a lot of work and is a long-term activity. The simple solution was to erect a barrier and forbid anyone who entered to leave. Over time, the squadron of guards dwindled and limited themselves to just checking the surroundings of the barrier, charging a fee to anyone who entered and would like to secure permission for their exit as well.

Henri, knowing this, had already paid off the guards. When they saw his leaving the forest and approaching the barrier, they didn’t even recognize his, they thought he was some kind of spirit materialized in physical form, and soon, they were watching his movements attentively. He, however, as he approached little by little, eventually stood before them, still inside the barrier, saying that he had paid for the ticket, and needed help to expel all that evil energy that inhabited his body. His throat obviously couldn’t handle saying all of that as it was, and he had to use his demonic energy to amplify it all. This distressed the guards, but it helped them remember about his, that he was one of the few who dared enter the forest while they were there, but he was the only one not to return.

One of the guards, wearing an emblem on his chest, approaches, shocked: “You ... Could it be that boy, so he’s still alive? What can we do...”.

Another commented: “To think such a young guy would end up like this ... He was gone for a while, I thought he was already dead.”

“He asks for help, maybe he wasn’t fully possessed, whatever happened to his” The individual then turns to another “Erigg, go ask for the Bishop’s presence, something unusual has happened!” Says the man with the emblem on his breastplate for his, who wears less armor. He mounts a horse and rides nimbly, matched by the high speed of his corsel.

After that they remain conflicted for a few seconds. The name of the man with the emblem is called Terin, he is the captain of the forest watch squad, and typically inhabits the place most of the day, responsible for setting up camps and giving orders. The current squad consists of only 3 members, with Erigg being responsible for periodically bringing supplies, in addition to having to check the surroundings from time to time, and another member, called Lyin, is responsible for cooking and household chores. in general. Furthermore, they move out of position only on weekends and holidays, returning to the city temporarily.

Henri remembered them a little younger, which meant a few years had passed, at the very least. They were there exercising self-discipline activities, as this is one of the places where young soldiers from the Daone Republic are sent to perform temporary duties for training, eventually being replaced by other rookies.

Lyin approaches Terin: “What do you think?”, Terin replies: “It’s strange to say the least, let’s leave his there until the bishop arrives, he asked for it himself.”

Terin then approaches Henri, still outside the barrier.

“What is his name?” “ ... Henri.” “Having trouble speaking?” “Yes” “Would you like to eat and drink water?” “ ... Yes...”

Henri was never very fond of repeating the same thing over and over again, and added to his weakness, his last reply was barely audible.

Tiron then turns to his companion: “Divide water and leftovers with his, leave it there on the ground, but don’t get too close to his and don’t even enter the barrier, take a branch to push inside or something”, “Right”, responds Lyin.

Eventually, the man from before arrives back on horseback at the small camp.

Terin: “How was it?” Erigg: “The bishop is coming tomorrow, he said to keep an eye on his.”

Henri hardly even had the demonic power to rule all those spirits inside his body anymore, and the spiritual energy he had taken for himself would not be enough to expel them from himself, as he was still too weak. I could only rely on white magic for now. To take power from all those spirits required even more demonic magic, but Henri found it too risky in many ways, not only would he require many more sacrifices, but spiritual power coming from malicious spirits would draw too much attention to his. Furthermore, the chances of his dying during the process would increase significantly, as his body would perish. The fact that he’s actually still alive is a huge miracle in itself.

A day then passed, and the Bishop then arrived in a wagon, along with other members of his church. His name was Fleer, and with him was Rieth the knight and some servants, including the one who drove the wagon.

Fleer is a tough looking, dark red haired and mid-aged fellow, his eyes are blue and he wear tiny red glasses, also, his hair is combed back, styled in a ponytail, and he is also wearing a blue hat and an light blue ferraiolo. Rieth is both black and white haired, his face has a white mask and he is almost fully armored, with white robe coving unarmored areas.

Fleer: “Could you explain what’s going on?”

Terin: “Sir, a man appeared crawling inside the barrier, it is likely that the spirits have done something to him.”

Fleer: “Lead me to him.”

Fleer followed to the barrier, and, before entering, created another barrier covering him and his companions from any possible spiritual corruption, in a quickly mysterious but apparently accurate way, considering the gravity of the situation. Approaching Henri then, the knight at his side took some kind of paper and nailed it to his back, apparently to prevent the spirits from leaving his body. The Bishop then began to analyze his body through clairvoyance. Before using any kind of magic, he always seems to stab his hand at necklace of unknown origins.

Fleer: “Strange, spirits don’t normally invade someone’s body, and something seems to be preventing them from taking control at once.” He pauses for a moment and follows his saying, “Perhaps this lad is an extremely capable mage, but I wonder how he has any access to magic in this morbid place, did he tell you anything before he entered?”. Terin then replies after some thinking: “I remember he said something about having high knowledge about spirits, so he must have his tricks.”

The Bishop continues to look at the body, and eventually prepares another apparently paper seal, placing it over the other and holding it with his hands, while saying something intelligible, probably as part of the ritual. The spirits that were in Henri’s body are eventually absorbed by the first seal, and several of them are transported to the second seal, which probably means that only one would not be enough to seal them. The necklace Fleer is holding starts to crack a little, something that doesn’t surprise either him or the knight beside him.

The ritual apparently went much easier than expected, as the Bishop was surprised at how easy it was to import so many spirits from the boy’s body into his seals.

Fleer: (Naturally, I would declare someone in this guy’s situation a goner, but he sealed those spirits away at virtually no serious expense for me, or maybe that’s only my impression?)

All the pains that covered Henri suddenly stop, only for him to pass out right after. The bishop then diverts his gaze to the knight at his side, who soon picks up the fallen boy’s body and takes it up to the carriage.

He and the rest of the group exit the barrier, and the bishop asks Terin, “Do you have any idea who he is?”

Terin: “No, but he said his name was Henri. He came here 2 years ago, and we haven’t seen him since.”

Fleer: “Okay, I will decide what his fate will be after ensuring that he poses no actual danger. And you ... You did a good job informing us about the matter, I hope you will continue the good service even when you are transferred to another post.”

“The pleasure is mine, sir.”, by saying that, Terin watches Fleer and the other servants enter the wagon. it’s big enough to fit at least 10 men.

The wagon then starts to move by the strenght of the horses, directed by a servant. It goes along a dirt road, and passes through several decent sized fields of crops along the way, fertilized by the water of the Termite River, which comes from the west and goes east. The journey is not that long, and after 5 hours they are already arriving at the city of destination, surrounded by walls and by some mountains of the north.

...

While Henri sleeps and doesn’t really know what’s going on around him due to his complete exhaustion, he finally dreams something after years without sleeping properly, albeit completely unconsciously. After spending years and years tormented by spirits, he imagines what would happen in the future, in one hand is the sword, in the other is a shield, is he destined to fight, kill and suffer for the rest of his existence because of his atrocious acts? He as abandoned any sense of stability a long time ago, he doesn’t and will not care about fate or religion his only aim are being able to live, and to learn, but, alas, the humans heart is not immune to corruption, if there were the possible means to expand himself and surpass his limits, he would not think twice about taking actions, even if they might hurt others. Truthfully, Henri was not actually ambitious, and he had no urge to control or harm others. For his, the only individuals worthy of respect are those who use any means. Ethics and morals would be a good thing, but it won’t do any good if other individuals are hypocritical, full of errors while negatively influencing others, an world were everyone treat each one better is a world that he knows nothing of, since he was not born in it. This led on him the urge to test his own thesis upon the others, disregading their actual feelings, mostly because he see there acts as “playback” for something.

When he was young, Henri came from a family with good financial conditions. His traumatic childhood experiences, all of which he thinks as if caused by his family and by the human nature’s flaws, gave him an anti-family and anti-religion mindset from an early age. His father and mother never educated him, never showed to him what love is, at least not fully enough to move him. And the negative effects of these only expanded due to his natural mental deficiencies, turning him into someone insensible.

The path for power was just a consequence of all the life he lived until now, that’s what he thinks, “there is nothing to regret, the life is as it is, we living beings are only devices created and in development by the nature and our urge to evolute, but alas, in different ways, while also depending correlatively on our own nature and experiences, which make us strange to each other in several ways.”. If nothing gives him the value he would like, and there is no one for him to apply any sort of heavy value. then he would follow a path worthless in the eyes of others, living only for himself. If the parameters he follows are not respected, then it would be enough for him to just live according to them and get rid of those who interrupted him in living the way he wanted.

What is life, if not a large set of apparent unconsciousness that mobilize you to look for something?...

...

When he wakes up, Henri finds himself inside a room, lying in a bed. His body was much better than before, enabling him to move without problems. When he gets up and inspects the door, he realizes that it is made of iron, and that he would be locked inside. He thinks about screaming and trying to call someone, and thinks it over and over again, until he comes to the conclusion that trying to call someone would be better than waiting, considering his clearly strange past circumstances in the eyes of others...

“Hello!! Where am I!!” Where the best words he could think of. However, it ends up not bearing fruit, and no one comes, probably because his voice is not going out of his mouth very smoothly. Henri thinks it’s better that way, as he will have more time to reason and read the situation.

He sits on the bed, and thinks about everything he has gone through painstakingly. As he tries to feel the changes within his body, he sees that there is no longer any significant amount of demonic energy with him, which means any church member will hardly feel anything at all even if they tried. The spiritual energy now, on the other hand, is clean negative energy, since it was dispensed with the help of the Bishop, which shows that all his effort did yield him what he wanted. With that power, he calculates that he could materialize a vacuum bomb powerful enough to expel the door along with a good part of the wall to the other side, however, he would also need to cast something to defend himself against this explosion. Wind magic is the easiest kind of magic to use in any situation, since most quick spells needs a use of some expedient of sorts as magical device. You can’t really freeze anything if there is no water, fom example, and fire is much more troublesome, since combustion is tricky to deal with, alas, using fire magic is pretty much an absolute taboo among mages for several reasons, to the point it’s barely mentioned in theorical books.

As he calculates which are the chances of him ending up having to use magic and which, footsteps start to be taken outside, and eventually a man who looks like an armed soldier with some light metal protection opens the door.

“The bishop calls you, but asks that your presence will only be possible if you accept that I handcuff you.”

“No problem.” Henri responds, unsure why he’s being handcuffed, maybe the Bishop wants to make him feel pressured? After all, his muscles were still pretty lean, and the cuff feels loose in his hands, something the soldier clearly doesn’t seem to mind. He wouldn’t have any plans to get away from there, wouldn’t know exactly where to go, but having a talk with the bishop would probably yield some ideas. The guard locks his hands in iron cuffs, and Henri starts to follow from behind. They go through a corridor, up stairs, and go to the end of another corridor, and enter a room. The bishop who saved him is sitting on a chair, with his hands resting on a table, and the soldier tells him to sit on a chair that is in the opposite direction.

Henri sits down, and the bishop already says, “Hello, my name is Fleer, I assume your name is Henri, I’d like to ask you a few questions, is that okay?”

Henri: Yes”

Fleer: “Okay. What were you doing inside the Semiur forest? I guess you knew what was in it.”

Henri: “Sir, I’ll be honest with you. I went into the forest thinking I could tame the spirits through my magic power.”

Fleer: “Magical power? So you’re a wizard? I had already guessed that.”

Henri: “Yes. I used all my mana reserves that I accumulated over time to obtain the power of the spirits.”

Fleer: “How did you get mana for that? I doubt that even the most powerful mage in these regions could accomplish such a feat, everyone knows that the negative energy of spirits is capable of violating any physical thing until its destruction.”

Henri: “I counted on help.”

Fleer: “Help?”

“Yes, help.”. Before answering anything more, Henri immediately conjures a vacuum bomb between his hands, with no clear direction between his hands, resulting in an explosion in plain air. With such an explosion, the table flies up, the bishop flies and hits the wall hard, the handcuffs on Henri’s hands break and fly out with the pressure, and he goes flying backwards along with the chair, coincidentally, or no, past the door and the guard, and falling farther back. The guard, undecided, doesn’t know whether to go after first Henri, and chooses to check on the Bishop, who appears to be passed out. This gives Henri time to run away, climbing more stairs, and eventually reaching a hall with several people, including guards. Henri walks to the exit, hoping no one suspects his presence, and exits the building. Now his next thought objective would be to flee the city, after all, the guard or the bishop would eventually tell others and eventually come after his. However, he calms down, and reasons that it wouldn’t be a good idea, after all, he doesn’t even have the means to feed himself, and where would he go? While working out a definitive means for this, he would investigate the city, looking for some “opportunity”. The building he was in wasn’t that big, and apparently it also serves as a detention center for people, so it’s probably an place owned by the church and the city guards. His old clothes were changed into casual clothes, he’s clean, and the fact that no one will question his as he goes outside also seems strange to him, as if his actions have already been predicted, or he’s being watched. Henri abandons these thoughts to continue wandering and analyzing the city. He had left money with bankers before going to Semiur, but he doesn’t know if they will recognize him, it doesn’t user a paper system, and depends mainly in good faith between parties, and money. When he went to the forest, he went with nothing, and his items are inside his house, in a city very far away, so, his priority would be to get his money.

After getting information by questioning people, he eventually arrives at where he intended, an exchange office. Although the owner’s main business is to exchange Wersian gold coins (currency of the region) for other coins from the small continent, he also works with gold coin storage. Upon entering, Henri talks to an attendant, and manage to organize a conversation with the owner. His name is Stellei, an old acquaintance of Henri’s, he was once his father’s lawyer, but left the profession after getting permission from the government to found his business. Although Henri was officially a noble, Stellei was intimate with the church in the region, and had connections to the order of Guennes, an order whose workings were, in short, to uphold the dogmas of the church in all spheres of society. The kingdom Henri is in, despite officially being ruled by a monarchy, which currently ruler is called Astanhol Werses, it’s essentially controlled by a theocratic order. Archbishops control cities, and bishops are part of the court of archbishops, having broad powers to influence and be influenced. The fact that Bishop Fleer had demanded his presence with only one guard to protect him, and not even a knight, was what made him feels queasy towards the situation he faced, more than the more obvious possibility that the guard would call more people to come behind him if he commited any harm against the bishop, he was determined to get out of there as soon as possible, and now, he needs an clear direction.