The Transcendent Godslayer

Rain matted the earth, drenching the ruins of Andreía in a world of fury.

Flashing past and in and out of rundown buildings, a figure appeared in what had once been a store, judging by its broken and dilapidated appearance.

On the floor, in the corner, an orc lay dead, a huge piece of rubble having crushed his neck, the spiked rods jutting from it digging deep into the ground.

The figure stared at the dead orc for slightly more than a second, then turned to leave.

But just as they turned, their steps halted, and like a machine, turned back to face the corpse once more.

'You bastard!' Phineas growled in his mind, watching helplessly as his body was taken over. He tried to fight back against the force, but only ended up injuring himself.

Bright blood trickled from his nose, and he grudgingly gave up, allowing Zephyrus to take full control, though his expression twisted in silent frustration.

With no resistance, his body moved fluidly, and without knowing the truth, no one would ever suspect he wasn't in control of his faculties.

Every movement, from subtle body language to larger giveaways like the rhythm of his steps, was perfectly replicated down to the last detail.

Phineas crouched at the corpse, studying it for a while before nodding.

A second later, the hold on him vanished like it had never been there.

"Bastard!!!" Phineas screeched, finally regaining control of his body.

Still, there was a grin plastered across his face, even as blood trickled from his nose.

He crouched there in silence for a while, then walked to a corner of the wall and slumped against it, leaning back and closing his eyes.

For several minutes, there was only the sound of the storm, the thunder raging above, and rain pounding against the earth with fury.

Flashes of lightning occasionally illuminated the dark world, revealing how the rain slowly washed away dried blood from the floor in grotesque streaks.

There was another flash of lightning across the far end of the sky, when gazing at the heavens from the location of the wreck, and Zephyrus appeared, his back faced to the flashing heavens.

He walked into the store without a word, and Phineas scoffed, his eyes trailing him as Zephyrus moved toward the corpse and crouched by it.

Without hesitation, Zephyrus placed a hand on the man's head, and his eyes took on a murky glow.

It was incredibly dangerous to do this out in the open, but what was Phineas there for, if not to protect him?

Zephyrus was instantly transported into the man's sea of memories, drifting off, until he found what he was looking for... where a black-cloaked individual had appeared.

He watched as the man attacked the cloaked figure without hesitation as soon as he saw him, riding a wave of arrogance that was both foolish and, given the world's current state, understandable.

With the world in chaos like this, only power spoke. That had been true even when Andreía had a semblance of order, let alone now.

Still, it was a stupid move. The cloaked person seemed to have come from the direction of the wastelands... obviously, no weakling would ever emerge from there.

Naturally, the cloaked figure surrendered, "accidentally" flashing the man a ring on his finger.

The man grinned greedily, shoving the figure into the ruined store and ordering him to strip everything he had... pointing to his head, gun in hand.

Even Zephyrus was surprised to see a gun. Such things were extremely expensive... a powerful minthrotech gear. No wonder the fool was so confident.

The cloaked person suddenly moved, and the man's arm bent at an unnatural angle, his high-pitched scream slicing through the memory.

The cloaked figure picked up the gun and aimed it at the man's head, demanding all his valuables. Ironically, the store belonged to the man himself.

Sobbing and begging, every trace of bravado vanished, and the man handed over everything.

The cloaked figure rifled through the loot and picked found a map amongst them, sighing audibly. Then, without a word, he folded the map and pocketed it along with the gun.

He turned to the man, and before the man could blink, his neck was crushed. Then light left his eyes.

Zephyrus pulled his consciousness from the sea of memories, uncertain how to feel.

Looking down at the man, whose cause of death appeared completely unrelated to the scene laid out before him, he couldn't help but once again, admire Kallen's ingenuity.

"Nine years old," he muttered. "You won't be running for long though."

He already had the exact map Kallen had taken memorized. His eyes turned murky once more as he began contacting his fingerlings.

And as the rain poured, with people squeezing themselves into whatever shelter they could find in the ruins, some among them began to stir, rising and shooting off in different directions.

---

A flash of lightning split the sky, casting ghostly light over the earth. Through the pounding rain, a cloaked figure raced, each breath he exhaled fogging into the air before vanishing into the storm.

Kallen didn't slow, even with the rain soaking him. His boots slapped through puddles and mud as he pushed toward his destination, trying to cover as much ground as possible before the storm passed.

Of course he wasn't naive to believe Zephyrus would wait for the weather to clear before searching for him... he was far too calculating for that.

But he was certain the orc wouldn't waste his entire manpower combing through storm.

It was more likely he would search for him in the obvious places: where survivors had begun to gather and formed kernels of community, or in hidden places, waiting for the rain to pass, if he had an inkling of how Kallen's mind worked.

Running and wasting his energy trying to outrun him in the rain, was foolish, and that was why Kallen chose to move now, while others thought he would be still.

Suddenly, his eyes constricted, and he stomped a foot down, the impact jarring through his bones as he skidded to a brutal stop, his momentum nearly shattering his leg.

To lessen the blow, he twisted mid-step, shifting his weight diagonally, just as streaks of silver sliced through the air, barely an inch from tearing open his throat.

He came to a still, blaring horns resounding in his mind.

Aeneas' short sword materialized in his grip with a shimmer of the ring on his finger, his crimson eyes scanning the shadows for the attacker that had disappeared into the dark.