The World Is Mine For The Taking

I knelt down beside her, the cold stone floor pressing against my knees as I stared down at Angelica. Her eyes were locked on mine, blazing with fury, even though she couldn't say a word through the gag strapped tight across her mouth. Her breaths came out hard and heavy through her nose. Without saying a word, I reached down and yanked the gag away, watching her lips curl into a snarl as it fell.

"Your members killed innocent people today," I said, my voice low, calm, and deadly. "Your cult—The Eclipse."

Her eyes never wavered, still burning with that same anger, like she didn't even care.
Experience tales at empire

"Do you have any idea how many people you've murdered?" I asked, my voice sharper now. "Seven."

The faces of the women flashed in my mind—people I knew. They had families to care for, children waiting at home, depending on them. They worked hard, not because they had to, but because they wanted to keep their families afloat. And now, they were gone. Not just numbers. Not just bodies.

Lives, taken away by the hands of her fucked-up cult. Amon might've wanted me to dominate them for their skills, but I saw them for what they were—human beings. I couldn't stand to let their deaths be brushed aside as mere wasted potential. That's not who I am.

I clenched my fists, nails biting into my palms. I knew deep down that I wasn't human anymore. Not fully. But the moral code from my previous life? It kept me tethered, kept me grounded. My sister's words, from long ago, still echoed inside me, reminding me what it meant to be human in a world that had forgotten.

And that's why the slaughter of innocents turned my stomach in disgust.

"Those seven women were working to provide for their families. Because of your stupid fucking cult, those families are now broken, left without their mothers or sisters. Do you have anything to say for yourself, as a so-called Guardian of the Great Darkness?"

Angelica's lips twitched, but her eyes stayed cold, her expression unchanged. She didn't speak, didn't even flinch. Just stared back at me, still scowling. The fact that she could look like that after everything—after I told her what her faith and her precious cult had done—boiled my blood. It was damning.

"Marie," I called. "Can you use your skill even with the power dampener on?"

"Soul Manipulation needs physical contact," she replied. "But as long as I touch some skin, like the forehead, it'll work just fine."

Marie knelt down beside me and pressed her fingers to Angelica's forehead. We were about to try and free her from the brainwashing that tied her to the Eclipse. If we could break that hold, make her feel the weight of her actions, the guilt would destroy her from the inside. Guilt—it's the easiest and most devastating form of revenge.

There's nothing more crippling than forcing someone to face the damage they've done, to feel it tearing at them from the inside. Once guilt eats away at someone, you've already won.

Marie's fingers glowed faintly as she activated her skill, and within seconds, Angelica's body went slack, her head drooping as if all the fight had drained out of her.

***

Marie's POV

The inside of a person's soul always felt like a still ocean. Calm, empty, stretching out into an endless horizon of blue. It was the same when I entered Angelica's soul. An expanse of tranquil water as far as my eyes could see, with no wind, no waves—just silence. My feet moved over the surface of that ocean, and though I was walking on water, I didn't sink.

I kept walking, knowing I needed to find the source of the brainwashing, the seed of whatever idea had been implanted in her mind. As I moved across the water, ripples spread beneath my feet with every step I took, disturbing the otherwise perfect stillness.

Normally, if there was something wrong with someone's soul, you'd see an obvious inconsistency—something off. And right now, I could see it clearly. There it was: the anomaly.

"This is…?"

There was something there, lurking beneath the surface. It was dark, so dark I couldn't make out what it was exactly, but I knew it didn't belong. It lay there, like it was sleeping, undisturbed.

"Is this the idea?" I muttered to myself.

Brainwashing works by planting an idea into someone's mind, forcing them to accept it without question. To make it stick, the brainwasher has to hammer that idea in, over and over again, until it becomes the truth. I'd never broken someone free from brainwashing before, but I'd dealt with people who were braindead. I hadn't been able to heal them, and I had a strong feeling I never would.

Braindead wasn't the same as this—it was irreversible.

The woman Leon told me to bring back to life was a rare case. Her body had been in perfect condition, so when I restored her soul, she came back like she'd never died. If her body hadn't been intact, bringing back her soul would've been useless. All it would've done was turn her into some kind of undead—just a shell, with nothing real left inside.

This was different. She wasn't braindead, nor was she someone I needed to bring back from the dead. Angelica was just brainwashed, but that came with its own set of complications. I couldn't tamper too much with someone's soul when the root of the problem was mental. That's why Martha, the woman Leon had me revive, never regained her memories. Some things can't be fixed by just healing the soul.

The idea that had taken root in Angelica was pure darkness. That was it—darkness itself.

I reached out and touched it. And then… immediately, I saw it.

In the shadows, we find truth, and in the darkness, we are reborn. The world will bow to our will, for we are the harbingers of the Eclipse, where light meets its end and our power begins.

In the shadows, we find truth, and in the darkness, we are reborn. The world will bow to our will, for we are the harbingers of the Eclipse, where light meets its end and our power begins.

In the shadows, we find truth, and in the darkness, we are reborn. The world will bow to our will, for we are the harbingers of the Eclipse, where light meets its end and our power begins.

In the shadows, we find truth, and in the darkness, we are reborn. The world will bow to our will, for we are the harbingers of the Eclipse, where light meets its end and our power begins.

This was the idea. This was the darkness that had consumed her mind.

It was swallowing everything—blinding, yet somehow calm. The end of suffering, the end of everything, killing everything in its path, but doing it so peacefully. It wasn't violent; it felt more like slipping into an endless sleep. The darkness erased pain, erased suffering, erased all the weakness that made people human.

And then I saw him… a man, sitting on a throne, with a massive dark dragon looming behind him.

"Marie!"

Someone shook me hard, snapping me out of it. The soul manipulation broke, and I was thrown back into reality, back outside Angelica's soul.

"What did you saw?" asked Leon.

"Great Darkness..." I muttered, more to myself than to Leon. "It's real."