I made Cressi cry. The strongest woman I knew, the one who had always been by my side, unshattered by anything life threw in her direction.
“Because I love him,” she barely voiced the words and her heart along with them.
Chapter Fourteen
I did not stop, could not stop. The hate, the rage, it flowed through me. I became the tool of the power rather than the controlling source. All I wanted, all I needed was to eliminate this hate from inside of me, to cascade the rage onto someone else. And I only knew a way to do it. Blood.
Kicking the door open, I escaped from the mouldy room, leaving a trail of that male’s blood and parts of his skin which stuck to the soles of my feetand with every few steps, left a piece of evidence of the being they once belonged to. I did not care, I did not know where I was going, only that I needed to advance and satiate the rage ripping at my insides. It beat within my flesh like a primordial feeling, one that demanded satiation or my own dismay.
I wandered around the dark corridors, scanning the field, not knowing which way to go or even understanding the need to progress. Yet there it was, eating at me, demanding violence and sacrifice. Following the corridors and torches, the only sign of light this place displayed, I found more soldiers who appeased my hunger for blood. I massacred them quickly, in a few swift movements, grabbing the dagger one of them carried and slitting throat after throat until the hand movement became second nature.
Blood covered most of me, I barely kept my eyes open from all the dripping mess that piled across my face and all the rest of my body, yet I continued, feeling even thirstier for the kill than before. It was the dominant sentiment that pierced inside of my mind so fiercely, nothing else mattered. I wanted nothing but to satiate the hatred, and I would use any means to do so. If it would cost me my life, I would happily honour it.
“What are you...” the soldier’s voice extinguished as soon as it came. I did not allow him enough time to finish the sentence sentence before stabbing him in the back of the head, without even allowing him the honour of self-defence. He deserved none. He needed to pay.
Pay for what?A voice wanted to ask, yet the rage shoved it away. I did not care. I didn't know what happened before, how I got in this state, but I was sure that whatever it was, the sentiment arrived at request. Something made me become like this, and I needed to listen to my instinct.
Kill, kill, kill, it shouted from deep inside of me, my chest craving the sensation of blood spilling over skin. So I continued. By the time I reached a royal-looking corridor, I had dispatched over twenty males, all of them dismissed to dine with whatever goddess they worshipped.
The sensation of finally getting closer to what I had been looking for all this time leaned heavier as I reached the royal corridors and stepped on the soft carpet. Even the illumination system changed in these parts, another evidence that higher members of court lived in the surroundings. Instead of the barely glimmering torches thataccompanied me in the killing spree, these corridors laid ornate with intricate black wax chandeliers, hanging onto the long path at a perfectly calculated distance in order to mimic sunlight.
It did feel strange that the light of day hadn't cropped up throughout my journey, even though I sensed it was sometime in the afternoon. The guards looked too alert in the morning, with high energy levels, like they had just started their shift, and as I went along, Iheard talks about upcoming meals, before I jumped them to make sure they would have none.
I had accumulated several weapons and armour during my sprint, so, were it not for the blood piling up on my newly acquired suit, I would look like one of them. I only had to stay in the darkness long enough to approach.
Huge black doors planted in front of me as soon as I finished strolling under the chandeliers. This was it, whatever I was looking for, it had to be inside. My instinct screamed, pushing, urging to kick them open and be done with it, to kill and destroy everyone in sight without caring about the consequences. So I did just that.
I did not expect to find a dining room with hundreds of small tables arranged neatly, close enough to one another to generate a community feeling, allowing beings to converse with the nearby table without having to rise or move too much from their designated seats. Tall archways reflecting firelight and just a glint of silver protected them from the roof. A roof carved from stone. I was in the Fire Kingdom, I realised and immediately raised my guard, the possessive killing urge throbbing inside of me. From all across the room, guards immediately sensed my presence and shifted closer, smelling the blood of their brothers dripping from my armour.
I did not wait to be discovered, I had to claim my position and destroy as many as I could before being eliminated myself. I ran to the closest table and started shoving dagger in flesh. I did not care who they were, did not care if they were old or young, if they attacked or not. Male after male, I piled them at my feet while females and younglings ran away in desperation.
I could not stop, would not stop until I destroyed them all. Until I aligned their bodies into a footpath towards that grand table, where their leaders remained as still as trees, not even reacting to give attack orders.
Pathetic, I thought to myself as I shoved a sword into a soldier that must not have been older than me, barely a male coming of age, with no experiences in life. Nor would he have any, I understood as my blade cut across his lungs and let him fall onto the floor, only mangled limbs and a pool of blood left of his life.
They could not stop me, no matter how much they tried. Soldier after soldier met my force, and even though I was one male, I fought like an entire platoon, able to take three or four at a time, carefully shifting directions and working my feet in the training position that emerged instinctively. Not settling for a stop.
A moving victim takes less arrows.The advice sounded in my head. I did not know who had told me that, but I felt grateful for the advice. It now proved useful.
“Ansgar, stop!” a voice sounded from far away, barely audible in between the screaming. Yet it caught my attention, and only for a second, I stopped to find its source. A male who rose from the leader’s table and tried to move closer to my position, struggling to approach through the swarming of running females and males readying to attack.
That was all it took, a second to receive a sword tackle, the blade piercing at the back of my knee and incapacitating my right leg. It flushed through my system, begging to stop, the tiredness and effort of the day falling heavily and suddenly over my form. I felt like I had been carrying a mountain on my back, the pressure crushing my lungs. I heard my ribs squeaking, begging for a halt.
The hatred urged me on, forcing me to continue, to push the remaining strength until the end goal was achieved. So I did, I ignored the pain, the blood spurting from me, and shifted both my hands, turning them into killing blows. I did not have the time to enjoy the blood from now on, nor to fight in more steps than required, so I settled for quick killing blows. Throat, eye, head, stomach, kidney. Wherever I had a chance I splintered flesh and bone in my path, forcing my leg to follow towards the opposite side of the room, closer to their leader.
“Ansgar,” the male made his way across and stood next to me, two swords in hand, ready to attack. “You need to stop this,” he tried to urge but I did not listen. Another one of his distracting techniques.
I slit another throat while turning to him, yet instead of attacking, he raised a hand to silently command the soldiers to move away from us. He wanted this battle to be fair. Just him and I.
Quickly, I turned my gaze to the leader’s table. Only an old male and a female remained there, but more and more soldiers hurried to their side to create a protective wall around, blocking their faces from view.
“Ansgar,” the male repeated, forcing me to turn to him yet again. “Your name is Ansgar, do you remember that?” he spoke as though he needed to convince me of my own origin.
“You are confused,” I spat the blood accumulating in my mouth. I did not know if it was mine, due to some internal wound I could not feel just yet or piled up from all the soldiers who squirted their remains towards me as they died.
“My name is Death.” With that, I attacked.
Chapter Fifteen
