Author’s Corner: Hey guys! I know that a lot of things don’t make sense right now, but they will! There is a method to my madness, or at least that’s what I always tell myself.

Monte and I, along with the two people that had been in the group with the killer, ran to the basement in fear of finding another group of people dead. Magnetic locks don’t mean much when I crush the doors in front of us with my magic. At this point, property damage was a secondary concern, and it didn’t take us too long to get down there.

Thankfully, we arrived to see three officers talking calmly with a balding man in a white lab coat. When we crashed through the door, they immediately turned towards us with weapons drawn. Upon seeing Monte, they hesitated a moment, but slowly dropped their guns. “What’s going on?”

Before anyone else had a chance to speak, Monte asked a question of his own. “How long have the four of you been together down here?”

“About ten minutes? We’ve been trying to convince this guy to head up to the briefing room, but he keeps going on that this is the safest room in the building right now.”

I lifted an eyebrow at that, and looked to the coroner, who decided to explain. “You see, I don’t really care all that much for AI’s without personalities. When the call came in that the AI had turned, I decided we should stay here. This room is probably the only one in the entire building that isn’t monitored by it.”

Monte let off a light sigh after hearing that. “Never thought your paranoia would come in handy. But still, the AI can monitor all of the surrounding rooms. Whether or not you’re in here, he can still keep track of you. Why else would you even be allowed a room with no monitoring?”

The coroner raised a finger and opened his mouth as if to rebuke that statement, paused, tried again, then simply said. “I’ll grab my things.”

With that taken care of, the acting chief turned towards me. “So, now that we know this person can hide from your affinity scan, any other ways to track him?”

“Well… there’s one thing I can try, but no clue if it’ll work.” I turned around and focused, activating the X-Ray vision part of my Cybernetic eye. Let’s look for anyone alone. With Celeste’s help, I adjusted the zoom and penetration depth of my eye, slowly searching the building. Or at least, I was going to. “Seriously? Who lines their walls with lead?”

The coroner coughed nervously. “Well… I thought it seemed like a good idea.”

Stepping out of the room, I repeated the search attempt. Even if this druid had far more skill than he should have at his level, there was no reason he would be able to turn invisible. And sure enough, I saw someone by themselves on the second floor of the station, splashing blood and gore around while waving their hands and dancing oddly. “Second floor… looks like an office. He’s laying the scene for the woman we saw him as, I think.”

I made a promise to myself to never try to learn the Blood Affinity. In these few hours, I had seen more gore than I wanted to in my entire life. I may even give up horror movies after this. “That should be Jean’s office, then.” Monte spoke up from behind me, after which there was another startled voice.

“What, Jean?” I think the voice came from Officer Johnson, and I felt a burst of wind, presumably as he ran past me. I couldn’t see, given the fact that my X-Ray sight was still locked on the killer, and my other eye was closed to help me see better.

“Johnson!” Monte called out, and I felt another rush as someone else passed by me. “Come on, Hulett, we’re going after him.” Monte got on the radio after that. “All units, target sighted on the second floor. He’s in Jean’s office right now, let’s box him in. Lethal force is authorized and recommended. We don’t know how many tricks he has, so don’t let him use them.”

I had really just wanted to stay here and constantly watch the killer’s position so that I could keep them informed and we wouldn’t lose sight of him again… But at the same time, I wasn’t sure if the police would be able to fight him. At the very least, he had his Blood Affinity and a plasma pistol. So, I just cancelled my X-Ray vision mode and ran along with them. In the meantime, I made sure that all of my combat aspects were activated.

Scales covered my skin, my bones hardened, and I set up a breath weapon with the lightning element. With this, I should be able to counter most anything he had to throw at me. Though, I had noticed something strange about him when I saw him. His face lacked any of the normal facial characteristics. His eyes were blank, his mouth without lips, and his nose completely absent. They simply seemed to be gaps in the flesh. When his mouth was closed, it seemed as if it wasn’t there at all. He had no hair on his head, and only small holes in the side of it where his ears should have been. This man was meant to be a shapeshifter, but why would he take on such an appearance?

I was liking this situation less and less as time went on. I had the feeling that I’d be getting the answers to all of my questions soon, and when I did I wouldn’t like them. Thankfully, we knew where he was, and we were going there with our weapons at the ready. Though, I was still not pulling out my plasma weapons, because I would likely be commanded to hand them over.

After just a minute or so, we were already on the second floor of the station, and they had me do another sweep for the killer. What I found was that the scene of the death had already been set, and he was actually running towards us, before he suddenly jumped up, his body elongating as he dived into an air vent. Nobody said he could do that. That’s cheating. Still, I reported what I saw and kept an eye on him as he passed near us. He must have been warned by the AI, because he immediately looked in our direction and crawled off as fast as he could.

Using my Metal Manipulation, I targeted the vent he was in, and attempted to collapse it around him. However, my magic acted too slowly at this range, and he was able to slip his body through with only a few scrapes. With that, he scurried off into an intersection, and rushed down to the lower level. Once again, I reported his location and we gave chase. Only officers Johnson and Matthews stayed behind, instead moving towards Jean’s office.

“Tsk tsk, isn’t that cheating? Using your special eyes like that.” The AI’s voice sounded out again right after I stopped watching the killer so that I could chase as well. “At this rate our game won’t be very fun at all. In the case, how about we raise the stakes?”

Soon, just as we were getting out of the stairwell on the first floor, there was another scream in the distance. Immediately, I looked with my X-Ray vision, and found the collapsed bodies of the two officers we had just left behind. However, the killer was nowhere in sight. Looking around, I wasn’t able to find him anywhere. I had lost sight of him for twenty seconds at most, and in that time he had doubled back and killed both of the officers before vanishing?

Well, we were certainly getting our exercise chasing this guy. Moving back up, we again went to Jean’s office, this time actually entering. The two officers had horrified expressions on their faces, as if they had seen something horrible as they died. However there were no wounds to be found anywhere on them. It sent chills down my back to realize how they must have died instantly to some method they couldn’t defend themselves against.

“John, look closely at their auras… something’s wrong.” Celeste spoke up, noticing something I hadn’t yet. There really was something wrong with their auras. Something that had been wrong with all of the dead people, which I hadn’t thought much of because I considered they had been dead for a while already. Their auras had already withered, as if their souls had left their bodies. Normally, this didn’t happen until twenty four hours after the death of a creature, but these men had died only a moment ago.

“Hulett, tell me you have eyes on him.” The acting police chief glanced my way, and I did another sweep of the building. However, I could not find him anywhere. Then, my attention turned back to these two bodies in front of me.

Celeste, is it possible? I asked the AI, not wanting to voice my thoughts yet.

“What..?” She spoke up, and I could hear her confused tone, before she made a sound of realization. “Yes. It’s the most likely answer. But you’ll need to do it quick, before he notices.”

I nodded my head slightly, and then turned to Monte. “Let’s go out to the hall. I can’t think straight in here…” He raised an eyebrow at me, but nodded nonetheless. Just as everyone was pulling out, I closed my eyes and reached into my grove. Focusing behind me, I summoned my large water slime into the room, completely filling it. This caused several of the officers to immediately draw their weapons and open fire, but their bullets did nothing to the slime. “Don’t worry, it’s with me.”

I looked back to the room, watching and waiting. Monte came up next to me and whispered in a harsh voice. “What the hell is going on?”

“The killer can instantly kill, erase bodies, and even shapeshift. He had no time to run away after killing those two before I searched for him.” As I spoke, I watched the blood vanishing from within the room, absorbed into Yo’s body, while the three bodies began withering. “There’s only one place he could be hiding.”

Monte looked like he was about to speak, but suddenly the body of Officer Johnson twitched, before lunging out of the water slime with more speed than he should have possessed. As I took a good look, I saw that his feet had become flippers to make him exit faster. Now, normally this is the point where the villain would take his time to monologue while the cops had their guns pointed at him.

Unfortunately, I was beyond annoyed, and didn’t wait for that. Opening my mouth, I released the blast of lightning mana that I had prepared beforehand. The blast of energy struck him directly in the chest, just as he was recovering from the damage of the slime. The surrounding cops were still frozen in place, since the person that had just charged out had appeared to be one of their colleagues, who they had known to have just died.

After being struck by the blast, ‘Officer Johnson’ was thrown back, crashing against the wall. Unsure of whether or not he’d be getting up, I decided not to take that chance. I quickly worked a pair of elements that would surely finish him off. First, Metal Manipulation on the wall to make a long strip of steel wrap around his torso, and finally Void Manipulation to surround his entire body in void mana while removing the wind mana.

I could see him coughing soundlessly, trying to get a breath. Before his last breath faded, he looked to me and said something. However, being locked in a vacuum meant that his voice carried no sound. Still, Celeste managed to interpret it by reading his lips. ‘We are Legion.’

The moment he died, I began to feel a sharp pain in my head, while a blue window appeared in front of me.

Quest Completed!It's All Just a Game

Rank ★★☆ Investigation

You have killed the Soul Legion, ending his reign of terror.

Reward: Level +2, Increased Familiarity with Oakland Police, Soul Arts Skill

New Skill Unlocked!Soul Arts - Beginner Level 1

0% Exp

This skill enables you to draw upon the very essence of others, using it in unconventional and potentially dangerous ways.

New Ability Unlocked!Absorb Soul - Soul Arts - ★★

By absorbing the soul of a recently departed creature, you are able to gain a portion of their knowledge and ability.

Information streamed into my head as these windows appeared, and as if playing through a tutorial, my body automatically drew the soul of the Legion into myself. Memories not my own flooded into me, bits and pieces of a broken past.

I saw myself freeze in terror as an unfamiliar blue screen appeared, symbolizing what could be the end of the world. I saw a silver capsule appear in my bedroom, and found myself drawn towards it. I knew in my mind that I had a unique skill that I had refined by playing various games and adapting knowledge from them, and knew that it was the one thing that could help me grow strong enough to survive in this new world.

I saw myself standing before a mountain of a man, made fully of stone as he instructed me to choose a race for myself. In order to match with this new skill I wanted to create, I chose an alien race capable of changing their shape at will. Then the image faded briefly, and I found myself standing before a druid at the edge of town, begging for training. However, I was refused. He told me that my level was not high enough, and I must come back later.

In a rage, I ran off, and started using this unique skill against other players as they were leveling. It allowed me to easily gain their own skills and make them my own. However, each time there was a growing voice in my head, a presence I didn’t know. Soon, I had grown strong enough to pick a class. Again, I sought the druid trainer. This time, he accepted me. The voices told me to kill him, to add his skills to my own, but I endured. For two weeks I endured while he taught me the ways of druid magic, helping me found my very own grove, but something was wrong.

When my grove was established, it was not the peaceful lump of rock he had described it as, but a sea of blood. I felt betrayed, as if he did this to me on purpose. Giving in to the voices, I caught my trainer by surprise and absorbed his essence. My grove immediately expanded, rocky areas growing within the bloody landscape. My power grew by leaps and bounds, but I felt myself starting to fracture. I could no longer control the voices, I had let them take over too much.

My skill, which had initially been a mental skill meant to absorb the knowledge of a person, had become twisted in this world. I saw scenes, memories of everyone I had killed. Their childhood, their loves, their hates. I saw stars born, I saw planets shatter through eyes I did not know. I learned of something, information that pieced itself together in my head from these broken memories, and knew that my life was pointless, that it was all going to end. So, I continued absorbing, growing stronger and stronger. Soon, powerful people were sent out to kill us because of what I had done. The voices told me to absorb them too, and I tried. But they were too strong, I couldn’t touch their souls.

After they killed me, I found myself back in this doomed world, back in my own body. Was this my body? I could no longer remember what I looked like, my own name. I had a hundred names, a hundred faces. But not one of them felt like mine. We took the name Legion, and since we could no longer grow in that distant realm, we would grow here. This world would fade away, but the Legion will be eternal. First, though, I must grow again.

I decided to practice, first with those who had yet to accept their new fate. One of me was a mage, and she could read the levels of others. We were surprised by how many people were so useless here, so we put them out of their misery. When we killed them, we used the magic of another, who had learned to control the flow of blood to heal others, to send a warning. The end was coming. We even went to the police and took one of them to join us. He helped control the AI, give it our voice.

Soon, we saw another working with the police. One of us called him druid, and we decided to obtain him as well. We were sure enough now. So we went to the police station and waited with the face we had stolen. He was our prey, but did he have to be our only prey? This room was full of people eagerly growing their powers. A buffet for one such as us. So we decided to play a game. One we made the rules for, one we could not lose. The station itself was our friend.

First was the one that showed the druid trust. He should be able to get close. He called us druid as well. Were we? Some of us said yes, while others said no. No matter, we absorbed him, and he became part of us.

Again the image faded, and soon we were running. He had found us, but how? Some voices said he was a Technomancer, one who becomes as a machine. But his skill was too low, he was too weak. So we went and played our game, painted the scene for them to find. Our friend in the walls told us that they were coming, so we left. He told us that the druid could see us, so we tricked him. We let him think we left, then went back when our friend told us he wasn’t looking. What luck, there were two fools grieving in the room. We absorbed them and replaced one, waiting for our chance to strike.

What is this water? Did they turn on the sprinklers? No… it feels strange. Several voices cried out danger, danger, so we fled, becoming as a fish to exit this strange substance. As we stood up outside, a blast rocked our chest. Our lungs burned and we could not breathe. Looking up, we saw me. Was it me? Wait, no… it was the druid. Am I the druid?

“John! John, snap out of it!” We heard a familiar voice, a woman standing next to us, crying out in distress. “No, John! Stop, it’s just a memory! You’re still you!” She seemed to be on the verge of tears. Was she one of the voices? Nobody else seemed to notice her, though they kept their eyes on us. “I’m sorry, John… You can yell at me later.”

Our world turned dark, and we found ourselves quickly disappearing. Soon, there was just one left. Who am I? I think I can remember, almost. It’s just there, beyond my reach. “It’s okay, John, I’m still here.” That woman was there again. I think… I think I remembered her name. Celeste? “That’s right, John.” She suddenly broke out in a happy smile as I thought of her name. “It’s good to have you back.”