Heyo, sorry this is a lot later than intended.

So a lot of you might know that I have overdone it a bit with missing sleep, turns out it was more than a bit as I have been sleeping more than 12 hours each night and only now feel like a human being again (yes I really need a slap for being so irresponsible I know)

16 hours of straight sleep, can you believe it? I at least can't.

Anyways, because I decided to take a better care of my body my entire writing schedule was messed up (I mostly write deep at night which was probably one of the reasons I missed so much sleep lol) so I am working on finding a suitable schedule and time for all of this.

Writing two (or more? Hehehehe *sneaky Abbadon is sneaky*) stories with such a chapter count might have overdone it slightly and I am currently behind 3 Azalon and 1 Yokai Chapters (Yes I do keep count and they won't just not appear) but I needed the break this past week to feel somewhat better so I have time to completely wreck myself in these next 4 days I have off again XD. jk jk but expect a few more chapters than usual as this is only the first one of the lot.

Also another announcment, I will be spending a few days at my dad's from the 1st till maybe the 5th or 6th of January so there won't really be any chapters during that time period, once I am back though I practically have off until the 11th so much time for writing again *BANZAI!*

Anyways that is pretty much it and I hope to bring you a lot more chapters in the following days as the least thing I can do is get my chapter count back out of the minus, don't like being in debt and it only gets worse! D:

Hope you enjoy the chapter as it turned quite a bit darker than intended with that ending lol

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Chapter 73: Unhinged

It wasn’t like before where he felt the other coming and fighting for control, it happened slowly and without his knowledge.

Makoto didn’t lose consciousness, instead everything became much clearer as his mind twisted and turned with the hidden influence of the beast.

Just like the madness inside of him he couldn’t help but giggle when he looked at Stellarwick as if he was his new little plaything.

Images of torture and inhuman suffering surfaced in his mind with the silent guidance of the other and he couldn’t help but feel a bit excited as he imagined what he would do to this poor little NPC.

With itching finger, unable to hold himself back anymore he charged forward, completely disregarding his previous stance or intent to maybe create a skill by following the way of the sword.

He just wanted to make this piece of shit that stood before him suffer.

Turning his ankles, hip and shoulder in a whip like strike his sword lashed out with a whistling sound as multiple bones in his arm cracked by the sudden movement and he lost a good chunk of health but he couldn’t even care a single bit and ignored the pain that rushed through him.

Faced with such an unusual and self-destructive way of attacking, Stellarwick was a split second too late to fully dodge and a nasty gash appeared on his left shoulder as a bit of flesh and muscle fell to the floor, chopped off from his body.

Completely ignoring the shocked faces of his party or surrounding NPCs, Makoto took another step forward and once again lashed out with such a force that his shoulder dislocated and his elbow bent the wrong way while he lost a ridiculous amount of health.

Even his regeneration wasn’t able to keep up with this crazy way of fighting as his sword once again went beyond the physical limitations of the human body and whipped around.

Followed by a scream of surprise and pain, Stellarwick held his bleeding side that had been hit with a terrifying speed and force from the sword.

Ignoring the system windows before him, Makoto was somewhat annoyed as he grabbed his completely useless left arm and with a sudden movement 2 popping sounds filled the courtyard, making everyone instinctively flinch in pain as his shoulder and elbow snapped back into place.

No one, no matter if player or NPC dared to move as they looked at Makoto in horror who had the visage of grinning demon adorned on his face and Stellarwick, an Elite NPC that would normally take an entire party of 6 or more people to bring down was currently shaking in his boots as he looked towards this lunatic.

Once again a system window appeared, informing Makoto that he had successfully applied the status effect ‘Terrified’ which lowered the stats of everyone around by 40%.

He couldn’t help but lift an eyebrow after seeing the advanced version of ‘fear’, in the end it would only make things easier.

Showing the brightest smile he could muster while murder was clearly visible on his face, Makoto once again stepped closer and this time Stellarwick surprisingly took one step back while holding his side from which blood flowed out without end as he was under a severe ‘bleed’ effect.

“J-Just who the hell are you?!”

He asked Makoto, terror visible in his eyes and not even a trace of his earlier arrogance or demeanor was left.

Cracking his neck while playfully swinging his sword around, the smiling demon looked at the shaking NPC with a cold gaze.

“Just your friendly little neighborhood spider helping to clear out the trash.”

Not even bothering to explain the reference and irony, Makoto looked back towards his party with the same insane smile.

“Come on guys or do you all just want to stand there and let me do all the work?”

Finally woken up by his words, everyone excluding Zergoon who had never seen Makoto act this way, exchanged a worried glance.

They knew that something wasn’t right even though he was still aware of his surroundings, the way he carried himself and how he acted had drastically changed and they didn’t have to think long as to why.

Especially Lilliana and Sharon felt more than a little worried as they looked into those gleaming crimson eyes filled with an unnatural light.

“Alright, let’s finish this quickly before he snaps completely.”

Lilliana finally said and Makoto couldn’t help but show a pouting expression as he turned his head towards her.

“Hey I heard that and that is mean, I am completely fine, no need to worry guys.”

The rather cruel smile he used to reassure them seemed to only have the opposite effect and with a shrug he turned back to his meal- I mean pre- no, target.

Shaking his head slightly, Makoto felt like a curtain of red had been pulled over his eyes and no matter how many times he blinked or rubbed his eyes everything was tinged into a different, darker light.

Unbeknownst to him his eyes had started to lose their white and were instead completely bloodshot with the crimson of his iris shining similar to a cat’s in the dark.

Nothing mattered anymore, not his party, not the pain that he still felt in his arm or the world around him, only Stellarwick this little ant before him that he wanted to crush with a mad joy was important.

Letting out an animalistic growl that came from the depths of his throat, Makoto dashed forward.

“K-kill this freak! I will give you all 1 thousand gold each if you kill this goddamn lunatic for me!”

Stellarwick shouted with a high pitched voice to the surrounding NPCs that still sat around the long table.

Finally waking up from their staring and awe, the sound of gold coins finally enticed many of them to draw their weapons as they followed Makoto who was madly dashing forward with complete disregard for their levels or professions.

“Goddamnit Makoto get your head back into the game already!”

Sanja screamed as she swung her staff into the face of a sprinting warrior with all her strength like a baseball player would when hitting a homerun.

Many more NPCs rushed past her and she was unable to stop them as the rest of the party struggled in the same manner to hold back as many of the gold crazed NPCs as they could.

Zergoon didn’t even bother long before he found a good spot and shot one of his iron spears through the chest of 3 dashing men that instantly dropped dead to the floor, impaled like shish kebab with their fellow brothers.

“If they get to Makoto and kill him we are the next ones on the list so hold them back for fucks sake!”

He screamed towards the others while swinging the empty crossbow like a gigantic club as he bashed it on top of the head of another person that tried to pass him.

Lilliana quickly summoned her Dungeon boar and made it charge to intercept the surrounding people as best as she could while occasionally throwing a fire ball into a few faces to rob them of their vision.

Sharon on the other hand was non-stop shooting into eyes, knees or sides to trigger as many status effects that would limit mobility as possible while using her ability ‘Slingshot’ whenever it was off cooldown to ensnare as many targets as she could.

Even thought they had their stats reduced by 40% and were below their level the overall number was still more than 4 times their own and if they all piled up on Makoto even he would eventually die, especially now that he fought so recklessly.

The pressure on everyone was huge as Makoto chased the injured and scared Stellarwick around the whole courtyard.

Shrieks of horror and pain could be heard from time to time as more flesh was chipped off from the NPCs body.

Naturally he tried to hit back, swinging his axe with mad rage, fueled even more by fear but no matter how many times he tried, Stellarwick was unable to leave even a single scratch on the nimble Makoto.

It was like every single attack or movement of his was seen through and no matter what he tried the axe never even came close to hurting the smiling demon.

Feeling as if he was trapped in a nightmare, the NPC started to let out fearful sobs as the wounds on his body increased.

Occasionally one of the other NPCs would reach Makoto but an arrow, flame ball or highly lethal spear bolt would quickly either incapacitate or kill the ones who tried to attack him from his blind spot.

Eventually, riddled with bleeding gashes and wounds all over his body and chased around to the point of complete exhaustion, Stellarwick’s body could no longer endure and he fell to the floor with ragged breath, unable to take even another step forward.

“Are you already done? Well I guess I had enough fun for now.

It was nice knowing you ste-… what was your name again?

Ah who cares.”

Not even bothering to look at the blue box above the guy’s head he moved forward and plunged his sword into the eye socket of the trembling NPC.

Lethal Hit!

With a soundless cry Stellarwick died, not thanks to an honorable or memorable fight but instead by being chased and slaughtered like a pig.

It was a sad way to go and it was also at this point that the other went back into slumber, seemingly satisfied with the damage that he had done.

No longer was Makoto’s vision blinded or his thoughts full of torment and murder, instead he stared somewhat listlessly at his own bloodstained hands.

It happened again, without him even realizing it, it happened again.

He didn’t even want to look at the body of Stellarwick and instead turned to his party that had stopped to fight a long time ago.

Their eyes showed a slight fear, Zergoon just seemed to be mostly confused and worried but the girls on the other hand didn’t look sure if it really was him again or something else.

Letting out a tired sigh he walked closer and sheathed his sword.

Just this gesture alone calmed the 3 women in his party down and Lilliana and Sharon quickly stepped forward to make sure he was alright.

“So is anyone going to tell me what the hell just happened? I mean sure I can tell that Makoto somewhat snapped but why so suddenly and without even a reason?

As far as I can tell Stellarwick didn’t really say anything to piss you off.”

Zergoon asked with furrowed brows, clearly unsure of the situation.

Everyone looked towards Makoto who still stood there with a lost look in his eyes and everyone tried their best to keep their mouths shut, after all it was his secret and not theirs.

“It’s not that he pissed me off, I have a condition. A mental condition.”

Not bothering to say anything else he turned around to loot the disappearing bodies of the NPCs.

“Does that happen a lot?”

Zergoon asked Sanja who was the only one still standing next to him.

“Not as much as you might think but it was pretty bad this time around I guess, that’s at least what I can gather from the expression he is showing right now.

If you are worried that he is suddenly going to attack you then you really don’t have to be.

For some reason he only likes to play around with NPCs and mobs, it’s a bit fucked up but we all have our own dark side.”

A shadow appeared on her face for a split second as she finished the sentence before she followed the rest of her party.

Zergoon once again threw a rather worried glance towards the dissipating body of Stellarwick.

“That’s a pretty dark side if you ask me.”

He mumbled before shouldering his gigantic crossbow.

.....

The rest of the day passed quickly without another incident.

They hunted a few more of their targets and Makoto was slowly but surely approaching his next level.

Even though he spent a lot of time on it and it did help him to land better and more accurate blows he still had not unlocked the corresponding skill for his sword and it baffled Makoto whetever it was his approach or if he was missing something else.

Sharon threw a few glances his way during the entire time and Lilly did the same when she thought he wasn’t looking while he just tried to pretend like he didn’t see it.

The best way for this to pass was to not make big deal out of it.

It happened yes but that didn’t mean it was going to happen again, at least Makoto hoped so.

The scary thing was that during these past few weeks the other had gotten a lot stronger and he would be lying to himself if he didn’t realize that it was Azalon, the game itself that was responsible for that.

At the same time he couldn’t just stop playing to make his condition better, especially now that he had a party and people that cared about him… it didn’t matter what happened in the future, as long as no one he cared about got hurt he would gladly turn into a monster.

He loved the game and it had given him so much back already, happiness that he thought lost to him as well as many other things.

Getting this game was to date the best thing that happened to him and if that meant losing who he really was… so be it.

It was a rather grim way to look at things but the more he thought about it, the more determined he got.

Makoto would keep playing the game, no matter at what mental cost it came for him.

Looking at both Lilliana and Sharon that stood next to him he couldn’t help but be relieved that no matter what happened Ingame, they would not suffer for it physically in the Real World.

Until now the other never hurt the ones that he cared about but it was proven that it wasn’t always the case if he thought back to what happened with his own father.

Even if it might hurt them mentally they would not be hurt in Real Life.

It was also at this moment that his thoughts went into a different direction and he realized that meeting Sharon outside of the game… might not be the best option if it got any worse.

He wanted to see her and be with her but hurting her… that was not something he could allow his red haired angel to go through.

Just why the hell did it have to be like this, why couldn’t he just be normal?!

The self-hate he was currently experiencing was beyond anything he ever felt and even after logging out it stayed the same way.

Standing before the mirror he noticed that his before dark eyes had somewhat changed and whenever the light fell into them a crimson glow was visible in the depths of his Iris.

How that was possible or why it happened didn’t matter, maybe he was just imagining things but the moment that he noticed it his head slammed against the mirror with enough force to crack it.

Pain shot through his head as he glared into the broken bathroom mirror and kept pressing his forehead against it, despite the blood that visible ran down his face.

Makoto looked deeply into his own eyes as he spoke with an unprecedented rage.

“This is my goddamn body, do you hear me?

MINE!”

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And with that I end this little chapter that hints at quite a few things.

If you find any mistakes please do tell below and Merry Christmas everyone!

PS: I am spending the holidays alone T-T no girlfriend no family no nothing, sad days indeed.

Abbadon out!