A shiver ran down Azrael’s back as he tried not to blink.

For the past half an hour or so, or at least he assumed that it had been half an hour, he’d been staring at the black Beast. It had stared back, unflinchingly.

Truth be told the time could have been far shorter, or far longer. The tension that was between them made his focus razor sharp, but everything else seemed to blur.

Still, he didn’t blink. He didn’t dare to look away from the dark silhouette that had manifested itself from within him.

Some things were better left buried, hidden away in the darkest corners of the heart, forgotten and ignored by the mind. When most people buried memories and feelings of their past they didn’t want it back. And normally they didn’t. It was an unfortunate luxury that he didn’t seem to have. His past, it seemed, had decided to comeback and haunt him.

Like a silent spectre it watched him. The gaze it returned was both blazing with bloodlust and cool with sharp intelligence and yet somehow reproachful at being forgotten. It frightened him, because it was him – at least a part of him. No matter how much he might have wished to deny it he couldn’t. He could feel that it was the truth. This Beast was as much him yet not him as his feelings were his, but not exactly his either.

There were other feeling in it of course, beyond rage and reproach, but they were hidden behind its fiercely blazing will to run amok.

A sharp tap resounded on the door, causing Azrael to accidentally break his gaze. As the door opened, his watchful shadow flickered losing its canine shape and vanished, streaming towards him. Mors appeared in the doorway, the sunlight dispersing any shadows that remained inside.

“We need to talk” Mors said.

Azrael just stared at the floor where his shadow touched his feet, seemingly ignoring him.

Mors stepped inside and Azrael’s head suddenly snapped up, his eyes pitch black. His sclera and normally radiant gold irises were stained in the deepest black. He snarled.

Mors stumbled back as a veritable explosion of [Stone Spikes] exploded from the floor. A [Fire Bullet] detonated right where he had been a moment before, blasting part of the door and doorway apart. The Beast snarled and inside Azrael screamed, struggling to regain control of his own body.

Adrenaline filled his body with fire, while he felt old emotions break to the surface. Like boiling magma they broke through the cooled crust that had hidden them and they came fore with all the power of a natural disaster.

He slashed at Mors, his summoned stone dagger elongating to rapier length. Only [Reinforcement] kept the blade from shattering. Mors parried each blow with a piece of splintered scrap wood. While no longer desperate after the first sudden surprise, it was still awkward, as Azrael manipulated his blades into different lengths and shapes.

Time and time again the stone blade would shatter from the force of their blows, even with the [Reinforcement] and time and time again the blade was brought back into existence, flaws fixed and stronger than before.

The two fighters rounded the building, entering onto the large and dusty area where they’d previously been fighting. The burning shame of seeing the place he’d been defeated added fuel onto an already raging fire. The Beast felt the shame stronger than he did. It had his pride, and more violent tendencies. It renewed the fight with vigour.

Meanwhile, Azrael felt like he was drowning, sinking. Emotions rushed past him in chaotic geysers, while the light seemed to fade from his grasp. Unlike the cold bottom of the deepest ocean, it was hot. Blistering hot. Or at least it should have been. Somehow, to him the darkness, and all the madness that it hid and held, seemed to embrace him. It felt familiar, safe.

A warmth suffused him, allowing him not to think about everything he was feeling right now. He recognised it for what it was. Denial. Humans were good at denying and he was no exception. It had allowed him to live, to pass on from grief, to pass on from regret.

Grief and regret were still here though. They swirled around him. Bearing him down. He let himself sink, watching the battle.

Outside, the Beast leapt around with a precise grace that Azrael had forgotten. Each move made the next one more efficient. Each move maximised the energy spent to either strike, or avoid, Mors’ makeshift sword.

The Beast relished it, the wild combat, the flurry of moves. And in a way forgotten to him Azrael did too. A single mistake and it was over.

He watched it hold its own against The Sword Saint, his body moving with a graceful savagery that he had long buried. Perhaps it was better this way. To let it fight.

The Beast felt his resistance weaken and he felt the emotions flooding in, coursing through him. They became one, or rather it dominated him. He could feel its feelings, its will, its thoughts.

And the feeling caused him to shudder with pleasure. The sheer exhilaration, the adrenaline. It burned with a passionate fire that he’d forgotten. It coursed through him, like a drug. He hadn’t felt so alive in… since he’d played with Samson.

The piece of wood lanced through the air towards him, trapping him between it and the wall of Mors’ house. Azrael felt despair even as his own face twisted into a grin beyond his control.

His body fell backwards, into the dark shadows of the wall. He tried to protect his head, but his body wasn’t his own anymore. The Beast had it firmly in its control.

The wall never came. One minute he was facing Mors and the next the world went dark, a world of shadows. If he had been able to, he would have screamed. Instead, he was forced to watch as his body hurtled through the shadows only to step back into the real world through Mors’ shadow. His blade stabbed into his opponent’s thigh.

The piece of wood came down, stabbing through the shadowed ground where he’d been a moment ago. He appeared out of the shadow of the house again, alongside a notification.

Congratulations!

Due to successfully utilising the technique you have gained a level in [Shadow Step].

[Shadow Step] (Lv.1) has advanced to [Shadow Step] (Lv.2).

Mors sensed his return and the blade cut through the air horizontally. Azrael was no longer there though, having propelled himself up with a sudden burst of compressed [Air]. He hurled a [Fire Bullet] at Mors, forcing the man to move. The swing never stopped though.

The makeshift sword caught his ankle, causing him spin in the air and to land awkwardly. He grinned, even as his bones creaked from the impact. It hurt.

Pushing back with another gust of [Air] he made some distance and fired [Fire Bullets] at rapid pace. They sprayed everywhere, detonating against the ground, in the air and on the walls of Mors’ house. A swipe from Mors’ weapon caused them to gutter out, but the damage was already done, with the house wall having a new window blasted into it. The old man looked disgruntled, irritated even, and it brought a fresh grin to Azrael’s face. The old man was finally showing some emotion.

Remorselessly Azrael, continued to hold his distance, firing [Fire Bullet] after [Fire Bullet], along with the occasional [Stone Bullet] to try and catch his opponent off guard.

It also felt so good, letting everything go, truly go. No rules, no rights, no honour. It was just a fight. Humans overcomplicated everything. In this battle he felt free.

The Beast relished the freedom, rejoicing in it. Its emotions coursed through him, elating him.

No longer was it bound by custom, by manner, by society.

Society was hypocritical. It made rules to include everyone, only to reject everyone that didn’t fit in. It made rules to protect the wealthy, manners to keep a hierarchy. But behind that façade it was all laughing faces and twisted grins behind a mask of manners and polite courtesies. They helped nobody, yet expected everything. A hypocritical society of those who felt entitled.

It made him sad. It made him angry.

In the real world you couldn’t be you. Anger was reviled, grief hidden and revenge was demonised.

Anything less than the perfect mask was criticized, and eventually destroyed.

Azrael stopped moving. His breathing laboured. His hand raised itself without any conscious thought on his part. He felt the Beast’s emotions. To destroy and to protect.

To protect himself, itself, themselves, it would destroy. It would destroy before it could be destroyed.

In the deepest pit of shadows, Azrael gasped as the darkness around him suddenly became darker and more stifling. The emotions burned him, burned in him and he felt himself try and claw himself out of the metaphorical pit.

Mana rushed through him, gathering. It was more than he’d ever mustered at one. It was everything, every remaining reserve. All of it surged through him, forming a raging torrent from his hand to his soul. A bridge for the powers yet to come.

The gate to the void opened and he felt his mana twist as it tried to contain it. The energy from the void tried to twist reality, even as the mana tried to shape it.

Inside, Azrael fought against the shadowy restraints that bound him, but he already knew that it would be too late, that he was too late.

The energy from the void manifested in the world as a distortion, barely visible. It churned with a promise of being, with the promise of potential. All that kept it from bursting forth into being was a thin casing of mana. His mana.

The Beast pointed at Mors, the swordsman seemingly oblivious to the danger directed towards him. The Beast would destroy anything that threatened it, anything that dared fight with it.

It fired and Azrael screamed. He screamed loudly as the unstable void energy passed through him. It was blazing hot and icy cold. It was the tearing of a thousand claws and the passing of softest silk. It hurt, it soothed, it called to him.

His hand jerked to the side in an attempt to redirect it, but it was too late. The roiling mass of void energy was already flying through the air. At best, he had displaced it a little to the side. It wasn’t enough.

In a twisted mess of magic, void energy and matter the resulting devastation was unlike any other that Azrael had ever experience, or ever would.

The unstable energy from the void broke free from his mana as it travelled through the air, tearing through space and dusty ground alike with impunity. Sand and stone exploded outwards in a bubble, warping and tearing everything down to its base particles before reconstructing it in alien forms. The entire explosion was silent, swift and deadly.

Drained of mana, will power and mental energy Azrael collapsed down to the ground, finally back in control of his body again.

He stared at the twisted explosion blankly. Sand, stone and dirt all hung suspended in mid-air, frozen in an impossible moment. A fine lattice of spider web like stone crisscrossed through the entire thing gaining density near the center of the explosion.

Despite all the impossible otherworldly beauty that the explosion held, Azrael could only stare at it blankly. He’d killed Mors.

He’d killed Mors.

He’d killed an innocent old man. He’d killed before, in the game, but it wasn’t the same. Those had been other players, able to respawn. In other games he’d killed NPCs, sure, but they were mindless, unfeeling bits of code. Mors had had his own life, his own story, and Azrael had ended it.

The Beast, bound in chains again, laughed, even as it struggled to escape. It laughed at his weakness. It revelled at its strength. Mors’ death meant nothing to it. In the same way that Mors had looked down at Azrael coolly, the Beast looked down on him. It was the right of the strong.

And such was the way of the jungle. It had defeated a strong opponent to protect what it cared for. For all of its intelligence, the Beast still acted on its base needs and instincts, rather than on rational and logical thought. Or rather it was more free in the way that it accepted its own thoughts and feelings and acted upon them.

Azrael blacked out, drained. It was sudden, instead of a transition.

He fell crumpled down onto the dusty ground.