Redemption is the most arduous path to take because you’ve ruined the foundations of trust and friendship. Sadly, there will always be doubt, no matter how much you redeem yourself. Such is the life of a betrayer.

~Morrigan, The Mysterious Goddess of Fate

A year ago…

Dead. Everywhere he visited was filled with death, and with his new form of cultivation, he could sense the resentment and malaise. The karmic debt linked itself to him, so he knew that the Hunger Curse was his fault.

Kafe stood at the center of the town and felt nothing. He knew he killed these families but held no emotion as he stared at the lingering ghosts. Instead, he used his power to cleanse them of their hate and the taint the curse left on them. Shortly after using his powers, the dead no longer lingered in this realm.

Kafe felt the need to visit many ghost towns and cleanse them as penance. It was one of the few spells he learned during his Spiritualist training and the one that the old man emphasized the most. It was the only one that could help balance his karma.

Just because Kafe lost his old cultivation, it hadn’t made him a good person, only more conscious of his own actions. He no longer harbored evil intent, either. The underlying person hadn’t changed, only his methods.

Sighing, he continued on his mission.

Present day…

Deep in the jungle, a temple covered in vines was lost beneath a canopy of trees meshed so tightly that rain struggled to get through. The pyramid shape and giant serpentine statues were typical of the indigenous people.

The jungle people worshipped Nathair as their god, and it demanded sacrifices. Usually, the local tribes captured outsiders and beheaded them at the top of the temple, letting their blood flow down inside.

Even though this temple had long been abandoned, Kafe could still smell the blood. There was so much rage and resentment that even his Spiritual Barrier spell couldn’t keep the black miasma of death from affecting him.

It wasn’t until he found the place that he realized Nathair wasn’t the local myth everyone thought it was. One of the temples he came across had collapsed and exposed part of the temple’s interior. They hollowed the center out, and inside he found a massive, broken egg. They infused the shell with the blood of thousands of victims, and the serpentine beast within was only skin and bones. It was enough to recognize that it looked just like the statues. Its shape mainly was that of a serpent but had arms like that of humans.

Kafe wasn’t as knowledgeable about their origins. Still, he was sure the Nathair had a distant kinship to the shape-shifting Mouros. And he hoped to never come across one. Many scriptures state nothing is born evil, but Kafe was positive that did not apply to these serpent people. Anything born of ritualistic sacrifice and in a blood baptism never had much chance of being something good.

The longer he hesitated, the more this place would taint him, so he started the incantations. His hands wove the intricate runic designs in the air, and as each rune formed, they rotated around him. The bright blue light that emanated from them dispelled the surrounding miasma. Kafe walked forward as more and more runes formed until he had six lines of runes rotating around him. It looked as if he hid inside a runic sphere.

Reaching the top of the pyramid, Kafe took out the ritual components he had prepared ahead of time and placed them on the four corners of the sacrificial platform. Finally, he tossed dozens of the stones he’d carved into the hole where the blood drained into.

The clacking of stones echoed back as they bounced downward. Once six more rings of runes surrounded him, with a total of twelve, he traced out one last rune around the hole. The lines touched the four components he’d already placed, and when he was done, his body was drenched in sweat.

Closing his eyes, he stepped outside the runic circle, placed his hands down on the chalk, and released his spell. A massive influx of power left him, but it drew more mana from the surrounding area until the rune and four objects glowed bright enough to blind someone. The energy he felt came from the stones he tossed below because his spell also activated their runes. Once activated, they absorbed all the built-up resentment and converted it into spiritual energy, which was absorbed by Kafe and his ritual.

The screeching of thousands of dead souls ripped at his ears, but Kafe didn’t stop channeling his spell. This was the most dangerous part of the entire ritual, and if he was distracted or enticed by the evil voices whispering to him, he’d lose his life.

Actions like these were the fastest way for him to gain power, but his karmic balance only improved slightly since he wasn’t the one who wronged these people. An hour later, he felt the resentment fade, and the last of the trapped souls escaped into the cycle of reincarnation. A sigh expelled that accumulated impurities, and he stopped channeling the spell.

It was all he could do. The rest was up to time and fate. Just because he released the ghosts trapped within didn’t mean the Death Mana or negative energy would disappear immediately. Kafe felt it’d be another ten years before it’d dissipate enough for life to enter here without fear.

Walking away from the temple, he set up camp nearby. He didn’t want to be too close to the miasma infecting the entire area, but it was necessary to remain close. Nathair were territorial, and as long as there was enough food present, it wouldn’t leave its birthplace. Even Kafe wasn’t sure why that was so, but it didn’t take much thought to realize why they built these temples so far apart.

He needed this time to cultivate and recover his energy. He didn’t always win these fights, but it wasn’t necessary to defeat them either. The primary task was already completed. Kafe’s eyes opened in the middle of the night, and his irises glowed blue in the darkness as he looked toward the temple.

“Who dares!?” A roar ripped apart the silence. Any beast close enough to that location fled as far away as possible.

Kafe threw his head back and summoned his Spirit companion. The spectral outline of the beast merged with him, and Kafe grew a half meter while his body expanded outward, rippling with muscle. The bluish aura around him was the only sign that he wasn’t the beast hybrid he appeared to be. If a cultivator could pierce the aura, they’d see two souls overlapping.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Kafe growled.

“Your kind still live?” the Nathair asked.

Kafe didn’t say anything, but his hands wove more incantations, and runes formed around him like a barrier. The serpent surged forward with his spear, leading the charge, and when Kafe slid to the side, a tail was there waiting to take his head off. His runic shield took most of the blow, but it still sent Kafe stumbling back several meters.

Several more runes appeared, forming another ring around him. Then, his Wood Shield lit up as he removed a staff from his dimensional space. He crafted it from mundane materials, but its runes were his own. Kafe channeled energy into it and danced forward like a lupine predator.

Both of them roared as they crossed weapons once more, but this time Kafe’s backhand strike gouged the serpent’s back. The spectral claws ripped through the hardened flesh like a human child’s tender skin.

As they were about to charge at each other, a spear emerged from the Nathair’s chest. Punctured straight through its heart through the wound Kafe opened in its back.

Kafe was so shocked he stared as it fell to the ground, dead, and didn’t move. If the serpent’s death shocked him, the woman who stepped down off its back shocked him even more.

“Thank you for this favor, Acco. You may return to Crow and the others,” Nadia said.

“You sure? I recognize him now. Isn’t he that Hex Vodun that Crow saved? Is he the one—wait, that wasn’t Hex magic? What is happening right now?” Acco felt he shouldn’t leave until he knew more.

“I was Hex Vodun, and I owe Crow a life. I gave up my cultivation to become a Spiritualist. You may return and tell him, and I promise no harm will come to Nadia.”

Acco looked at Nadia, who nodded in turn. “Should I wait in the nearby town, or are you not returning?”

“Go on ahead. I know where Crow and the others are headed, and I’m sure I’ll hear of his antics. Finding him is simple.”

Acco chuckled and disappeared from sight.

“I think it’s high time we had a talk, lover,” Nadia’s voice sounded colder than the serpent. Kafe sighed while releasing his spirit summoning.

“Not here. This place is tainted,” he told Nadia and felt that he was about to face his greatest opponent yet. Even now, he felt the stirrings of desire and wasn’t sure he could resist her.