Nearly total darkness surrounds me, as slowly, one by one countless children appear. Their voices fill the area as every single one of them start begging me to stop hurting them, for me to forgive them, and to make the pain stop. I remember every single one of them, their faces are burned deep into my being, so I never forget what I have done.

Every single one of them was killed by me or died because of my actions. Their wounds bleed as their whimpering fills the area, but I continue to stand immobile with no possibility to move, help them, or change anything. In the middle of them stands a small girl with black and white hair, wearing a pure white dress. She stares into my eyes silently. Her tiny lips start to move, and her accusing voice reaches me, silencing everyone around me.

"You lied."

"You're not my father, you never were. You took me because you wanted to feel better. You never cared about me or how I felt."

"You did what you wanted, and I died because of that."

"I died because of you, because you decided to show pity to me"

"DID I ASK FOR PITY? DID I ASK FOR THIS?!"

"You should've left me alone, then maybe I would've lived!"

"Someone would've eventually picked me up. Me life wouldn't have been easy, but I would live! I would find a loving family, and they would care and love me the way you never could."

"But because of you, your past, and what you are, I'm dead, rotting alongside mountains of body parts!"

Slowly, a blue mark in the form of two big hands appears around her tiny neck. And I easily recognize the owner of them, they belong to me.

This isn't real.

They're all dead. And what I see before me is simply a nightmare created by my sick mind to torture me, to make me suffer, nothing more. But I don't dare to dismiss them, to stop them, to look away. I shouldn't, and I will not. Burning hot tears continue streaming down my face. They themselves no longer suffer, they simply ceased to exist. They're dead simply because their fate crossed mine.

I am the reason for it all.

No one will remember them, no one will avenge them, because no one can. Most of the people who caused their deaths are dead themselves, and those that aren't dead, will either never be found, or never punished.

So I will not look away, because the moment I do, they'll disappear.

I will not allow their deaths to be a tiny milestone in a failed ritual of summoning the fallen.

Their lives meant much more.

I will make sure of that.

...

My eyes shoot wide open and the world slowly fills with a dim light and clarity. Standing up from the old wooden bed, I purge the last bits of drowsiness and start wiping away the cold sweat from my back. The inn's room is quite dark, with it's windows tightly covered by wooden planks, but the sunn still breaks through the cracks nevertheless.

Looking down on my toes, I evaluate their status, and the results of the experiments to restore the missing limb. Out of the four missing toes, and four different experiments, one utterly failed with some kind of meat and bone amalgamation growing in place of a healthy toes. Two toes grew crooked with a piece of bone sticking out, and the last ones more or less look as they should. I sigh. So the bone and cartilage should come first, and only after they're fully restored should the tendon start healing, which should be shortly followed by the nerves, muscles, and skin. But that makes no sense. When I saw healers restore limbs, all of the parts grew together, steadily, as if a tree.

It would be much better if I could experiment with healing other body parts, but my toes are the only things I can spare right now. Even if missing several of them makes it much harder to walk, it's nothing compared to what would happen if I tried to experiment with the fingers on my left hand, the only hand I have left. I sigh again.

Am I doing something wrong?

Maybe the way healers restore limbs is a bit different?

Is the cause external mana, or simply my lack of skills?

I'm going to do many tests before I'll be able to start healing my arm. One way or another I'll have to succeed.

I put on a simply shirt, and my Wendigo coat, and walk down to the first floor of the inn. When people see me they immediately turn their eyes the other way and start whispering between themselves. The inn owner brings several bowls with soup, bread, meat, and much more to the table I sat at, asking again if I didn't want bear or wine. I gesture back that water will be enough. People continue to whisper between themselves, trying not to make eye contact with me while I'm eating.

It took quite some time to reach this small city, thankfully, before that I was able to acquire a horse, which isn't actually a horse, but some kind of local breed of moose, with it my travel speed significantly increased. Sadly, none of the people speak a language that I know of, and the communication is hard. People generally didn't want to speak with me, because usually, cripples in Wendigo fur don't have money. But the few shiny coins that I took from the previous villages, and their aggressive "residents", made a big difference. There were a few villages who wanted to give me things for "liberating" them, slaves, houses, land and more, only if I stayed and continued protecting their village.

Some local bully even tried to use the fact that I'm a cripple who doesn't speak the local language. Because let's look at it frankly, who will even care? I must've been lucky to find money, and I don't even deserve it, I'll waste it on useless things, and the people around could use it more efficiently, right? Several crushed skulls later, those that witnessed the event had a sudden change of heart, they even decided to convey their insight about my "rightful" possession of gold to everyone in the city.

Anyways, in the end, after an attempt to recruit me into­­­ the local Lord's personal guard, my refusal, and several disfigured bodies of sneaky assassins, which were sent by the almighty Lord, who was offended by my refusal. After a short discussion that I organized between myself and the Lord, and his on a pike in the middle of the city's main square, things started changing, and everyone around me suddenly calmed down a bit. There were more "events" between the failed assassination and the Lord's death, but they don't matter anymore.

I'm still in the city, only because I'm waiting for the damn ship, which will travel north to "kotr", though I don't know what that word means, I assume it's either an island or a continent. The ship has been ready for quite some time actually, but it's buried in several meter thick ice. Thankfully, spring is right around the corner, and this temporary stop in my travel will come to an end.

As I found out, I'm currently on the south-eastern most island of a small archipelago of islands. Searching for a good map of the area didn't yield any good results. By local standards a "good map" is a map of the whole island, and the best map the city has only contains a small fraction of the nearest island. When I spoke about the land north from the archipelago, the usual reply was that they knew nothing about that area. I could attempt to travel further through the frozen archipelago, which by my estimation is nearly a thousand kilometers of islands, snow, and ice. And even after all that, I would still need to take a ship further north.

Finishing my huge meal, I walk outside and looking over the snow covered city, I look towards the ocean as I have every day. When I reviewed the local map, and tried to trace the path I took, it became apparent that there are no lakes around here at all. And the area that I walked through, the fog covered one, was actually frozen ocean between two islands. It only by chance did I not turn the wrong way, which would result with me ending up in the middle of the frozen ocean. I've never heard about a frozen ocean, and this fact increased my attention towards the direction I would take and the areas I plan to travel through.

My knowledge of the southern hemisphere is very limited. I know that there's a continent, commonly called the Twin Southern continents, it's actually a single continent divided by a huge canyon and a shallow ocean. The region in general isn't well explored, and any major attempts to chart it either brought no real results, or were generally unsuccessful.

I sit on cold stone and the freezing winds instantly starts to blow on my face, making my skin feel as if a thousand tiny blades are cutting it. Breathing deeply, I start healing my toes, and experimenting on how to heal my right hand at the same time. If I reach a big city I can either find a healer or a high priest and "politely ask" them to restore my limb. If the heal won't cooperate, or the gold won't work, there's always the option of force. But in the end, for what is to come, I need to be able to restore nearly everything myself, muscles, bones, heart, and more.

One of the important milestones was to restore my body to its original state. Only when I arrived in this city did I notice how deformed my body truly was. Back in the mountains, I felt that there was something wrong with the bones, tendons, and muscles, so I tried to change them to the way they should be, and I believed that I fully succeeded. But when I saw the reflection in the water, what looked back at me could hardly be called a human, misaligned eyes, deformed skull, and much more. I looked more like a deformed ghoul with rare hair that grew on my head, which was all dirty grey in colour.

The more I restored my body to its original state, the better I generally could manipulate the bones and muscles in my body. It got to a point where I could change my body structure, so much so that I could become a totally different person. Maybe at some point I'll even be able to change my flesh so much that I would look like a totally different race, or even species...

Even though I said Alan is dead, he shouldn't disappear.

This hate, this wrath, the dark things boiling inside of me belong to Alan.

And he should be the one unleashing it all.

I'm quickly interrupted by a group of kids, they came to ask me to teach them how to fight, as they have every day before. The rumours travel fast, and unlike adults, fear in children disappears quickly. Maybe it's because children don't fully comprehend the concept of danger. I've rejected them many times, but they still continue to come, hoping for a different result.

For what do you want to become stronger? To steal, plunder, and destroy?

Even these innocent kids will one day learn how to take lives, and the innocent kids will be no more.

[So "innocence" is in not taking someone's life?]

[Weapons can be used in two ways, to protect lives, and to take them. In the end, the mind makes the decision and the hand only takes action.]

[If you won't be the one to guide them, someone else will, someone will different goals.]

[And we know their goals all too well.]

When we hear something that contradicts our world view, we instinctively reject it, trying to find a flaw in what was said, or outright dismissing that piece of information.

That happens because of a simple reason, we don't want to die.

Our world view, all of our sense of right and wrong, the sense of "us" itself is built upon numerous pillars of experience and knowledge. If the pillars crumble, there's a chance that we will die. Not death of the flesh, but rather death of the mind. Because upon that new piece of information, a new pillar will be born. And upon that pillar, a new being will be born, maybe someone stronger, maybe someone smarter, but that someone will not be us.

Not us.

And so we continue to dismiss, ignore, and reject what threatens us. And so we continue to live in our bubbles of ignorant, self-righteous, absolutism. The instinct of survival is burnt so deeply in the flesh and mind, that ideas themselves become threats to survival. It's easy to live with people and ideas that support "our" world, as it takes strength and courage to plunge yourself into what can kill us.

And so fear and weakness rule us.

But we call this fear with a different name, because calling what we fear with its own name is a threat to us itself.

Standing up, I walk to the children. And without a single word, gesture to them to stand in position.

Hundreds of them will follow darkness.

But maybe, maybe one will start asking questions.

And so the cycle will continue, so that one day it could be broken.

...

The ocean isn't as nice as the ship captain believed, and right now the crew is trying their best to make sure the ship will survive today's storm. The last storm, which was several days ago, nearly destroyed this oversized fishing boat and killed us all. The ship lost three crew members and two unlucky passengers that night. But this one is much stronger. The ship has been creaking non-stop the whole time, maybe because the ship is old, maybe because we started travelling to early, or maybe because the damn greedy idiots took too much luggage and exceeded the ship's capacity.

Doesn't matter.

I already gathered my supplies, a new steel sword, and a light coat. The Wendigo coat, with which I've been travelling with for some time, had to be quickly exchanged for something much lighter, because if you end up in the water it'll drag you down to the ocean's floor. Even if the ship goes down I won't follow it. I've been in several shipwrecks, and I already have a general idea of what the next events will be.

The problem is, that after people saw me preparing and gathering my things, they started panicking and running around the ship, gathering their stuff, screaming something at the captain and crew. Even though I don't understand the language, I kind of know the questions.

"Is everything okay?"

"Will the ship sink?"

"What is happening?"

"Are we going to die?"

I continue to stand on the ship's deck, listening to the sounds the ships produces, the crashing waves, while I keep my eyes on the horizon. There are more than a dozen travelers standing behind me, and most of them have their stuff in their hands. They're breathing shallowly, sweat visibly dripping down their faces, awaiting what is to come. After about half an hour, I see something on the horizon that tells me that the time has come and I can't wait anymore.

Leaping across the deck, I take out my sword and start chipping off a big piece of the ship's wooden hull. The ship crew try to stop me, but I simply throw them away. Finally chopping the damn thing off, I make it fall down onto the deck. Putting my sword back and fixing it tightly to the rest of my gear, and I pick up the wooden plank. Looking forward towards the horizon, I curse at the rapidly rising, nearly hundred meter tall wave, which looks like a greenish mountain, which is about to fall upon us. The fucking crew slowed me down too much. I grip the wooden plank stronger, and take a running jump into the water, submerging much deeper than I expected.

After more than a dozen long seconds under the freezing cold water, the plank starts dragging me up towards the surface. It takes a while for me to finally break out of the water and start breathing again. A few moments later my eyes find the ship, and the sheer number of people who are jumping out of it. The next instant the ship starts rising up the wave, tilting at a very sharp angle. I lose sight of the ship when the tip of the wave turns white and slams down, swallowing it entirely. The whole event happened nearly unheard because of the raging winds downing all the other sounds out. The waves continue to grow and slam against the ocean, as the number of people I see in the ocean slowly decreases, until I'm alone, fighting to stay away as the freezing cold water steals warmth away from me.

I will survive.

...

Sitting on the wooden plank, I let a few drops of my blood fall into the calm, blue ocean, as sweat is slowly dripping down my face. It's hard to imagine that only a few days ago I was in freezing water, fighting for my life, and now the blazing sun is cooking me alive, like food on a frying pan.

There's another fight happening right now, but this time it's because of hunger.

Dozens of minutes pass, with me quietly awaiting the result, until I finally see a big fin appearing out of the water, quickly travelling in my direction. A smile breaks out on my face. Gripping the sword harder, I prepare for the only chance I'm going to get, as this little fish is a coward, and will swim away the moment it understands that it can't eat me.

With a roar I jump and plunge the sword through the area where I believe the shark has a heart. There's a high chance that I missed the area by a few centimeters, as I am being dragged away, under the water, with my hand still tightly gripping the handle of the sword that's deeply embedded in the shark.

The damn fish starts thrashing around, and even jumping out of the water, one particular jump nearly forced me to release the handle, but I somehow held on through sheer willpower. Shortly after, the fucking fish tries to dive into the deep water, but it fails as it already lost too much blood. Slowly, the shark goes quiet and stops moving. Gripping the handle with my only hand, I swim to the surface. Breaking through the water, I take the sweet air in. Breathing deeply, I start searching for my wooden plank, until I finally find it quite far away, at least a hundred meters away. It looks like the shark swam quite the distance from the original point. I'll need to be careful next time, because this time, there was only one shark, and the plank didn't drift that far away in the calm ocean, but that may not repeat again.

I wanted to throw the shark on the wooden plank, because the damn thing doesn't float, but sinks like a fucking rock. I quickly have to reconsider as the fucking fish is simply too big for the thin plank, and doing everything with a single arm will not yield results. Somehow holding the fish afloat with my legs, I start cutting chunks of meat off and placing them on the plank, one by one.

After about half an hour of suffering with the damn piece of shit, I let the carcass drift down to the ocean floor. It would be really great if I could get it up on the wooden plank and rest it there, but I can't as the meat would simply fall off and all of my work would be wasted. Resting for several minutes, I start eating the meat raw. I know regions where raw fish is considered a delicacy, but for me it's barbaric. Though hungry shitheads, with a single arm, which ended up in the middle of the ocean like me, don't have much choice.

...

There are many questions going through my thick skull, most of them are to the them of,

"Why am I here?"

"What the fuck am I doing?"

or

"How the fuck did it end up like this?"

I was drifting for many days until a ship with a black flag and a skull on it picked me up. The ship was filled with dozens of nearly naked, dirty, smelly thugs with rusty weapons. They're commonly called pirates, and I believed that they would try to attack and enslave someone like me. But the moment they saw my stump, the more than two dozen pirates on the ship, lowered their weapons and started laughing between each other, several even clapped me on my back. A few moments later the ship captain, with a huge hat, arrived and when he saw my stump he joined the group laughing.

The captain looked at the scar on my chest, which was slightly visible through the light shirt I wore. I didn't even try to hide the scar, because if they recognized the symbol, I could simply bully them into following my orders to get me to the continent. If I killed them all managing the ship would become "much" harder.

The captain looked at the scar with furrowed brows and a few seconds later barked some kind of orders. He clapped me on the back with a sad smile, which was missing many teeth, and those that were present were deep black. Several moments later a person with meat and beer arrived and the captain gestured to me to eat. After the short meal, people gave me a broom and together with several other crew members I started cleaning the deck.

I'm not sure what level of irony this is, that the pirates, those that are hated by most with nearly no exception, accepted a random cripple into their team within a few minutes.

No interrogation, no tests, no oath of loyalty.

We don't understand each other, don't speak the same language, or look the same, but I somehow ended up being fully accepted by this bunch.

This would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Somehow pirates ended up being more welcoming than the nobles, merchants, and peasants all together.

Do they think that I'm just another pirate with a missing limb?

Or maybe they thought that the scar is the mark of a slave, and decided to take me in.

This fucking world.

...

I started learning the local language, or at least the pirate's dialect of it. A lot of swearing and shortened words, but enough to understand the basic ideas. Quite quickly, I unexpectedly noticed several correlations with Elvish and ancient Tasar, which nowadays can only be found in old books in the Empire. I'm sure there's a valid reason for that, some kind of historical event, which I believe to most likely be the arrival in the "New Land". The books believe that the original place of arrival in "New Land" is the "Ancient" capital of the Empire.

The Empire actually has three capitals, the Ancient capital in the south-west, the Royal capital in the north-west, and the Holy capital in Zeronel, which is the central province, with each capital serving its own purpose. According to books, starting from the Empire, humans spread throughout the whole continent , and then to the South Twin continents. But that makes no sense, because if that would be true, then the language people speak in the far south would be similar to either the common language of the Empire, Malari, or the Vosel, the common ones in the Desert Alliance or southern regions appeared during the Age of Expansion.

Many questions and no answers yet, nothing new.

Anyway, I'm learning their language quite quickly. A few days ago I only spoke a few simple words, and now I can kind of construct sentences. Though that result may simply be because I genuinely cared about learning it. The original goal was to get to the main continent, and start the hunt from there. But I "involuntarily" was sidetracked, or at least that's what I'm trying to convince myself.

We encountered a storm yesterday, one much smaller than the one that destroyed the last ship I was on, but a storm nonetheless. Strangely, this crew was ready for it, the ship was generally more stable, it wasn't overloaded with any goods, and the crew worked liked a clock under the constant berating of the ship captain.

After the storm calmed down, the ship crew started cheering and laughing. They also said something about Ulria's love and sending her blessing to them, a sea goddess as far as I understood. Most of their words or gratitude were borderline insults about her ass, tits, and cunt, which the majority of people would believe to be grave insults, blasphemy. And that would generally warrant capital punishment from the religious groups.

But maybe that's the way they say their prayers here.

Prayers huh.

I know that someone or something exists out there, simply because HE exists. But whoever or whatever there is, it simply doesn't care.

With each day I grew closer to the people, despite their flaws, they were an interesting bunch. They gambled and fought, they drank and feasted, and during the whole process they looked so alive, so happy, without a care in the world. Not understanding that I started talking with them, asking questions and reasons for them being here. Every single one of them had a different answer or reason, money, adventure, freedom, the sea, and many more.

Lakor, a tall thin youngster in his late teens, said that he wanted to see the world, that he didn't want to end up as a farmer for some local lord. He said that his uncle was a sailor, and he told him many stories about faraway lands. Lakor said that his uncle never returned, and no one knows what happened to him, but someday he wants to return home and tell those stories too, about adventures and life at sea.

Itar, a huge pudgy guy in his late forties with a shaved head, reluctantly told me that this is the only thing he knew how to do, that even if he wanted to "settle down on land", he wouldn't know how things work, or where to even begin learning. He said that he fears staying on land for too long, and wants to die in the sea.

Ghaj, proudly boasted to me how he screwed a lord's daughter, that she was a screamer and very good in bed. After the event she lied to her father in fear of punishment, and now there's an open hunt for his head. Ghaj said that one day he'll buy his own shop and make his own crew. He also joked that he would want to live to his eighties and spend time with the best whores the land kingdoms could offer.

Many names, many stories. Sad and happy, ridiculous and stupid. They all somehow ended up here, on a ship in the middle of nowhere. The more I listened, the better I understood the language, and the people on the ship, their fears and dreams. They're all people with a past, present, and future, with stories to tell and goals to fulfill.

Each day we would wake up, clean up the deck, hunt breakfast, do whatever the captain says and enjoy the warm sun. In the evening we would sit and gamble. I would usually sit with them and listen to the stories, but soon I started playing too. In the beginning the only bet I could make was a task or duty to fulfill in the place of a person, but pretty soon I started gathering a wide range of coins and items. Some accused me of cheating and we ended up playing the games bare naked, with balls hanging and such, but it didn't change the result much. It got so bad that no one wanted to play with me anymore, and I ended up simply sitting and listening to stories as I did in the beginning.

I also felt that something was missing on the ship, that the crew was restless, on edge, waiting for something to happen. But I didn't look deeper into it as I had my own task. During the night and moments I had free time, I continued experimenting with healing. While the main goal was to find a way to heal my right hand, there were more important tasks, which is to find a way to keep moving even after I'm ripped apart. I will not underestimate them. I know perfectly well what they are, and what they can do. If magic is fully denied to me, I'll reach the limits of human flesh. And I've already reach a significant milestone on that path.

For each experiment I have cut a single toe off and restore it from zero. But improving the speed and efficiency of healing was the only traditional way of becoming stronger I knew, but now there's another path. The first step was to try and make my bones denser and stronger. And I somehow succeeded, the toe whose bone I made thicker, was much harder to cut off.

I'm pretty sure if someone saw me cutting toes and experimenting with healing, they would call me mad, that's why I usually had to do the bloody part at night, away from everyone else. The spot I usually do the experiments quickly starts to look like someone was murdered there. So I had to clean the spot after each test and be extra careful.

...

Everything comes to an end.

And I finally understood what was missing.

We encountered another ship, a merchant ship. It was much bigger ship with white sails and in nearly perfect condition. In the back of my head I understood that we may encounter someone else, but maybe I hoped that I would get off the ship and not encounter such an event. Maybe I just didn't want to see the real, ugly side of the pirates.

The moment the crew saw the ship, their faces turned into the faces I had seen before. They started chanting, shouting, and cheering. I somehow naively believed that they were "noble" pirates, that they were only after gold and would leave the people, but I was wrong, very wrong. Before I knew it, several young crew members of the merchant ships were lying on the deck, either dead or severely bleeding. Some part of the pirate crew already started capturing women, tying them up, touching them, and promising to play with their bodies later.

Moments later everyone started screaming in horror as I slowly walked to the pirates, ripping one pirate apart after another. I didn't use a weapon, only my bare hands. I crushed skulls, ripped off legs and hands, slowly filling the deck with dead bodies, colouring the deck deep red. The pirates, which would've called me their friend, even ally, just a few hours ago, looked back at me with a mix of astonishment and disbelief. They thought myself to be part of them, to be like them, and the person they saved and sheltered, betrayed them. They screamed at me, asking what I was doing, why did I turn against them. With every life I took, it felt as if a cold, invisible knife went deeper into my heart.

Less than a minute later, I was standing on the deck of the merchant ship, covered in blood, breathing calmly as I looked at the bodies of the dead pirates, that I believed to be good and noble. I chuckle as I remember my own words.

"People are neither good nor evil. They simply are."

Walking to a middle-aged man with a grey beard, who I assume is the captain, I say in broken language.

"You. Go. Me. Land."

...

The merchant ship crew was a bit too subservient, most likely the result of my actions on the deck, specifically what I did to the pirates. Some still flinched and froze when our eyes met, or when I walked near them, even more than a week after. The few that didn't were constantly asking if everything is fine, if I require anything.

I spoke with the ship's captain a lot, a chocolate skinned lady in her early thirties. As I was explained to, the middle-aged man I thought to be the captain, is her first mate. The ship belonged to her father, but he died of a disease, leaving her in charge. The middle-aged man was a close friend, and the first mate of her father, and he decided to continue serving on the ship and helping her.

Most of the talks though, were about general questions like,

"Where are we?"

"What ocean?"

"Where are we going?"

The talks I had with the captain and the crew of the ship improved my language skills quite a bit, as the pirate's version was so unstructured, so broken, that I don't even know where to begin describing my issues with it. But the good things end here, because I asked for any map the captain had. She was astonished at first that I knew how to read a map, but I didn't elaborate how or where I learned that, and she didn't try to pry more. I don't look like a scholar at all, so the confusion isn't misplaced. She laid down a huge yellowish parchment on the big wooden table in her cabin, and pointed with a finger approximately where we were. However many times I looked, however many times I rotated it around, what was on the yellowish parchment before me was totally not what I expected.

Nothing.

I recognize neither the letters, nor the names of islands on the map, even their forms aren't familiar. Worse than that, the Twin South continents are nowhere to be seen, not even a hint of them. There's a significant area of a big continent drawn on the map, but not a single part of it, even remotely, looks like anything I've ever seen before. The continent is smooth with many edges, but still, nothing like the twin continents, which looks like two huge deformed letters.

There's something very wrong here.

I thought that I was on the "unmapped" region, which is simply the southern area of the twin continents. That area isn't even mapped in the Empire's maps. Lizard-men who inhabit the west twin continents and the people who live on the eastern part aren't very welcoming. To my knowledge, and the information spies were able to gather, the terrain on the twin continents is so harsh that no one would voluntarily live there. The temperature there fluctuates highly, with snow, drought, and rain seasons, which are never on the same date.

I started having doubts when it became a bit too warm and tropical during my drifting, but that's a totally different story. Just to make sure, I look south of our position and find many islands. When I asked the captain about the islands, she replied that it's the south pole archipelago. The area is sparsely inhabited, and the ships rarely go there because of harsh storms that surround the area, but the area produces many goods which they export north.

I've spent quite some time looking at the map, again and again, trying to think of a reason to explain what I'm seeing. But after captain got a bit worried and told me that I can find bigger maps in specialized shops on the continent, I was only calm down after that. She also said that if I'm searching for something specific, the Adventurer's Guild could help me with whatever I require. Maybe she's right, and the map is simply too small, maybe the southern hemisphere really is that big, and just no one knew about that.

So I did the only think I was left to do.

Wait.

But I didn't just sit around. I resumed the testing and experimentation, making bones thicker, muscles stronger and faster.

Whatever happens, my main goal will not change.

First of all, the people. The nobles, the senate, everyone who ordered the destruction of the Brotherhood, everyone who even remotely had something to do with the order or the death of my brothers.

I would really like to take a single like more than all of them, the next Legat, but this sadly won't happen. I'm not even sure if it's right to call him the next Legat, as he already took on the majority of the responsibilities of the current Legat, the Legendary Grand Novus Maniel Yarkar.

Everyone tries to keep life in the over a hundred years old body of Legat Maniel, as many Empire treaties were made with and in his name, they're even called Maniel's treaties. And the moment he dies, all those treaties in his name will lose their power. Every treaty of peace, cooperation, and non-aggression with every single power in the world will be lost because of the death of a single old man. When he dies people will rush into a bloodthirsty war to try and fill in the power vacuum left by him. Only for them to be crushed by a single human, his successor, the almighty Saint Protus Ghalor. But the continental war may have already forced people to act.

Human huh. It's wrong to even try to describe Ghalor, as a human, or even living, being.

Because Ghalor is the Avatar of the Light Element.

He has full control over every single spec of light, and even the total darkness of the night doesn't hinder his powers. I've personally seen him turn a mountain into a dust cloud, with a single spell. And to top it all off, he's not overpowered, turned feral by the element, like the blood avatar, who nearly killed me, was.

Even if you take away his Avatar's body, his abilities are beyond anything I've ever seen. When we were travelling with him, he announced that he wanted to test the strength of the Blood Brotherhood, and organized a "small", "friendly" match. The battle lasted less than five minutes. He crushed us like small children with only his sword skills, without even using a single spell. His space awareness, agility, speed, and strength were indescribable. You see him several dozen meters away, and after a single blink of your eyes, he's before you with his sword coming for your life. Every movement he makes creates a sonic boom, every attack he does is simply to fast and powerful to evade or block.

Even before he became an Avatar, it was well known that his magic abilities exceeded those of a Grand Mage twice over, a true genius of strength, sword, and magic from birth, but now...

How do you even kill a being made out of light?

But even that is somehow theoretically possible in comparison to my second goal.

HIM.

HE wanted to posses this body for a reason. HE must want something, HE must have goals, maybe even dreams.

What would the greatest corrupter even want?

Simply corrupt?

What's the end goal?

Rule the planet?

Kill everyone who inhabits it?

Or simply destroy the life itself?

I don't know yet. But, whatever it is, I'll make sure that everything he ever wanted will crumble, his every goal fail, and his every dream will fall apart and become nothing but a memory.

I will fail and die.

I cannot change that.

But before this body perishes, I will show this world a glimpse of what a real nightmare is.

And the sun is already setting.

...

During the short period of time nearly on one bothered me, but people continued to whisper. With a better understanding of the language I mostly understood what was being said, nothing new, demon, monster, creature of blood and carnage.

At least something didn't change.

Anyway, I continued testing and experimenting, and I reached a new milestone yesterday. After more than two hundred cut toes, I was able to make the toe grow into something that isn't a deformed and grotesque amalgamation of flesh and bones. The solution was to constantly have the image of the result in my head and at the same time destroy the flesh around the growing area. During that process, the flesh and bone of the toes is constantly exposed and bleeding. It didn't grow correctly, but that's already a huge step forward. Right now I need to continue experimenting more, but it has become harder with people constantly looking at me, and holding me in their sight, even at night.

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of crew members running around and screaming something happily. The ship passengers quickly join them, and start running up onto the ship deck. I slowly walk up to the deck and look in the direction everyone else is gazing. Slowly a line on the horizon grows and takes form. At first I thought that it's a small island by form, but it quickly grows in size and it becomes apparent that it's a huge land mass.

The first mate quickly shows up on the deck and started barking orders and insults at the crew members, while politely asking people to calm down and proceed inside of the ship. The land mass continued to grow until ships started appearing near a single area. Soon the area started taking form, and what stood before me was a huge stone city which was partly crumbled, but nonetheless, still bursting with life.

Half an hour later the ship docked in the corner of the stone port. Nearly instantly, people in official uniforms appeared and started looking for the captain. They announced that they'll conduct registration and checks. The officials started checking documents and baggage of every single passenger thoroughly, and when they got to me the captain started telling the story about the pirates and how I saved them.

There was a thought of simply walking through them, but right now, it's better to try and do thing calmly. If people believe me to be dead, there no need to prove them wrong. There's also the issue with the Brotherhood symbol on my chest, but if I don't show it in the open, than everything should be find. People already saw part of it, and may have told the officials, and if I try to hide it, that would only make them suspicious.

I may also look suspicious because of my missing hand. I heard somewhere that caught and convicted pirates are punished with cutting their hands off. Simple statements that it was a "fight" neither fully explained it nor convinced the officials. They took me to a special room and started asking more questions, how I got on the pirate ship, and where I come from. Even though I more or less understood the language, it was a totally different story when I had to talk myself, so I tried to explain where I come from with my very limited vocabulary and simple gestures.

I explained that I was travelled north and the ship came under storm. And after surviving the event, I was picked up by pirates. They looked at me suspiciously, and only when they noticed the upper part of the scar, the Brotherhood symbol, which was visible through the shirt, did they calm down.

Huh? This is new. They didn't fully see it, so maybe there's something I don't know.

After the change they started asking something about "Yantaputraka", my owner, how I lost my hand and which family I belong to.

Ah. They think I'm a slave.

They started asking more questions, even repeating them, asking where they can find my owner or where I'm from. This is taking too long, and I was reaching my limit with the delay, but the final drop was when they said that I'll spend several days in a cell while they look for my master or find a new one, and I simply...showed them that they're wrong.

With the guard captain on the floor, with a broken and bleeding nose, and my sword on his neck I stated shortly.

"I not slave. I tired. I go city. Question, you find me city."

Removing my sword from the captain's neck I walk towards the door, which was blocked by a big guy in full-plate armour with a huge shield. Fed up with this bullshit, I kicked him, hard. The idiot in full-plate armour flew through the door, ripping it off it's hinges in the process. Guards tried to run after me, but I was already too far away, blending into the crowd. I could start cutting them up, but more and more of them would come. Two will be followed by five more, then ten more, then twenty more, and soon the whole city would be after me. It would only slow me down and hinder travel, also a single missing person will cause fewer issues than a dozen dead guards.

Also, there's a change.

I can feel it.

Before I would be burning with wrath, barely able to contain myself, like a barrel of dynamite just waiting for a spark. As if a beast inside of me was just waiting for that single opportunity when I would let my guard down. But now it's different, it's contained,....ice cold. Now I can control it, even compress it, direct it, and release it exactly when I want.

And at the exact target I need.

...

I've already been in two small shops and one large shop, looking for a map. The small one's had maps smaller than the captains, with only simple structures of the current kingdom. In the last shop, the large one, a woman in her early fifties, told me that they had the biggest map in the city. I asked the shop owner to show it to me, and she reluctantly agreed to show it, but only for a few seconds. I wasn't even trying to read or remember what was on the map itself, but rather the forms, trying to compare it to anything I've seen before. It took me less than three seconds until I looked back at the shop owner and exploded.

"I said BIG MAP!"

She looked back at me in confusion and replied harshly.

"That's the biggest! Will you buy it or not?"

I didn't reply as she folded the map and put it away.

The only things that were on the map was the south archipelago that I came from, two huge continents with a slightly circular form in the center, and several large islands north of them, nothing more.

What the actual fuck...

I slowly walk outside of the shop to reanalyze everything, and understand what the hell is happening here, but my mind simply can't find any points on which to build a theory. While I mindless walk through the streets another issue becomes apparent.

There are too many races that I've never seen before. I mean the people in the south islands looked like average northmen, a bit different but still. The pirates were dark skinned, like the people who can be found to the south-west of the Dead Desert, between the orc and ogre kingdoms. But just walking through the city for this a few short minutes I have found a dozen species that I've never seen before, and I've travelled quite a bit around the world. The one that stand out to me are the greenish four handed rhino-ogre, and purple skinned humans with lizard hands and tails.

But that's not all.

People are staring at me, and I'm not sure what the reason is.

Before I knew it, I ended up near a huge building with a very familiar sign.

An Adventurer's Guild. Something similar, a starting point. They may know something, anything. My legs move by themselves, taking me inside of the building. I find nearly the exact same picture as I have seen in each Adventurer's Guild around the world. Same drunks, same young female receptionists with guards behind them, and the same atmosphere.

Something similar, something the same.

I walk to the empty counter and greet the girl.

"Hello."

She doesn't even look at me and apathetically asks while resting her chin on her hands.

"What do you want?"

Before I know it, I ask the same question I've asked before.

"Do you have a big map?"

The young girl sighs deeply and in the same monotone voice replies without even looking at me.

"This is the Adventurer's Guild. There's a big map shop down the road."

Her attitude is an issue, but I asked a stupid question and got a stupid answer, my mistake. Whatever. Before I can say anything, she continues in the same monotone voice.

"If your master wants to register you as an adventurer, he must come here together with you."

She ends with slight disdain.

What?

Master?

Does she think I'm a slave?

A two and a half meter tall greenish mass of orc fat appears beside me and grins widely with teeth so yellow that it's hard to even describe.

"Hi Mani. What's wrong? Don't make such a grimace, you will ruin your pretty face with that."

"Hi. Nothing is wrong. The damn "Yantaputraka" is broken and asks stupid questions." the girl scoffs back.

The orc smirks and takes out a short dagger.

"I can throw it out if you want?" the orc continues while playing with the dagger.

"And then the owner will come here furious and they'll blame me.

"Not you, only me. I'll do that and even take the full blame, that is, of course, if you're free tonight."

The orc slowly draws the blade of his dagger across my face, as if wanting to test the sharpness of the blade against something. A fraction of a second later, he falls to the ground screaming in pain as I break another of his legs. Slowly looking at the wailing creature, I grab his arm and rip it out, painting the floor red. I calmly turn and look at the young girl, who continues to scream in horror, hiding behind the guards who've drawn their weapons, only now looking directly into my eyes.

"Did I get your attention now?"

She stutters as the guards in front of her, their eyes jump between me and the orc, with their weapons unsheathed. She lifts her trembling hand points at me.

"You're bleeding..."

Touching my face and looking at my hand, I find a few wet drops on it.

"Yes. You're observant." I coldly reply.

Her eyes shoot wide open and she screams in confusion. "You're human?!

My head starts throbbing because of the useless excuse of a question and answer board before me.

"B-b-but you have a mark, a-a-and you-you-you feel just like a 'Yantaputraka'."

Huh?

The guards said something similar.

"What is 'Yantaputraka'?" I ask.

A few seconds later a small group from the second floor arrives, and stares at the still wailing orc lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. The receptionist leaps to the older looking lizard-man with nearly black scales and starts a rapid fire explanation on what happened. She specifically points at that "Potmal", the screaming orc, and says that he thought that I was "Yantaputraka" and cut my face as a joke, after which I "responded". The older looking lizard-man barks orders and "Potmal" is quickly dragged away by a group of smiliar looking orcs, to the "Bright Seer", which I assume means healer. The black lizard-man looks at me suspiciously and asks me,

"Are you really not 'Yantaputraka'?"

"I will ask again, what is 'Yantaputraka'?"

The moment he hears my question, hie eyes shoot wide in astonishment, and he bows deeply.

"My greatest apologies for everything that happened today!"

He raises his head and starts talking politely.

"Oh, um, how do I explain...'Yantaputraka' is a puppet, a magic doll. They look like humans, but aren't, they are common household objects in the Eternal Empire."

Huh?

A magic doll?

Wait.

Do they mean the mana automaton?

But...they're the Emperor's personal attendants, they're huge and don't even look human. They're simply ancient machines of destruction and carnage, they can't talk.

The hell is he talking about?

"Why did you think that I am automaton?"

"Automaton? You mean 'Yantaputraka'? Well,...um,....there are several reasons. Your hair...I have never seen a colour like that, and the...scar on your chest looks like a house crest." After a small pause and a quick glance at me from my head to my legs, he continues "And you give a feeling of 'Putraka'." He quickly adds "I mean you don't feel alive-" the elder guard stops sharply, as if he crossed a line.

"I'm deeply sorry if I offended you."

The young receptionist injects "The only one to blame here is me." she finishes while bowing. Looking at me again, she says cautiously. "You looked so damag-...hurt, and spoke so poorly that I thought that you were just a broken 'Yantaputraka' that..."

The young receptionist continues the barrage of apologies, while I'm standing and trying to process everything.

...

I look at the mug filled with a bluish liquid, which is a local alcoholic beverage, and think that maybe it would be better to just drink it and get wasted, as many people do. Some say that it helps to calm down.

But I won't.

And so the thoughts continue violently swirling inside of my head.

Once more I look at the crystal ball in my hand, which is actually an Adventurer's Guild "card". As I was explained several times, everyone in the world uses them, and wherever I go, everyone will accept them. For the "inconvenience" they caused, they registered me as an adventurer and gave me a guild....ball, for free. They also answered many questions I had.

It has already been two days, and the more answers I got, the more questions appeared.

There was still a thought that this is simply some far away island near the South Twin continents, which didn't interact with the rest of the world, but looking at the world map again and again, those thoughts crumbled.

The areas on the map are simply too large, even by a modest estimation the continent I'm on is at least twice as large as both South Twin continents combined, but that isn't all, except the four huge islands to the north, there's another continent to the east which is nearly the same size.

There is a tiny chance that I ended up in another world.

I mean the world of the summoned exists, so maybe there are more of them.

This isn't the world of the summoned for sure, because there are no flying iron "planes", or high speed wagons on "rails". Most would laugh about the very idea of metal structures flying or moving at high speeds, but I won't. I myself had designed something similar a long time ago. So much time has passed since, that it feels like it was a totally different life.

A big green figure appears near my table, and puts another plate of what I could only call marinated octopus on it. I say thanks again, to what I assume is a female rhino-ogre, as she walks away. Races is another reason that points to being in a different world. When I started reviewing the features of people again, there were just too many differences. People are generally shorter, most of them have a skin colour closer to dark chocolate, and I have yet to see anyone with features similar to those from the Empire.

And it's not just differences, however many times I've tried to explain it, it looks like people have neither seen nor heard elves and dwarves. And from general explanations, most of the demi-humans live on the east continent, which is called the Brahmiam Kingdom. But there's still something in me thinking or maybe hoping that I'm wrong. And one of the core reasons for it is the language. There's no way different worlds could have such similar languages.

My eyes look across the room at the staring people, and they instantly turn away, trying to make it look as if their eyes weren't glued to me a few moments ago. After the incident with the retarded orc, the black lizard-man, who's actually the guild master, did his best to sort things out with the local guards, so I wouldn't be bothered about it.

The whole experience was something new. I'm used to the fact that people randomly attack and accuse me, it commonly leads to situations where the perpetrators try to capture or kill me. But something very unusual happened, after the "attack", people started asking for forgiveness and gave me a "gift". I'm not complaining, but somehow, the whole thing feels....wrong and suspicious, or maybe I'm just not used to it. Staring at the "gift", a spherical crystal ball, I sit, lost in my thoughts.

What do I do?

If this is another world, what do I do?

Find a way to return?

Where do I even start the search?

Suddenly, someone sits across from me, some kind of feline demi-human with features closer to human than animal. Only her black ears and tail tell me that the woman before me isn't a human. Two other demi-humans are standing behind her glaring at me, their hands on the pommels of their weapons.

Here goes the old story again. The cat-woman smiles toothily and gestures to her friends behind her, that they should calm down.

"Hello there." she happily says.

"Hi."

"My name is Lekana." she continues.

A cautious one.

"Alan."

"Alan?" she repeats, "Alan, hmm, I like it. It sounds strong and exotic." she continues, coquettishly blinking her eyelashes at me.

No request or demand yet.

"I heard that you are human. Is it true?"

I never said that I'm a human.

Oh.

An information broker. I should be careful, any word said will be used against me.

"Sorry for prying, it's just that you don't look like one. And that strength, when you...subdued...that orc with your bare hands was like nothing I have ever seen before. The only ones who can rival orcs in strength are the Amazons, so I thought that maybe you belong to some kind of rare species that I have never seen before."

What?

"It's just that, the way you look, and behave is so...different, that I thought may-"

"Anyway, what I wanted to ask, is if you are interested in joining us for the Amazon tournament."

What is she talking about, the Ama-

Wait.

"Amazons. Where do they live?"I ask instantly.

"What?"

"Where do Amazons live?" I growl back. The demi-humans behind her put their hands back on their weapons.

"On the Amazon island. Where else could they?" she replies, dumbfounded.

I take out the map I bought from the shop and open it on the table.

"Where?" I repeat.

"No one knows. Somewhere west of the Endless Empire." she points at the western most region on the map.

I flip the map around, as the Amazon's island is to the east of Patu. Did I look at the map wrong the whole time? Was the south actually the north? After flipping the map around, I look at it from a very long minute, but it makes even less sense. Something in me screams to turn the map back and look at it the way I was before.

Something is wrong here...

Wait.

What if nothing is wrong, and everything is right?

What if I did come from the South Pole?

What if the Amazon island is to the west of here, and to the east of Patu.

Then a realization hits me. I start drawing areas on the map with charcoal that I took out of my pocket.

Amazons to the west, Patu further on, and finally the main continent after that.

I fold the map into a cylinder as my eyes open wide upon the realization.

This is the other side of the planet.

This is the region behind the Ancient Ocean, the place no one passed through, and no one returned from. That means that I'm in the region to the west of the main continent, the region humans originally came from. The Primordial continent which was believed to have been destroyed in the aftermath of the World War.

It was alive this whole time.

And the Amazons knew about that.

Did someone else know too?

The Emperor?

Senate?

Or maybe even Ghalor?

That isn't important.

The Amazons, those fucking cannibals. If people know about them, that means that they travel here somehow.

Using them, I can return.

But in this state I won't be able to do much.

Doesn't matter, I will solve it, heal the limb.

There is a path.

It exists.

The path is open and the night is close.