Lyns’s first camping sleep didn’t last long because, he woke up to the noise of horses, the three merchants had also just woken up, but they were experienced and took up a defensive stance, against the unknown problem. There was no doubt something was in the dark and it scared the horses so much, that they wanted to escape. Lyns also pulled out his sword from its scabbard and readied himself if anything happened, beside the campfire there was no light so, they didn’t know who the enemy was, but they were sure about the hostility because, there were no animal in this environment, and friendly folks used torches or lanterns to illuminate their path.

One of the horses tore its leash and ran wild into the dark. It hadn’t made it far because in seconds it emitted a scream of agony and never made a sound again. Lyns didn’t see what happened to the horse and only heard the scream, but judging by the faces of his companions, they were in huge trouble.

“IT IS A DEMON!!” -shouted Tim.

“Those are just fairytales, you idiot. Don’t you panic now!” replied Gordes, but it sounded like he was reassuring himself.

Bob was looking in the direction of the dead horse, when suddenly two set of claws grabbed through his protective clothes like it was paper, and immediately ripped out all his ribs in a way, that it was all visible for the others, Bob instantly died out of shock. His organs were falling out his body in a gruesome way, but it was nothing compared to the horror which was standing behind the dead body.

It was really a demon; its thin grey body was covered in a dark mist. It had two very long arms that ended in strong clawed fingers, which were still crushing the bones of their fallen comrade. It had two glowing red eyes and its mouth went from one side of its head to the other, there were no nose, no ears and hair neither on it. It looked like their worst nightmare.

Lyns gripped his sword so hard, that his fingers turned white. Blinded by revenge Gordes charged at the monster. The demon oozed of bloodlust and it moved silently in a fast and precise way, it was hard for the eyes to follow it in the dark and not least the mist around it blurred its body so there was no way to predict what it would do. After a short exchange with Gordes the demon was standing in the middle of the camp with Gordes’s bloody right hand which still hold his rapier. Tim was frozen by fear watching as Gordes was fighting for his life, meanwhile Lyns found it ugly and horrific, but there was something sick that grabbed his attention, there was a pleasant feeling coming from his sword when he heard the painful screams of Gordes. Tim collapsed due to the terror of watching the torture of Gordes, where the demon tore off all his limbs and started to peel of the skin of his torso, while keeping him alive with his dark mist. After he was broken every way mentally and physically, the demon let him die.

Lyns’s mind trembled. ‘Am I gonna die knowing nothing? I don’t even know who I am…’

The demon didn’t really care about their mental state. It walked to Tim and Lyns. It grabbed them by their legs with inhuman strength which even if they had tried to resist, they wouldn’t have succeeded. It violently smashed them to the ground so both of them became unconscious.

The demon’s name was Karo, he had been a demon for almost a hundred years. He hated every single human to the core. He had to live in this desolate grey desert of dirt. It was hard to survive, and beside that he had to leave his base of operation to hunt for humans. Those filthy humans, they tried to hunt him down more than ten times. Karo used to be mage, who had reached a bottleneck on his path, after trying to overcome it for 10 years, he made the choice to try an insanely high-risk advancement method, well it hadn’t worked out. He turned into one of those creatures that the legends depicted as evil demons, but in truth they were just, poor mages with their bad choices. The upper layer of their skin would burn down with insane pain, and death qi would ravage their bodies, to sustain their life with such an unbalanced nature, they must periodically consume the flesh and tormented soul of others. These demons retained their memories, but they became very aggressive and physically strong. Of course, they hated humans, because they were natural enemies and there was no chance for compromise.

After packing things onto the wagon Karo led the remaining two horses with his loot back to his bunker. He used the stars to navigate in the monotone terrain, and after about three candles time he reached his underground bunker. He was very hungry and needed the fresh flesh of his victims, so he started to consume the two dead merchants’ corpse. Lyns and Tim were still on the wagon unconscious. After Karo finished with his meal, he started to organize his loot, not really caring about the two sleeping beauties, because they were basically meat on a chopping board. After a while Tim and Lyns both wake up, Tim thought about his companions’ cruel fate and started crying. Lyns was overwhelmed by the idea of dying without a hint to his identity, about a quarter candle’s time of self-pity Tim’s eye flashed with a dangerous light, he was bent on something bad. He crawled to Lyns and asked him to kill him before the monster tortures him. They were still on the wagon and they could hear the demon going around in its lair doing things they interpreted as preparations for their torment. Lyns didn’t really wanted to kill Tim, but Tim didn’t really care about Lyns’s opinion, so he grabbed Lyns hand which actually still hold the sword like it was glued to it, and led it to his own throat, going for the most painless death, Lyns in the sudden situation tried to pull back his sword, but Tim hold it firmly and the blade pierced his throat, like a hot knife piercing through butter and it almost decapitated him.

Tim wanted to die a peaceful death, unfortunately for him, there was nothing peaceful about it, the sword started to emit grey mist where it touched his neck, and kept him alive, meanwhile it violently drained out his soul from its now useless vessel. The whole process was visible for Lyns and there was nothing he could do. He felt sorry for Tim and he was also shocked to his core, by what he saw. He could observe as the soul which had the appearance of Tim’s head silently screamed in agony, and bled darkness through its eyes. It slowly faded and got absorbed into the blade, which transmitted what was left from the soul to the little vial and to Lyns’s body. Lyns was trembling from the thoughts of the fresh trauma he just went through. “I didn’t want this; I didn’t mean it Tim; You weren’t supposed to leave me alone here;” He was about to puke, when the demon noticed the abnormalities that happened on the wagon. Just in seconds, Karo was already on the wagon and watched at the dead body with grief, he could see one of his meals ruined, and despite being fast there was not even a soul left. Lyns was in a state of absolute shock, he talked to himself and couldn’t believe what he had done. He was afraid when he looked at the demon.

Karo was very pissed and decided he would finish this guy before Lyns suicides too because of the stress he experienced. He quickly approached Lyns and pierced Lyns’s left hand with his claws.

This scene of brutality was one of those joyful activities for Karo which made every pain and risk of hunting worth it. Lyns screamed in pain, his mind was filled with only pain. Now that Karo felt satisfied with some good old torture, he started to pull out the tendons from Lyns’s left arm using both of his hands for it.

Lyns was on the verge of falling unconscious when a sudden instinct for survival struck his mind, and he made a really quick stab with his sword, aiming for the demon’s hearth.

The attempt was quick but not quick enough for the demon’s reflexes, Karo tried to block the blade with just a wave of his hand, because there was no chance a puny human with a simple sword could ever pierce his skin, he only made the waving gesture so Lyns would lose all hopes he had. Karo couldn’t have been more wrong about his decision.

The sword unlike Karo’s prediction went through his hand, piercing it, and even got stabbed very near to his heart. For Karo the biggest problem wasn’t the sword piercing him, it was the sword’s ability which activated and locked down and separated his soul with great efficiency from his very unstable body. It started to drain his soul inside the blade very violently, making him suffer a torture worse than anything he did to his victims. The grey mist which the sword emitted started to evaporate the demon’s flesh where it made contact with the it.

Lyns saw a soul which resembled a man who he had never seen. This soul was bigger and stronger than Tim’s little soul, but it still suffered under his mysterious sword’s power. The soul was distorted by all the pain it went through and it screamed and bled like the other one.

After the blade absorbed the whole soul, it directed half of it to the little vial and half of it to Lyns body. The heavily wounded and torn left arm of Lyns got shrouded in a dark mist. His left arm literally got reconstructed by the darkness, like the torture before had never happened.

The sudden train of events made Lyns faint from the huge mental exhaustion he experienced.