What came out was something that didn’t belong to this world. For most people it would have given them a sense of incongruity and fear, that this thing didn’t fit into what this world was, and instead of conforming to it, it was going to tear this world apart. But, to me, it seemed as familiar as a friend. I could feel it, how much it wanted to be praised by me, how much it sought my recognition. It felt like a loyal dog, ready to attack any intruder, but at the same time wanting to be loved by its owner.

I’m not sure if it was me, the herald it was responding to, or the corresponding levels of Void held deep within me, either way I knew that no matter what it would serve me till its last breath, loyal to its very core.

What it was exactly was lost upon me, and I’m not sure it had ever existed at a point in time when names held any significance. It was difficult to describe, it looked like a smoky mass, where the only describable detail hidden within the smoke were a pair of glowing red eyes, shaped into tiny slits which seemed to see right through you.

If I used the Void to clear my vision, I could see that underneath this smoke was a six-foot-tall mass of armor. Jagged in design, it felt that there was not a single smooth area held anywhere within the regions of the armor. It seemed that every single piece of that armor was hostile to this world. The glowing red slits were the only gaps held within the armor, located on the helmet, these slits were of unequal length, which made them seem even more the unnatural.

Looking upon this unearthly creation, I was left with a weird sense of joy, like I was a kid who had just gotten a new toy to play with. It exited me, and I knew I needed more if I wanted my plans for this world to go as smoothly as I wished it to.

Turning around, I motioned the puppet to follow me, and as it stepped into line, this old creature which I had dubbed “voidling” within my mind, also stepped into line.

Without a simple thought I knew it would unconditionally do what I command, so I knew that I must be direct and clear with my commands to them. I could feel my mental connection to them, which I knew would last over any imaginable distance.

Walking swiftly to the backyard again, the body of the warden and the mysterious girl were gone, with only an impression of the warden on the ground the only proof the warden or girl had been there at all. Surprisingly, the needles I had placed near her were missing as well, it seems my good intentions weren’t unnoticed. Unperturbed, I took stock of the remaining eleven knight corpses on the ground.

With another simple thought, this voidling simply glided over completely silently to each corpse, and with a smoky grasp, gripped the arm of a knight and dragged it over into a pile.

Soon before me lay six knights equally spaced apart, with the remaining five knights simply placed onto a pile next to me.

Walking over to each of the knights on the ground I bit my thumb open, noting the extremely sweet taste of my blood, I let a couple drops of blood fall on each of these knights, quickly melting them down into smoking puddle of Void. By the time I had “contaminated” the final knight, the first knight had finished melting down into a Void puddle.

With another thought, the voidling moves back into action, grabbing a knight off the pile and placing it into the center of the puddle. Once again, these puddles along with the knight seemed to sink into and through the ground, disappearing in mere moments, being replaced by another tear into the Void.

I had planned on placing the warden in the last puddle, but it seemed like this was no longer possible, as the body was missing. Thinking for a bit about what I should do with the puddle, I finally decided to test the Void’s reaction to the seemingly lifeless puppets.

This while time my puppet was simply just standing there, seemingly memorized by the puddles. Tapping it on the back seemed to do nothing to shake the puppet out of its trance. Strangely, the puddle seemed to entrap the puppet, but the puppet seemingly wasn’t interested at all in me, who held a great amount of Void, and the voidling, which seemed to be made of some form of hardened void (causing the smokiness).

It was strange, and I had decided I was going to test out this relationship by placing the puppet into the final unused void puddle. Pushing it forward towards the puddle with my hand, the puppet didn’t seem interested at all in resisting. I stopped pushing it, but the puppet kept on walking towards the puddle. In an almost creepy performance, it walked onto the center of the puddle, it then turned around and facing me. Showing a hereto unseen sign of emotion, it gave me a double thumbs up and its mouthless faceplate seemed to be smiling towards me.

Instead of “sinking” into the ground alongside the puddle, the puppet just sank into the puddle, without a single ripple or change within the puddle. All this time, never stopping its thumps up, even when I could no longer see the puppet, I could still feel it give me a thumbs up. I couldn’t tell you why, but this sight gave me the warmest, fuzziest feeling, I had felt in a long time. Soon after the top of the puppet disappeared, the puddle started to bubble and fizzle, almost like it had begun to boil—soon steam started rising from the puddle. This continued for a couple of minutes until the Void was seemingly all boiled away. What remained was a shallow pit, with this beautiful, foot long slug like creature laying there, almost shivering.

Walking down into the pit I bend down and reached my hand out to the slug, almost as if sensing me, this slug crawled up my arm, unto my soldier and circled around me until it reached the top of my head. Almost as if waiting for my permission, it sat on top of my head. I once again feeling my connection to this creature, I seemingly gave it permission to do whatever it was attempting to do. With a tiny shake of its body, it crawled down from the top of my head, onto my face and then I suddenly felt a sucking force on my face, followed by darkness. I could still feel the slug on my face, but while I couldn’t see anything, I also didn’t have an issue breathing. Waiting for only a couple of breaths, my vision returns to me. Strangely, my vision seems to have improved, and I feel like I could better control my differing vision enhancements. Testing it out, I quickly found I could filter my sight, only showing heat signatures, showing void signatures, and I could also zoom in my vision. It seems that even reborn, my clerical puppet was an assistant to the very end.

On impulse, I reached out and stroked my face. What greeted me was the cool, hard feeling of a high-quality face mask. Wondering what I looked like, I decided to kill two birds with one stone by checking out how good the connection with my voidlings really was. Closing my eyes, I “connected” with the original voidling, tapped into their eyes. I couldn’t change what I was looking at, but I could see what this voidling was seeing. A couple feet away from where my vision originated, I could see where I was standing. I looked how I normally looked, not tall, but also not short. Slightly hunched over, but seemingly not timid. But the most striking thing about me was my head. My head was completed covered in a material with a dull luster. It was a deep purple, with the only break in this coloring being a dark scarlet circle which was constantly shifting around the face of the mask. It kept darting around, not looking at the same place at once. Thinking to myself, I close my connection to the voidling and return into my own body.

Back in my own mind, I look around me, and just as I thought I could see what was behind me, the scarlet circle darting about was probably me new “eyes”.

Feeling around, I could sense that there were even more abilities I could access within this “mask” once I had gained more control over the Void. Fiddling with the mask, I managed to change the color of the mask into a shiny silver, and managed to form two eyeholes, for me to see normally through. The downside to this was while it retained its defensive capabilities, I had lost the advanced vision options of before. Decided that I was most likely going to need to live a double life, one as normal Amos, and the other as Amos the void herald. What I knew for certainty was that Adam was dead. There only remained, me, Amos, in this world!

Turning my mask back into the Void’s Herald, I knew it had come time to bring the city to its knees and to save the poor held trapped within this undead farm. With a wave of my hand my six voidlings marched forward and presented themselves to me. All of them looked vaguely different from one another. There were differing number of eyes, some had different appendages. The sharpness of their armor and their cloaked form was the only thing they had in common with one another.

Thinking about it, if I could change my masks looks couldn’t I also have them change their looks too? And they seemed to be covered in Void, but they weren’t burning everything they touched. Maybe I could also control their look and the destructive nature of my Void powers. Thinking about it, I signaled for the Voidlings to go out to each house on this street, dispatching all grey knights encountered, and liberating the prisoners. I also instructed them to gather the corpses and organize them here. The final instruction was the mental picture of the girl, and the instruction to capture but not harm or disengagement if that became impossible. With an ear-piercing shriek, five of the six voidlings shot off at remarkable speeds into the distance. The final voidling on the other hand, simply moved a little of to the side of me and just stood there, almost like it was my very own guardian. Thinking it unnecessary, but also realizing it would allow me to tinker on one, I decided to not comment and motioned for it to come closer.

I had it pick up a sword and hand it to me. Keeping the void surrounding my hand, it began to melt away at the sword handle, but soon I was able to disperse the Void enough that it almost acted as a third sense but didn’t eat away at the sword at a noticeable rate. Satisfied with this, I tested to see how quickly I could turn this Void deadly, and with a simple thought the Void immediately ate away completely at the sword, melting it to a pool of sludge in my hand. Dropping the sludge, I attempted to extract the Void from the sludge. Surprisingly, it worked, and the sludge soon turned into a simple iron slag. In other words, it meant I could essentially “create” more Void by destroying the base properties of items with my Void.

Nodding to myself, I then looked at the Voidling and had it demonstrate its abilities for me. Stepping back from me, it demonstrated its speed for a bit, showing that it could move quicker then my eyes could naturally keep up with. I could still track it with help of the mask though. It then stopped moving, and the smokiness around it retracted, revealing its creepy appearance to the naked eye. The smoke didn’t disappear, but instead split into two, with two short swords in each hand of the Voidling. It then proceeded to spar with an invisible enemy, before stopping. It then reached out through our connection to show an image, in it you could see the Void surrounding it forming into a ball, and upon being tossed created a massive explosion.

Happy with how strong they were, I motioned it closer so I could touch its armor. Its armor was hard, and the sharp bumps on the armor dug into me, it didn’t hurt so much as I was expecting. The armor was more flexible than it appeared. With the simple thought of, “disguise”, the Voidling simply nodded, stepping back and seemed to fold into itself. What replaced it was this almost dashing knight, with a white silvery armor with golden trim it looked like the cliché knight heroes of the stories. Smiling, I then realized the other outcome of this change. Upon changing it had “locked” its Void abilities. It was still strong, and it had still retained its understanding of swordsmanship, the only problem was that I would also need to arm them if I was going to have them disguised.

Thinking it was probably worth it, I had the voidling step back and sat down on the ground. Closing my eyes, I began to circulate the Void throughout my body like I had done before in my room, but this time attempting to control its destructive nature. I decided I would continue to practice this technique until my other voidlings had finished their mission…