Ghost chaotically gripped his own face, uncaring of the damage that his sharp claws were causing to his skin and flesh as he continued to stumble backwards. At this point, it didn’t even matter anymore because even if he was afraid of pain, which he was not, he was no longer capable of feeling his own body.

All he could feel was the terrible heat of rage, so much heat that it felt like he was being roasted alive. But more than that, even his 4 other senses were beginning to malfunction.

Every sound, other than the heartbeats of the people in the vicinity including his own, had faded to near nothing.

His vision had lost every colour other than red and blurred at the edges, but he could see the blood pumping blood vessels of the various lifeforms surrounding him with a clarity that he had never experienced before. Even the beating shape of their hearts beneath their skin had become visible.

He could smell it too. As a matter of fact, he couldn’t smell anything other than their blood, and that too with an unprecedented clarity. It was completely abnormal. His body was changing in a way that he didn’t understand and it should have been frightening. But all he could feel…

*SHIIIICK*

WAS RAGE!

Blood poured out of the wounds that he had just torn open on his face, neck and chest. But they healed nearly instantly as a dark red aura, unlike his previous bright crimson aura, began to leak out of his skin like a semi-tangible light, radiating a feeling of such calamity and hate that it caused those in the vicinity to feel like their end had come.

“I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU ALLLL!!!” Ghost roared before pouncing forward.

Or at least, that’s what he tried to do. For some reason, only his head had moved, and it was spinning around and around, causing his vision to swim.

‘Huh?’

…

Gloria stood a few metres away from the beheaded creature, feeling a little flabbergasted by what she had witnessed…

Not too long ago, the man had roared to the skies before asking why something called ‘The Beyond’ hated him, and then all of a sudden, a terrible feeling had struck her heart, and before she knew it, the clouds had been dispersed by the arrival of a strange dark red construction that resembled a symbol of sorts.

That symbol had radiated such a malevolent feeling that for the 3rd time in her life she had felt pure fear. In its presence, she couldn’t even move, so she was barely able to prevent herself from dropping to her knees, talk less of assisting Victor (the Alphonse King) and his Knights.

So all she could do was watch as the Blood Fiend that she had priorly judged as intelligent and cunning, descended into madness as he screamed and screamed, seemingly ignorant of the giant symbol above his head.

This continued for a short time as the symbol seemed to be gathering energy from distances she could not see the end of, and then it decreased in size and slowly sank into the strange creature’s forehead before disappearing.

This abruptly freed her and her people from its horrible influence, much to her relief, but that was not the case for everyone else. Suddenly, a replica of the symbol had been engraved on a majority of the Blood Fiend’s foreheads, and they began to howl like mindless and furious Beasts, their eyes glowing even brighter than before. However, they never moved. They stood still and stared blankly into space as if they had fallen asleep standing.

And in that moment, she knew what she was looking at. Previously, when a green aura of envy had encompassed the world, followed by the black aura of hunger; It had caused a few of the people in her populace to fall into a trance before experiencing abnormal changes that all resulted in them being put on her KOS (Kill-On-Sight) list.

Clearly, this was happening for a 3rd time. And she had no doubt that if she were to return to her Empire, there would be another set of her citizens that she would need to add to her KOS list. Which of course, she didn’t want. So she made a rapid and rather reckless decision considering the circumstances, and calculated the risks.

It was then that the man burst out with a baleful aura that carried the properties of the Symbol that had merged with him, saying that he would slaughter them all, proving that his senses were gradually returning to him. So she knew that she had to act quickly.

Hence, without hesitation, she utilised the greatest movement technique in her arsenal to appear in front of the man, knowing that he had to be disorientated from his recent changes, and used her strongest and quickest attack technique to separate his head from his body, followed by his limbs. Effectively cutting him into 6 pieces.

Like that, the leader of the so-called Blood Fiends, had died. Each of his pieces lifelessly fell to the ground and rolled in different directions with a few of them even falling off the branch of the giant tree, but it was the face of the head that was frozen in shock that held her attention.

Today, her eyes had been opened. She had always known about the phenomena of the ‘coloured emotions’, but she did not know how they had come to be. Now, she knew. Of course, she didn’t know the specifics, but going by the prior course of event, It seemed that certain people were chosen by a coloured emotion to become its host, and their ascension would cause beings all over the world to fall into its thrall if they lacked a certain amount of willpower. How interesting.

‘System. Is there a way I can make use of this?’ Gloria asked, but there was no response.

In the past, Gloria had been able to make use of the System to obtain the things that she sought, but sometimes, actually most of the time, she would be met with silence like this. But she wasn’t mad. Thinking of the gravity of what the body of a host of coloured emotion could mean, she knew that the chances of the System providing any information were extremely low. To expect it to give answers would be foolish.

However, she was not deterred. She fully intended to study the body of the host and obtain its secrets, perhaps she could learn how to influence the minds of others the way a coloured emotion can, or at least its ability to share its power with others.

But just as she moved forward to gather the 6 separated body parts, they very suddenly began to glow with a dark and ominous red light.