307 The Demon Orphanage
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Shade ran across the rooftops of the village, jumping without making a single sound, as if he weren’t there to begin with. His aquamarine eyes looked across the night sky, attempting to find the origin of this much Malice, but wherever he saw, there was small tidbits of darkness he could feel flowing upwards… it wasn’t just an area concentrating it, everywhere had some of it.
However, he could easily tell that such Malice was accumulating a lot from within the district of nobles, where most of their houses were. Whatever was happening in there, it wasn’t something normal… Shade, however, decided to limit himself to the area of the red light district, and out of curiosity, wandered around the dungeon, which was being guarded by guards and soldiers around the area of it, but there were many unguarded sides to it, and it seems that soldiers feared standing next to the entrance, so they were quite far away from it.
In there, he found… seven bodies of men in the floor, and blood splattered all over the entrance of the dungeon as well. His eyes opened wide in surprise, as he jumped down like a ninja, reaching the floor without making a sound and looking at the corpses of the men.
“A monster attack?” Was the first thing he thought, as he saw piercing, slashing, and biting marks all over the men bodies, as if a wild beast had massacred them. There was even a man with half his face bitten off horrendously. However, most of them died not out of bleeding or wounds, but venom. “Venom… was a monster capable of doing this to seven men there? They all look capable of beating at least E Rank monsters, or even a D Rank Monster together… How come they died here so terribly?”
Shade quickly decided to use some magic before even giving away his presence here by asking the soldiers far away, who seemed completely unaware of what had happened here. The bodies were still warm as well, which meant they just died.
“Shadows of the dead, speak to me and rise once more… Shadow Persona.”
FLAAASH!
Shade quickly conjured an easy yet high-tier Shadow, Darkness, and Death Attribute spell, as darkness flowed out of his hands like rivers, reaching all seven bodies and then absorbing whatever lingering life they had, alongside emotions and memories. The shadows then raised from each body; these were Shadow Personas.
…..
They were entities made of shadows that possessed lingering emotions and memories of the dead, they were not actually their souls, but whatever remained of their bodies after death. This spell often only worked on fresh corpses.
“Ooohhh…”
“It hurts…”
“That kid… she was a demon! A demon!”
“It hurts… all over…”
“I am paralyzed… it is cold…”
“It is very cold… help! HELP!”
Shade remained in silence as he heard the wailing sounds of the lingering emotions of the Shadow Personas of these people. He quickly touched them without even engaging in a conversation with them, and quickly saw through their memories.
He could only see fragments, but each fragment of memories contained important info. In an instant, Shade learned that these were thugs that came to capture a girl simply named the “Blue Haired Witch”, that was a protector of the orphanage in the red light district, that harbored mostly demon children.
“Demon children…” Said Shade, quickly looking into the distance.
He realized the girl had fought them to defend herself, but… she overdid it a lot. She was incredibly strong even without her Mana to back her up, and she crushed them all with ease… Shade couldn’t help but think they deserved it though, they were terrible people that had done horrendous things. As a vigilante, he could see himself killing them as well.
“But… She was a monster.” He thought, he saw her fight through their memories, her movements, her sadistic smile, and how she saw everyone with disgust as she crushed them… Alongside that, she had a venomous tail that infused paralyzing venom into wounds, paralyzing her targets and easily killing them by stopping their hearts.
“She’s… a half demon?” Wondered Shade. “This tail is from the Venom Tails Tribe, a tribe of demon warriors that had joined the Demon King’s army in the war… They were strong and their venom put down thousands… She must be a hybrid, a child between one of them and a human. But her way of fighting and her strength… Is she accustomed to kill people?”
As Shade saw that smile in her face, he couldn’t help but feel pity. This girl… she was shaped like this by this unforgiving world. Perhaps she was once a lovely and innocent girl, but the world that didn’t accepted her, discriminated her, and mistreated her… it forced her to become the monster she was now.
Shade, who was always thinking about the consequences of his actions in the war, couldn’t help but relate to the girl and think that she was… quite similar to him, and that perhaps she was a victim of the actions he had done in the war. He had wished many times to go back and change how he did things, to do something different… However, Shade wasn’t a man that cried out loud, he contained all his sorrow and regret within his heart and remained in silence.
He sighed and jumped into the rooftops once more chasing down the trails left by the girl. She had a strong Malice emanating from her, perhaps due to her dark mind and her nature… he followed such trails of dark fog, suddenly reaching the orphanage.
“See-through Sight.”
FLASH!
His eyes suddenly shone bright blue, as he gained the ability to see through buildings, a special spell that he learned long ago to spy even better at targets. He quickly saw the girl, she was unpacking several monster carcasses inside the storage, and taking out a knife, slowly butchering them.
“Celeste, what are you doing? You should go to sleep now… It is late, and you’re all covered in blood.” A beautiful girl with red skin and blonde hair wearing nun clothes approached her.
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