Circe called up a platform of ice and they both climbed on top, she had ears only for what Nana was saying, however, Nana had a lovely sonorous voice that had not been dulled by age and her impending death, and it was easy to be lost inside of it.

“There is … something that attaches to all of us who have taken a life, it’s in you, and also in me. It affects us in various ways, and even the most depraved individuals I have ever come across have that Mark on them. Some call it the mark of Caine, the first killer, or the resentment of souls attached to their murderer, most we never truly understand this mark when they see it, but I’ve learned to spot it, especially now as I grow nearer to my deathbed.”

She held Circe palm and covered it with hers, as she patted it, “Yet on this man, I see nothing. I don’t know if my senses are failing me, or if my judgment has become clouded, yet it scares the living shit out of me.”

She paused and took a time to collect her thought, “What I do know, however, is that as I watched him eat that cookie. I would never have imagined he had killed a quarter of a million creatures a few moments back, and he still emerged … pure and spotless, it was almost as if all the life he had taken had belonged to him, and they were returning to their rightful owner.”

Circe was silent for a while, “Maybe you judged him wrongly? He could just be different. Multiple trillions of people inside the Empire, I am sure he is an outlier. Well, is that not a sign? You said it influenced people in different ways. Perhaps that is his thing. That unflappable quality of his.”

“I wish it was that simple, Circe. I truly do.” Nana’s voice quietly faded, she herself did not fully understand this instinct of hers, and she knew at the edge of death, it was possible for the mind to go haywire. She sighed, for a mortal, a decade must be a reasonable length of time, but for Dominators of her level, it was gone in a blink of an eye.

“Maybe, I’m wrong. Someone like that cannot exist.” She softly whispered to herself, and her mind went on to other things, beside Scarvros would soon send the details of his profile down to the Empire, with the reaches of their various Trading Houses, it would not be too difficult to know who he was.

A groan came from behind the two women and Rico stumbled out, “I hate this guy, Circe.”

“Yeah, he’s not so fond of you either. He promised to beat you to death with your arm. Even you won’t be turned on by dying in that manner, would you… brother?”

Rico grinned, “if he’s capable… maybe. But you know little sis that he is clearly not my typein fact, I think he is something far along your alley. I mean, I was about to puke the way you looked at him.” He began to sing, “Erohim and Circe K-I-S-S…”

“what are you? Twelve? You have fallen far behind on the Nemesis board, and you’re now number two! Spend more time dawdling and you would be pushed off the list. Okay, I’m done here. Nana, let’s go.”

“Hey, Circe wait up, your Guardsman, yeah, you know the one I’m referring to. You don’t? Wait up, that man with the sexy little mustache, and brown eyes. Yeah, I know you know the one I’m talking about, how about…” Rico pursued the two women as his voice became lost in the rumble from the convoy.

®

Rowan’s body began to be influenced by the touch of gravity and was coming down faster, he grinned inside the ball of flame and boosted his descent with his Telekinesis, he found out that he was falling a lot these last few encounters, and he was enjoying the experience in a weird way.

Plunging towards the horde below, he activated the Berserker Skill—Enrage, pushing as much Aether as he could into the skill, and the green sun transformed into a ball of red and green, he pushed his physical essence into the skills and the flames appeared to solidify as both colors fed into themselves and transformed the flames into the shape of two massive hammers that resembled flaming skulls.

Rowan roared as he activated Smash at the last instant before he touched the ground. Without his Constitution, Rowan was sure he would have gone deaf. The sound was like the eruption of a volcano, and indeed the site of his impact created a massive eruption that rose for more than a thousand feet.

The golden beast leading this horde was a gigantic Beaver, who was coincidentally situated in the middle of the horde. Although Rowan did not make a direct hit on the creature, the impact and the sheer force it generated was enough to vaporize it, and the hundreds of creatures in that immediate vicinity.

Only the golden bones remained, but for what came next after that dreadful impact finished the job.

A shockwave pulsed from that location that swept throughout the horde, driving most of them to their knees, and then a flash of green light so bright the color of the flame turned white, blinded a third of them, frying their eyes from their skulls.

The heat wave came next, and turned everything else to burning char, but it was not yet over, the special effect of the green flame manifested, and tiny mini explosions began happening everywhere the green flames had touched.

Tens of thousands of mini explosions combined to create a massive roar that shook the entire ground, creating an earthquake that caused entire patches of earth, hundreds of feet in length, to fly up.

Rowan rose up from the impact site, the surrounding ground had been compacted in a concentric circle, and the hammers crumbled to ash in his hands. The passive field around him protected his clothes and his weapons to a certain degree.

His clothes were fine, but he had poured too much force into the hammer, and the field could not keep them in a single piece.

Goodbye my lovely skull hammers, I would miss you, but I have a dozen replicas inside my bracelet. So…

He swept his sight, and everything here was dead, so he stretched forth his hand, and from the ashes, a drop of golden blood reassembled itself and flew towards him; he placed it inside his mouth and crushed it.

The ground exploded beneath his feet as he began moving once more, and he steadily increased his speed until he was virtually touching the ground every thousand feet with each step, he sighted another offshoot, and he decimated them in a short time using his new pair of favorite hammers.

Good thing Envy is not here right now. She would be dying in jealousy.

In an hour he reached the main horde, their sheer scale still staggered the imagination. Yet, the awe inside his heart had faded, he had seen worse.

Unlike when he was here the last time, there was no more despair in his heart, only a sense of purpose and the resolve in his heart to do what was necessary.

He was no longer wracked with a curse and struggling with mental anguish, whether he was to fight or flee. He was complete once more, and everything here were his to collect, for the trials that were to come, he would not be found wanting.

Not only that, but he had already demolished dozens of offshoots from the horde before he reached them, and had gathered 11,450 Soul points and 42,000,000 energy points. The first Ouroboros Serpent Chaos Engine would soon be completed.

Rowan closed his eyes and delved deep into his consciousness where a bloodline he had sworn not to touch for as long as necessary lied—Soul Reaver