《Soulstorm》


 Prologue: Awakening

    AN: Greetings to all readers, as this is the first time I release a fiction and English isn''t my mother-tongue, I am more than thankfull for hints concerning grammar and syntax. I am also open for constructive criticism concerning the Story.


    Prologue


    As I awoke, I was utterly confused, because all I saw was a cloud full of colours and as I tried to shift my gaze to see more of my environment, It struck me that there wasn''t something to shift. I had no eyes... nor a body. ¡°Calm down. I have to calm down.¡± I though to myself to disperse the upcoming panic. Thankfully it worked. Now calm, I tried to assess my situation.


    First my ''gaze'' actually shifted, despite the lack of eyes.


    Second I could see or rather feel that I also was a coloured cloud in this giant stream.


    Third everything moved, me included.


    And lastly I remembered. I remembered the accident. A flash of light around the corner of a house and then pain. I got hit by a car that drove through the nightly town and it drove at a speed way past the speed-limit.


    ¡°Fucking youths and their street races¡± I though while noting that I started to think like an old man.


    Counting one and one together I came to the conclusion that I died and the clouds, mine included, are souls.


    As time passes and I drift with the stream of souls I noticed that the speed off the stream increases the farther I flow with it and more disturbing that the pressure and the friction between me and the others increases. It felt like the corridor the stream takes gets narrower. Then came the pain, as I felt myself getting grinded down, it was a slow process and it happened to all the souls around me too, but I felt that it won''t stop till there are only small particles left.


    I shook with fear, I didn''t want to loose what was left of me, I didn''t want to loose my identity, my soul.


    But I didn''t know what to do, what could I do?


    I focused and concentrated on stopping my cloud, stopping it in the stream. At first I failed and was pushed farther along the corridor, increasing the speed and the grinding of the souls. But then I altered my form, from a random cloud to a streamlined mass. I finally came to a halt. It was exhausting to do so and that is why I looked for something to strengthen me. But there were only souls and the fine mist they are getting grinded to.


    Then it hit me, why not use that mist? Could I use it? Absorb it?


    I tried it. It worked, slowly at first but increasingly faster as my mind got the hang of it. Now I grow and get stronger, instead of loosing volume and strength. And ever so slowly my halt in the stream turns into an advance against it. But as I advance I notice that I am missing direction, sure going against the stream is good but where am I going? While advancing I concentrate on everything around me for a hint, but I find nothing, till I search in myself.


    What I find there is something akin to a compass, and it points against the direction of the flow, so I follow it. After what seems like aeons to me I reach a hole in the side of the translucent corridor, something I never saw in it and it doesn''t seem to influence the other souls nor do they seem to notice it, although the other souls never seem to notice anything anyway.


    At that note I remember my trials to communicate with the other souls by wrapping around them or poking them, but it never got me a response, only more mass as my stronger, denser soul slowly and unconscious  absorbed theirs. Not wanting to destroy them I stopped my trials and avoided extensive contact with the others.


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    Snapping out of my memories I advance to the hole. As I observe it other souls drift past it, one even rubs against the corridor and the hole, without a strand of it getting in it, as if that gap doesn''t exist at all. Curious I get closer to it, wondering if I also won''t get past the corridor. Now I can see what is beyond the hole, but all I see is a blinding light at the end of a short tube. Filled with hope I take my first step.... my first float through the goal that I strived for for my entire journey in this strange realm of the dead.


    Instantly I feel like a fish on a fishing line, as I pass the light I loose the strange sense that served me so well, now utterly senseless and stunned all that surrounded me was silence and my own thoughts. After what seemed like an eternity my senses returned, first touch, it felt like I was on a bed, then smell , the smell of a hospital, the fitting sounds soon followed, I heard an ECG''s monotonous peep-peep and something like bellows and finally I could move and so I opened my eyes.


    Or at least I tried, it felt like I had no strength in my whole body and so I tried to quicken my breath to give my body the oxygen it needed to give me that strength and yet again I failed. There was a big resistance against my breath, that is when I remembered the below like sound. Could it be I was on life support? Realizing that I let my chest slump and do not struggle against the machine, for it could damage my lungs if I did. I just had to wait anyway.


    After I finally felt like I regained enough strength I opened my eyes very slowly to not get blinded.


    But there wasn''t any need to worry about that, for it was night or at least very dark in my room. Looking around me I could identify the life support and the ECG and to my relief also a call button.


    Mustering all my strength I raised my hand and.... stopped. This hand of mine looked like a skeleton hand. No wonder I felt so weak. How long was I gone. How long did my coma last. For that was the only logical solution that came to me. A coma. Swallowing my resentment about my ruined body, I noted that at least I could move at all, my arms that is, most probably I could not stand. Finally I pressed the button and waited.


    A few minutes later an aghast and pale nurse entered my room. ¡°Maybe it was a bit shocking to get a call from a person that was in a coma for years (?) and that in the middle of the night.¡± I though to myself. Seeing me awake and moving she quickly regained her face colour and with it her composure. ¡°Good morning sleepy head and welcome back among the living¡± she said.


    I chuckled and almost chocked on the life support after thinking that the first human words I heard after waking up were a bad joke. Seeing that the nurse quickly got to work to get me off the respirator. After struggling a bit with my first unassisted breaths I turned my head to look at the nurse, who intensely inspected the screens and machines around me.


    ¡°How.....¡± I tried to ask, but failed to say more. ¡°18 months.¡± she said, ¡°Through a car accident.¡±.


    ¡°It seemed so much longer,¡± I though, ¡°but at least that nightmare is over. I am back. No more coloured clouds dispersing in oblivion.¡±. Oh what wishful thinking. As I though about that bizarre ''dream'' and remembered how I felt my surroundings, my last sense returned. And instantly I felt a soul where the nurse stands and of course my own well fed, monstrous soul.

 Chapter 1 Return to a normal life

    Chapter 1 Return to a normal life


    ¡°Something wrong?¡± asked the nurse as she saw my pulse quicken. I shook my head and tried to clear my throat. ¡°I just remembered.¡± I said, trying to switch subjects. ¡°Oh, sorry.¡± she replied, clearly thinking she triggered it.


    ¡°Nah, its okay. Rather what happened after I got hit?¡± I asked, wondering who paid for my stay and who called the emergency hotline, as I don''t have many relatives and those that still live are rather distant, both emotional and regional.


    ¡°In short terms you were quite lucky, not only did you not receive any lethal injury, the driver also was unable to drive away and I bet he would have if he had been able to. Instead he had to call an ambulance, his father and an advocate. It was our snotty little town wannabe celebrity that hit you. His father was and still is furious about his sons misbehaviours and he paid for your treatments and as far as I know he also announced that he will compensate you for your pain and damage. So in short you managed to get a debt on one of the more decent rich persons in this country.¡± she explained.


    While she explained my ¡°luck¡± I examined her a bit. She looked late 40 with quite a common face and build, all in all an unspectacular person. What was more interesting was that her soul, it doesn''t seem to leave the boundaries of her body, while I could will mine to leave it with a few tendrils, but it was a strange feeling and taxing to the mind.


    As she finished her explanation I felt relief, relief that I don''t have to worry about money for now and could take my time to get fit again. It seems I found a sliver of luck in this misery.


    After talking a bit more with the nurse, about rehab and what is to come, I felt quite exhausted and decided to do what was my right as a sick person, to sleep.


    Hours later I was woken up by a doctor, who came to make a check-up. As he finished and wanted to leave he told me I had a guest waiting and he would send him in. Guessing correctly I awaited my guest.


    It was Mr. Heiss the owner of the biggest company in this country and father of a very unfortunate son, whose misbehaviours have been revealed or also known as my almost murderer.


    He seemed a bit anxious as he started to talk. Which was understandable since he came here to discuss whether I would press charges against his son, which would end in quite a bit of jail-time for him, or if I would take his bribe and let it pass.


    Inwardly I already decided that it would be wiser to take the bribe, as it would allow me to recover in peace and doesn''t require me to direct my attention from recovery to the law court and the process, although I probably could milk more from him if I did.


    Let''s just say that his offer was convincing and I lost all my worries concerning my future monetary situation, rehab was also included in the deal. I felt like his son didn''t deserve such a father that did everything to cover up his vile deeds.


    After we came to a satisfying conclusion and after signing some papers, he left. The rest of the day passed without any major incidents, except additional check-ups and a brief meeting with a rehab trainer.


    The next day, my rehab started and I finally learned the extend of my amyotrophia and the wounds I received. It wasn''t as bad as I first though, I could stand, although only for a short time. None of my tendons was severely damaged in the accident, although some shortened due to being bed-bound for 18 months. The scars I received would also fade completely. My body was actually in quite a good condition, ¡°So what caused my coma?¡± you may ask, the unpleasant answer is a blunt head trauma. I got really lucky my skull didn''t break.


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.Anyway with that day an arduous month of rehab training began. In this time I learned quite a few things about my strengthened soul, for example I could use it to asses more of my body''s strength.


    I could use it to synchronize my muscles better, while also using more of them at a time, that came with a price of course. There is a reason why one can use only ~30% of a muscle at a time, in normal circumstances. The reason is wearout.


    What an irony I learned a way to strengthen myself but by using it I destroy what I want to regain.


    At least muscle-damage induces its regeneration, but it still hurts like the self induced torture it is.


    Another thing I learned is redirecting my body''s resources, it is a tricky job, but I can use that to hasten my rehab, although I have to eat like a glutton. Overall I gained really good control over my body and a sense I could use to detect almost all living organisms. The smallest were still out of reach though, but I could track an ant on the floor without looking at it. The reach of my new sense was only about 10 meters, which was limited by my ability to process what I felt, maybe I could reach farther, but I would have to focus on that alone and my ''field of view'' would shrink.


    After the month of rehab ended, I could finally take care of my everyday business on my own again.


    And so I finally left the hospital and my first stop on my way home was a bank, where I confirmed the transaction of the bribe. Satisfied I got some money and went grocery-shopping, shuddering at the though of what horrors await me in my refrigerator.


    It is strange how one can miss such normal things such as shopping, how witnessing death can change ones view on a normal live.


    Returning to my apartment, my arms full with grocery I entered. I was shocked. It was cleaner than before I left. And then I saw a letter on my desk. It was from Mr. Heiss and explained that state. They searched for clues of any relatives or friends while I was in coma and then they cleaned the apartment. At first I was shocked of that intrusion in my private life, at second though it was the logical thing to do and so I shrugged it off, inwardly thanking the guy that saved me from the anger of growing fungi civilisations in my fridge.


    After making pasta bolognese for dinner I settled down in front of my PC and planned what I should do from now on. I still had to strengthen my body, I was still weak, but at least not an invalid. It wouldn''t make sense to resume my studies and I don''t even know if I even could do that, since so much time passed. Honestly I don''t think I needed them anymore, I studied to get a good job with good income, which I don''t need anymore.


    And so I came to the conclusion that from now on I should dedicate my life to my hobby''s. Martial arts, gaming and a long time dream: forging. And of course studying that strange soul-sense.

 Chapter 2 A windy day

    Chapter 2 A windy day


    Almost 6 months have passed since I left the hospital. Today, since it is their memorial day, I visit the grave of my parents. I don''t know much about them, because they died when I was barely two years old. ¡°Fucking youths and their street races.¡± I murmur to myself once again, as I remember the moment the matron of the orphanage told me how they died. If death was a person it surely would have a strange humour.


    Savoring the calming atmosphere of the graveyard I reminisce about the last six months.


    My martial arts training went surprisingly well, considering the state my body was in at the beginning. But it didn''t take long for me to regain my muscle mass from before the accident, as I quickly mastered how I had to manipulate my body to regenerate and grow faster. It takes a lot of nutrients, but the effects are astonishing. The trick I found to do that, was to create an image of myself in my soul. Some might think what an easy trick. Well it is, but the devil hides in the details, to be more accurate in molecular details.


    But I once again was amazed what a strong soul can do, it can think and it does so even faster and sharper as my brain could. Only thanks to that it was possible for me to create that image and with it came all its possibilities. I can manipulate it and with it my body, I didn''t test all the possibilities yet, but I am pretty sure I could regrow a limb.


    Back on track to the martial arts training I took. I deepened and refreshed my karate-skills. It is result-oriented in its core, but in modern days it adapted more to be a sport. But the core teachings still rely heavenly on the art to use ones body in the most efficient way. An example for that would be how one throws a punch. Most people would only use the muscles in their arms and upper chest area, but in karate one uses the whole body, the force of the legs, while stepping forward, the rotation of the hips and upper body and the spring-like tension off the arms and chest muscles, all of that together packs a hell of a punch.


    Combining my rapid growth, my soul-enhanced senses, processing power and body control I caught the trainers eye after two weeks. He decided to give me some special training. It was hell. Even if I could react and think faster than him, his experience and honed reflexes and body still got the better of me, but at least I learned a lot, mainly how to take some hits.


    With the martial arts training and my blacksmithing lessons there wasn''t much time for gaming, but I don''t regret that at all. I had a lot of fun with my blacksmithing teacher and his reenactment colleagues. It is a shame that the profession in its primal form more or less went extinct. But thanks to that I not only learned how to make tools and some medieval weapons, I also learned how to use them and how to make some simple leather and plate armour. Overall it was a pleasant experience.


    On a side note the surplus of money didn''t change much in my life, I still live in a small one room apartment, with separated kitchen and bath, still wear the same robust dull clothes and still have a dislike of all drugs. Actually the last one isn''t completely true as it grew even more with my new-found stronger awareness of my body. I really dislike things that mess with my body and i worked so hard to rebuild it.


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    As I reminisce over the past months I enjoy a fresh breeze of cold November air, only to stop short on the lack of sound. Not a single leave was rustling, nor where there any signs of wind. It wasn''t my body that was hit by a breeze. It was my soul. It was the first time I felt a torrent of souls in this world of the living. I felt something that should remain in the realm of the dead. I was shocked.


    Instantly I raised the awareness of my soul, only to feel that another wave was coming. I braced myself and was surprised how weak it actually was. Wondering over that fact and the appearance of such a wave I started to go home. I stopped in my track as I was hit by though worthy of a nightmare.


    If I was exposed to the wave, were others too? What would happen to them? Could they die from it? That wave was weak for me but what about a normal soul, a normal human?


    And then came one wave after another, like a storm they ravaged over the world and with each wave that passed I felt something remain and sway in the next wave. It was the soul-mist that I once feasted on and that I never before found among the living. It came with the storm and it created a pressure akin to the one one could feel underwater. It couldn''t separate me from my body, but what about the weaker people? What is happening to this world? Is this the apocalypse?


    I hastily made my way home. Along the way I saw a lot of confused people. A lot were scared and tried to hide from everything, others were filled with rage and demanded answers from everybody around them. Some even used senseless violence to achieve who knows what, or maybe simply because they could. Nobody seemed to have an agenda, they all were without any will to do something.


    That was quite a dangerous situation. Even more so if a person got affected while driving a car.


    I was almost hit by one again. I barely managed to jump out of the way, only to see a bunch of people getting hit by it. What made matters even worse none of the bystanders seemed to respond.


    Hastily I tried to call an ambulance, but I got no response, only a synthetic voice told me to be on standby.


    ¡°This isn''t good.¡± I though, ¡°This isn''t good at all.¡±. I tried to check some off the injured people with my soul, but all I felt was their bodies and the soul-mist that was everywhere by now. ¡°but some of them are still moving¡± I though to myself, ¡°Why don''t they have a soul in them?¡±.


    I checked an uninjured guy for reference but he too was soulless. After making sure I couldn''t do anything for the injured I continued my way and locked myself in my home. To wait for the end of the storm.

 Chapter 3 Preparations

    Chapter 3 Preparations


    As I closed the door behind me, I began to realize the scale of this event.


    ¡°What would happen if they didn''t regain their mind and remain in this state? What exactly was the state they were in? What did they loose exactly? What exactly is the function of a soul?¡± I questioned myself.


    I didn''t arrive to a conclusion. But I know that in this state this city will not regain its order and if I want to survive I have to act. My first priorities are food and water. My safest way for acquiring water would be to get a water filter from the camping and outdoor store in the nearby mall, since there is a creek in the park of my apartment complex. It would provide me with a long lasting and transportable source of clean water.


    But first I should stop by a depot farther in the outskirt of the city. I learned of it by chance when I went shopping with one of my reenactment friends, we needed barley corns for one of the meals and since it was hard to acquire it in normal stores we went to the source. In this particular depot there were tons and tons of grain, potatoes and beets waiting to be processed or sold. If there is any place in this city with an abundance of food it was there, maybe I even could find a water source there.


    Deciding that I should take whatever I could need with me, I began to pack my backpack. I packed some of my clothes, especially my reenactment clothes, since they were more adept to long lasting outdoor sessions and were easy to repair should they tear. I was really surprised how useful and dry a felt cloak is in heavy rain.


    I also packed a few pots and a grate, to cook over a campfire, since if the worst-case-scenario occurs, electricity will fail. A few tools also went into the backpack. Needles, cloth-patches and twine, a small saw, a metal-file and a collection of small wood and leather working tools. Ruefully I left the few forging tools I possessed behind. They are too heavy and useless without a forge or an anvil.


    Lastly I armed myself. Thank god it is November. I wear so many clothes right now. Clothes under the armour, to not get sore from it, a layer of padding to lessen impacts, a cuirass of hardened leather and a few metal-plates on the inside and another layer of clothes to hide it. I also wore leather braces which had two iron thin rods in them each and quite a lot of belts to carry some tools and weapons. And finally above all that I wore my cloak, which I could drop with a quick pull on the brooch at my neck, to conceal how heavily armed I was, should the civil order have returned.


    I didn''t want some rumours spreading of a guy that was armed with a hatched, a long-axe, a dagger and a sax. I left a hand-and-a-half sword behind. It needed too much space to wield it and was overall a quite unhandy weapon, especially in crowds. I choose my long-axe over it. It also needed less maintenance and was actually useful without me grinding down its thick edge, which both of these weapons had since they were only for show-combats. My sax was actually sharp, since I learned how to grind a big blade with it.


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    After a hour of preparation I was finally ready to face that changing world and so I left, while feeling like I would never return. As I am on the way to the depot, I am surrounded by silence, there where no people on the street. Even on a normal day that would be strange and there weren''t any emergency messages on the radio or TV, I checked that while packing, so an evacuation is unlikely. And then I reached the place of the car accident from before. There were no wounded or corpses here, I doubt that they walked away, so who moved them? Those apathy filled soulless people?


    A bad premonition filled me as I walked past the puddles of blood, that were all that remained of the incident.


    It took me half an hour to reach my first destination. I checked all the rooms for people but found none, but at least I found some spare keys. I also found a stray cat and as I inspected it it was filled with the soul-mist and a tiny spark of a soul, much smaller as it should be. Could it be possible that it regained a soul, that was formed of the soul-mist? If so could the humans also regain one?


    With that though and the conclusion of my business here I left behind some of my equipment to make space in my backpack for my visit to the mall. It bugged me that I couldn''t find any humans. I decide that I should expand my soul sense, even though it is taxing to my mind, and was surprised by how far I could feel. The soul-mist seems to amplify my reach.


    As I came closer to the mall I picked up some souls with my sense, like the cat they were tiny and they were filled with primal urges, hunger, the need for warmth and even the desire to mate, it was easy to read them. They were so small and defenceless that they seemed to shout out their thoughts.


    Not once did I get close enough to identify what the source of these thoughts were. But as I entered the mall it became clear to me. It were the missing humans. In the mall there were hundreds of them happily gorging away on everything edible in reach. I guess there instincts took over and used their acquired information to search for whatever they needed, in this case food.


    They mostly ignored me as I passed them but I still got ready to defend myself. As I made my way to the camping equipment I came across less and less of them, I guess there isn''t much they desire there. I hoped they would not start to cannibalize when the food runs short or else I would have to leave the city. Sure I could beat quite a lot of normal humans, but what if they swarmed me?


    On full alert I packed what I came for, a water-filter, a camping-spade, a sleeping bag and a small tent. As I finished I felt something that seemed out of place. A normal soul. I took all my stuff and hurried to its location.

 Chapter 4 Companions

    Chapter 4 Companions


    From afar I could already see that, the man with the intact soul was in trouble. In one hand he held a bag full of food, while he tried to defend said food from a horde of hungry soulless humans with a baseball bat in his other hand. Shoving away my scruples I drew my sax and hit at them with the blunt side of it. The pain made most of them scramble, for now there were easier ways to acquire food.


    ¡°Thanks. My name''s Peter.¡± The man greeted, after we walked to an isolated area. ¡°You are welcome. I am Oliver.¡± I replied, while inspecting our surroundings and picking up some seasoning, ¡° You probably should give up gathering food here, it will only get worse.¡±.


    ¡°Can''t do that pal, I got 3 hungry mouths to feed.¡± he said while following me, ¡°So, could you help me? Of course I will try to repay your kindness.¡±. That made me freeze in my movements. With a multitude of hygiene articles in a plastic bag in my hands I turned around and asked ¡°There are more normal people? There are more that still have their soul?¡±.


    ¡°Don''t know about the thing with the soul, at least not concerning my wife, but my family at least acts normal.¡± he replied. ¡° I could introduce you to a new and reliable food-source.¡± I said, judging that taking the depot for myself would be a waste, since the food would rot before I could consume it. ¡°I am all ears.¡± he said and so I told him about the depot. He happily agreed and dumped the food to loose all potential followers and together we packed some everyday necessities.


    We left the building and started walking towards his house. After passing another crossways I stop him and turn his attention to a pharmacy, it was a letdown that all we got was some first aid stuff and some medicine in the displays. The rest off the stuff was behind locks we couldn''t open.


    As we reached his home a red-haired woman came out of the building to greet her husband. I chuckle at the tasteless joke her husband made about her. She looked at me worriedly, while her husband summarized our encounter and my proposal. As he finishes, her expression brightens and she greets ¡°Thanks for saving my husband Oliver, I am Sarah, nice to meet you.¡±. I replied with a nod, while I inspect the surroundings of their house, noting the garden shack.


    The two went inside to prepare everything they need and prepare their children to move to the depot. In the meantime I checked the shack for some potential weapons. I found an axe and the rope off a swing.


    I also checked the roads around the house to see if we could use their car, almost all the roads around the house were blocked, but luckily our way was free. I guess there wasn''t much traffic in that direction when the storm hit.


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    As I return I see the young idyllic family in all its glory. The brown haired man, with an almost ageless face and average build, his red-haired and not so soulless women, that gave of a very robust vibe and their two energetic children. A boy and a girl.


    As I saw them I wondered why this average looking family wasn''t affected and so I asked whether they were involved in a dramatic incident in the past, with the notion it might be important included.


    They replied that the father almost drowned when he was young and his wife almost died while giving birth to their twins.


    As my curiosity is satisfied I tell them about my hypothesis that those that were close to death in the past weren''t affected by the strange incident that befell the world. All the two did was nod, maybe they doubted my sanity after that, maybe they didn''t want to believe my words.


    Shrugging it off I gestured at them to get in the car. I got in the co-drivers seat to lead the way.


    Our short drive was uneventful as most of the soulless still searched refugee in the shops and since night was falling, I guess they also went to sleep.


    As we arrive we have to carry the children up towards the offices in the depot, since they fell asleep during the drive. Their mother made them a bed out of the couches we found there, while I prepared a meal for the three of us, the children already ate what was left in their home. Since I didn''t want to start a fire now and the electricity was still working I used a cooking plate I found in the office kitchen and boiled some potatoes and made a porridge with some barley and milk I found in the fridge.


    Paul in the meanwhile carried all the stuff they packed up the stairs and as he finished I helped him to barricade the two doors that led into the offices. We locked the doors and then used some boards we found and mortised them against the doors and the walls of the corridor. While doing that we also took care that we could remove them as fast as possible if the need arises.After eating and chatting about our former life a bit we went to sleep, using the sleeping bags we brought.


    Recapping about what I talked about with them I made some plans, Peter formerly worked as a carpenter, which made him unbelievably useful if we had to flee the city or had to build some barricades. His wife worked in a market garden, which supplemented with her robust flair. If it came to the worst, the complete collapse of our civilisation, then we had at least someone who knew something about agriculture. That was really a lucky find or is it fate? And if it is, how do I fit in that picture? With that thoughts and a new found hope to survive what is to come I fell into a deep sleep.

 Chapter 5 Surveying the changes

    Chapter 5 Surveying the changes


    I was the first of our small group to wake up, but since there was no need to wake them up I let the others sleep and used that time to further investigate the changes. Foremost the mist. I sit down and let all other my senses escape me, while fully concentrating on my soul.


    The first thing that I noticed was of course the mist and then the souls of my companions. I noticed that they grew stronger and that there was a tiny flow of mist strengthening them. It seemed like it searched everywhere for a place to stay. The soulstorm was akin to a river that washed everything away that wasn''t heavy enough.¡°I have to search for other people.¡± I though to myself.


    Back to investigate the mist. Strangely most of the normally colourless mist had acquired a colour. Something I only saw if the soul was connected to something. I tried to absorb that coloured mist and noticed that the resistance from the absorption was bigger than from the normal mist. I also notice that it got physically colder as I investigate the changes I created. Could it be that the souls bound themselves to energy?


    I wanted to try another experiment and took a piece of paper from one of the office tables. At first I failed with my attempt to gather soulmist around the paper, because I never really tried to manipulate it I only now noticed that I could only manipulate the mist if it was close to my soul. The range sucked. Only 3 cm.


    But if I cant brute force it, I still can try the smart way and so I create a web out of my soul, which greatest gaps were still in my control zone. Then I surrounded the paper with it and started to pump soul mist into the sphere. At this point I didn''t hold the paper by hand anymore, but instead made a ball with it and laid it down on an ashtray. As I collect more and more souls I notice that the mist slowly changes its colour to a more reddish hue. And then the paper bursts in flame.


    ¡°Its still a long way to go to a glorious fireball, mainly because I have no idea how to throw this soul mist, without it dispersing, but at least I don''t need any lighters.¡± I though while releasing my net and watching the mist disperse.


    ¡°What are those tendrils and that mist you are playing with mister?¡± asked a childish voice behind me. Startled I turned around, only to see Emelie, the daughter of the small family, watching me intently. Her brother, Thomas, is still sleeping soundly.


    ¡°The waves I created woke you up right?¡± I ask. She nods. I think about it for a minute and come to the conclusion that the only reason, I didn''t tell the whole group all about my experience concerning souls, was the reaction I got when I asked about their near death experiences. Since she could see it first hand I decided to teach her a bit about it.


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    ¡°Try to concentrate on the sensation, which showed you what I did, and imagine how you pull the colourless mist in your body, don''t take the coloured it could hurt you. There should already exist a small stream flowing in your body, which could show you how to do it right.¡± I explained.


    As soon as I finished speaking she closed her eyes and tried to follow my instructions. I observed her with my soul and tried to guide her. Only after I collected a large lump of mist and force fed it to her soul did she succeed and was able to feed herself.


    As I opened my eyes I saw Sarah watching us, as we sat across each other on the floor. ¡°Thanks for teaching her how to meditate, she always loved those martial arts cartoons.¡± she said, misunderstanding that what I taught her daughter. ¡°Hmm I have to show all of you something later, maybe it will teach you all something about what happened yesterday¡± I replied.


    I returned to my ''meditation'' and test some more things, until I hear how our two sleepyheads wake up. Then we begin our day by removing the barricade on one of the doors. While the others make a simple breakfast consisting of boiled potatoes I checked the depot for intruders and was relieved to find nothing out of the ordinary.


    While eating breakfast I swore to myself to find and make a few of things, firstly a grindstone and an oven, to make bread, secondly chickens to get a source of proteins and lastly other vegetables than freaking potatoes, they may sate ones hunger, but they lack diversity in their taste.


    After cleaning the few dishes that we found in the restroom/kitchen. I gathered everyone around me to demonstrate to them the might a soul could have in this new world. But all I could show them was a tiny flame, that seemed to defy all logic as 3 of the 4 could only see a small flame floating between my hands, seemingly without source and without anything feeding it. And the flame seemed to be cool to the touch, it actually cooled down its surroundings.


    I created it by using the room temperature to separate CO2 into its components and then reverse that action. That lead to a conversion of heat to light. It was absurdly taxing and utterly useless in a fight. But it was convincing, convincing enough for the two adults to listen to my story about souls and the storm. I too taught them how to strengthen ones soul. But I didn''t expect much from them right now, I am far ahead from them when it comes to soul-strength and it still seems impossible to defend myself with my soul alone.


    As we concluded our small training session, we decided what we would do today. The small family would take the axe I found in their shack and forage the neighbouring houses for anything useful, while I would go into the city and scan the surroundings and the situation there.

 Chapter 6 Testing the waters

    Chapter 6 Testing the waters


    As I didn''t know what awaits me, I tried to be as soundless as possible and took cover whenever possible. To silence my footsteps is actually quiet easy, I just have to step with my toes first and then place the rest of my foot, always wary of any objects on my path, like twigs or pebbles. But it takes a lot of long term concentration, one slip up could convey your location to whoever listens to their surroundings.


    Like that I made my way into the town. It didn''t take long for me to find the first disturbing sign. I almost puked. What I found was a human corpse or what was left of it. As I inspect the lone corpse I find a multitude of bite marks on it, but what disturbed me the most was what killed that person, it was a stab wound in the head, it looked like someone took a chisel and rammed it in the head, only to forcibly pull it out.


    Deeming that whatever or whoever caused it was way to close to our camp I decide to hunt it down. I don''t want any man-eaters close to the place I sleep. Conveniently whoever did that seemed to be on its own, since I only found one bloodied pair of footprints leaving the kill site. The footprints look human. So either we have a tool using soulless or a cannibalizing psychotic person.


    I don''t know which though disturbs me more to be honest.


    I take out my sax (that''s a variant of a long knife btw) and spread my soulsense to find the perpetrator more easily. The footprints soon begin to fade, but they were still noticeable. They lead me to a one-family house with a torn down door. I feel a soul inside. Seeing that I noted down to secure our doors in a better way, maybe with some steel sheets from the depot hull?


    Warily I enter the house, only to be greeted by the stench of death and a pool of blood. I guess someone found another meal. Slowly and without making any unnecessary noise I move in what looks like the living room. The soul I sensed is hidden in a slightly shuffling mountain of pillows and blankets in the corner that is farthest from the door. There is no blood here, but I can smell it from the hiding person.


    Not taking the risk of getting jumped at, I keep my distance. ¡°Show yourself!¡± I shout. I wasn''t prepared for what emerged out of the pile. In most aspects it looked like a human, although barely apparelled, but it looked as if it lost all its fat, it was packed with muscles especially its right arm. Said arm had something that looked like a thorn instead of an hand. But what really shocked me was its mouth. Not only was it covered in blood but it also looked wider than it should be, as if it changed to be able to tear apart its prey.


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    When it saw me it hissed and charged at me. Damn it was fast. It almost got me, but I evaded, the thorn it swung at my head, in the last fraction of a second by stepping to the side. It stumbled past me and tried another attack. It swung its right arm even faster, but it was its last swing, since I heard a tendon snap as I evaded. Taking the opportunity I drove my sax through its jaw and its skull to end the creatures live, not seeing its left hand coming for my face.


    Cursing I notice that its nails look akin to talons. While cleaning my blade I try to patch up my cheeks by guiding my body with my soul and closing the wounds by controlling the mist around me to push the flesh together. I check the product by looking at my reflection on my blade, there are four new scars on my face. I got lucky it didn''t hit my eyes, those are really hard to repair.


    Turning back to the body I study it a bit. First with my eyes then with my soul. It is really skinny, there is no fat at all only muscles and it is filled to the brim with soulmist. I check its jaw and see that it lost its molars, but I also saw new teeth surface in their place. Teeth that remind me of carnivores.


    Next I take out my dagger and peeled off the skin on the right hand. I wanted to take a look at this strange thorn. It was made out of the bones of its hand, they grew together and had increased density. A change like that needs a lot of guidance, something I didn''t think those instinct driven soulless were capable of.


    Did the mist enable it to change using its bodily resources? Was that the reason why it needed so much nutrients, that it would start to devour its own kind? Shivering at the possible horrors, I turn my full attention to the mist. Since its the colourless kind its easy to absorb, I feast on it, my soul needs a lot more to grow than what I can find in the atmosphere.


    I leave the house and breath freely for the first time in almost half an hour. Looking at the sky I notice that its time to for lunch. Sitting down next to the bench I take out a package with precooked food and began, against my nausea, to eat. ¡°I will need the energy¡± I though to myself.


    Finishing my break I decide that I should check if other soulless also have begun to change. Leaving the house behind I continue on my way towards the mall, where I met Paul. I decide to make a detour and climb up hill and the tree atop off it.


    What I see from there destroys all my hopes for the soulless to return to normal humans.

 Chapter 7 Strange new world

    Chapter 7 Strange new world


    From my vantage point I could see the mall, the parking lot and the park adjacent to it. I could see several groups of people in this area. I focus my attention to the one closest to my location. I notice that there are actually two groups. One with creatures like the one I already met and killed. There were 5 of them. It would be quit a challenge to take on so many of those on my own. To make matters worse they hunted in a pack and their prey was the other group of humans.


    Those particular humans seemed to have evolved to an armoured variant, they too had more muscles than average but what drew my attention the most were the bulges and plates that seemed to be beneath their skin.


    Seeing how they were hunted and wounded their armour doesn''t seem to be hard enough right now. But it still struck me with awe, how fast they have changed. Now I know what they needed all that food for and why they ate like crazy all day long.


    If they left the mall and even hunting each other, chances are high that either something drove them out or they used up everything. Neither of those possibilities was good news. I hope they will leave the city and try to scavenge for food in the farmland surrounding the city. There was still a lot of useful stuff here, even though one can''t eat it.


    While watching the groups I noticed that the multitude of them wandered away from the mountain and the depot behind me. The cold seems to force them towards the valley. It seems likely that if we fortitude the depot a bit we could use it as our base.


    I have seen enough. I climb down the tree and start to walk towards the depot, only to notice that a group of three thorn armed soulless eye me like I am a raw steak in a pack of wolves. Instantly I bolt towards the next house corner. I don''t have to wait long till the first one of them shows his deformed face around the corner, only to be greeted by a dagger in his eye. While he died instantly I now stood in front of two female abominations staring warily at me. They now knew that I am dangerous and they still possessed some of their human intellect.


    As I had a wall behind me they at least couldn''t flank me, but they still tried to attack me from two different sides. They attacked I unison with their thorns. I evade to the right bringing the thorn of my right attacker between me and my second foe. I grab her left arm with my right while stabbing with the dagger in my left. I hit her heart, I can feel how it cuts itself on the blade. I let go.


    While she falls down I draw my sax with my right and strike at the remaining foe, who is struggling since her thorn is stuck in the hollow-brick wall. I am being sprayed by her blood as I hit her neck. I hurriedly take a few steps away from the scene while I fight down my nausea. After my stomach and mind calmed down I return to collect my dagger. What I see there disturbs me to no end, she is still alive, she has a dagger in her heart and still lives, I hurry over and pull the dagger out to let her die of blood loss, but there is no blood coming out of the wound. Did her body rearrange in that short time? Weakly she tries to crawl away. I take out my axe and end her from a safe distance away. As I crack her skull she finally went limb.


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    It seems the soulmist keeps them alive as long as there was something to direct it. I had to destroy their brain if I want to make sure they die. But what if they gained a soul strong enough to direct the mist? Could I do the same? Hoping that it would help me survive I stripped the three corpses of their soulmist.


    Deep in though I walked home, but still made sure no one followed me. The sun begins to set as I arrive at the depot. Still thinking about what I could do about the possibly undying foes I entered the offices. It smelled good. Seems like they found some meat. Following the smell I enter the kitchen. As I enter everyone stares at me. They didn''t greet and their gaze made me really uncomfortable.


    ¡°Do I have something on my face?¡± I ask, not understanding that staring. Silence. Then Sarah seems to have regained her composure. ¡°Yes, yes you do.¡± she said, ¡°It looks as if you have slaughtered a pig with a rusty knife,....... please tell me it was a pig.¡±.


    ¡°Later.¡± I replied, looking at the kids, that returned to eating. I go to one of the other rooms and get rid of my armour and the dirty clothes, then I get my self a towel and soak it in water. After washing myself with it the once white towel is now red. I get dressed and return to the family.


    While we eat we talk about what they found in the adjacent houses. Additional to some food, including meat, they found a cellar full of tin cans, I guess someone planned for an apocalypse. Another great found was a chicken coop they found in the outer region of this suburb. We talk about moving them to our home as a stable food-source, I hope they won''t change into some monstrosity.


    They kept their best find for the last thing to discuss, they found an amateur radio-station. I happily imagined more and more people joining our small safe haven, since numbers equalled safety in this scenario and we definitely had some resources to spare.


    Since the kids were clearly exhausted, their parents put them to bed, while I relaxed at the table, thinking how I should tell them the bad news.

 Chapter 8

    AN: As a test today will come only one chapter, with twice the lenght...


    Chapter 8


    When the two of them returned to their places, I started our conversation. ¡°First of all, sadly it wasn''t a pig that I killed.¡± I said, ¡°It were three soulless, actually there was a fourth I killed before, but I didn''t get so dirty while handling that one, but he gave me four small reminders.¡± I pointed towards my right cheek.


    ¡°Why did you have to kill them?¡± Paul asked. ¡°The first one was close to here and he was a cannibal. The other three though that I would be a tasty snack. All four of them were mutated and rapidly evolving predators. I fear there is no hope for those that have lost their soul to ever return to being human.¡± I replied.


    As the news sank in they looked rather down. ¡°So what are you planning concerning the soulless?¡± Sarah asked. ¡°Nothing much, I will just patrol the area and clear it if necessary. The cold already starts to drive them into the valley and if we are lucky they won''t come back, although it won''t surprise me if they survive the winter.¡± I replied. ¡°But we should at least fortify our position here.¡± I added. With that we finished our conversation.


    The next day we got up with sunrise and prepared to scavenge the nearby houses. We need wood and tools to build a chicken scoop and fortitude our home. As we get ready to leave I notice that the others also found something to arm themselves. ¡°If we get some leather and some metal plates I should make some armour for them.¡± I though to myself. All in all we got my weaponry plus two axes, a bat and a pair of hedge shears. The last one, was carried by Thomas. Hoping that I could avoid involving him into a fight I let his impractical choice of weaponry slide.


    We got lucky and found a well equipped hobby workshop in the basement of the fifth house we checked. It looks like someone planned to build a new fence and so we got more than enough planks to build the coop. It took us two hours to carry everything back. Since it isn''t quite lunch time yet I decided to patrol the neighbourhood and get the radio-station on my way back.


    As I walked trough the streets, the only living beings I saw were a normal looking cat and two groups of the armoured soulless, which fled when they saw me. It is strange seeing humans flee like a herd of antelopes. I didn''t give chase, since I didn''t judge them as an aggressive threat and in general they fled towards the valley.


    When I reached the house with the radio-station I saw a third group in the distance and they also saw me. They are hunters. Cursing I run to the house, which door was busted. There are five of them, if they manage to surround me I am finished.


    It didn''t take them much time to reach the door, the first one that tried to enter was greeted by my axe, which split its skull, those guys truly needed to learn how to safely chase their prey. Using the new corpse I blocked their path, giving me the time to free my axe. I attack again but my second enemy was more prepared and managed to avoid a fatal hit, but I still managed to hit his right shoulder, sadly I didn''t take my time to make the axe sharp, I only broke some of his bones and give him a nasty laceration. I really need to change that. Dodging his one-armed lunge I managed to finish him off with a hit to the head. Then I heard the sound of breaking glass on my left, right and most alarming from behind.


    My only option is to isolate one of them and swiftly kill it. I run to the room to my right. I almost ran into it, but a quick kick to the ground changes my trajectory and brings me to its left flank, while my axe is on collision course with its face. Crack, another one hits the ground. But I have to let go of my axe. It is stuck and I lack the time to free it.


    Hearing heavy footsteps from the door I turn around drawing my trusty sax. They lunge at me as soon as they had a clear path. I can''t evade both, I have to take one hit. Inwardly cursing I take a quick step towards the one on my right, catching his attack with my left shoulder, at least I am not penetrated by its thorn since I shortened the distance and messed up its aim. Almost hugging my enemy I shove my blade through its temple.


    I kick it away while freeing my blade and turn towards my last enemy, which luckily struggles to get back on his feet, since he tackled a table. It doesn''t take long for it to attack me again. It wasn''t easy to deal with that last one, since my balance and speed was limited, but I managed.


    After gathering my axe and sheathing my weapons I go upstairs towards where the radio station should be. After I found it I closed and locked the door and sit down on one of the chairs. Grimacing in pain I strip my armour and clothes. My left shoulder is a slowly swelling and pain filled mass.


    First I shut down my nerves in this area, then I begin to move the pieces of my collarbone back to their original position. Its really helpful to have a mental image of your healthy self. When everything seems to be in order, I start the regeneration. The final product was a working collarbone, but it was still weak. I couldn''t imitate months of healing in an hour, I just barely fixated the pieces together, the fractures were still weak.


    Those guys are freaking strong. No wonder, considering they often break their bodies with their attacks. They are like glass canons in a RPG. ¡°The reach of my sax is just too low. Maybe I should get myself a polearm. Nah they need to much space to be useful.¡± I though to myself, ¡°But a crow''s beak hammer would be great to crack some skulls and it wouldn''t take two arms to swing it effectively, like my axe. *sigh* I need a forge.¡±.


    After reequipping my clothes and armour I took out the rope and a potato bag and put the equipment I came for in it. Using the rope I created a backpack, since I need my one useful hand free, in case I would have to fend of something.


    I carefully made my way back, always checking the surroundings for any living being, before I leave my cover and make my way to the next. Relieved I reach our depot.


    As I return I am greeted by the alarmed clucking of chickens, looks like they finished the coop faster than I anticipated. It was at the south wall of the depot and right next to the gate of the fence that separates the site from the surroundings. Once it gets warmer we need to build a fenced of area for them, but since winter is coming they prefer to stay inside.


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    As I get inside, I drop the radio carefully and hurry to get a change of clothes to not repeat yesterdays mistake. Noting that I will soon run out of clothes if I continue to bath in the blood of my enemies I join the others in their lunch preparations. As we cook, I tell Sarah and Paul what happened, carefully avoiding child ears of course.


    Anxious they ask if we should try to get to the police station and arm ourselves with firearms. In response to that I explain to them that our foes won''t stop from a bullet if we don''t hit their heads and ask them if they are confident to hit a moving target in the head. They reply by shaking their heads, none of us had any training in that aspect.


    After we finished our meal, we got to work on the radio-station and recorded a message of our location and circumstances and play it in an endless stream. We don''t expect a reply, but if someone still tried to get emergency messages over his radio he would hear us and know where to find us. Sadly we don''t know how long the electricity will be available, it could be a week or shut down tomorrow, but we hope that at least a few survivors will come.


    There is one place I really want to check out after my last fight, the workshop of my blacksmithing teacher. I don''t think we can move the forge but it would be great if I could secure it. Sadly its rather far away, its farther up the mountain, so it could be save, but I would be gone for a long time.


    And then it hit me, why don''t I take a car or a motorcycle? I have a freaking drivers licence. But is it save to make so much noise? Thinking about it I came to the conclusions that firstly that no one would care whether I had a licence or not and secondly the mountains would carry the motor noise way to far. But a bicycle should be alright, it will make my return much faster. There was still a problem though, blacksmithing consumes a lot of time. Maybe I should build a forge here.


    While thinking about what I could use as a base for the forge, my gaze wanders through the room. It stops at a big plant pot. ¡°Nah that would be ridiculous. But maybe.....It could work.¡± I murmur to myself. Ceramic can withstand quite a lot of heat, but it will break if the temperature changes too fast I would also need bellows and an anvil. If I remember correctly my teacher owns a small wedge anvil. That would be enough to get started on that front, the forge only needs a bit of work, but where could I get bellows from? I guess I have to build them. All I need for that is leather, wood, a few pipes and hinges. And nails, a lot of them.


    It took me a week to gather and assemble everything. Thanks to finding a bike with a cart I actually managed to transport a 50 kg anvil, I hope the post office won''t miss its bike. In this time we evaded any of the soulless and I noticed that there were less and less of them around.


    The electricity failed 2 days ago, so I had to stop my crafting and build a stove in an empty storage room. The office rooms ventilation is not good enough to support a fire, but we managed to build a simple chimney for the stove, by tearing a hole in a wall and using some clay. The others tried to make the storage room comfy in the meanwhile, the limited space in the offices was simply not enough for us. They build some beds and scavenged mattresses for them, some tables and chairs. In the end we moved to this room completely.


    While I do the finishing touches to my setup, I hear a commotion from the outside, I draw my weapon and hurry outside. I don''t have my armour on though, since I didn''t expect any danger. With drawn blade I rush through the depot gate. What I see in our front yard surprised me greatly. It is a herd of cows, but those are the biggest cows I have ever seen. Their shoulders easily reached the height of a grown man. Among those humongous cattle were 20 people.


    I slowly sheathed my sax, knowing I couldn''t solve this situation with violence. I quickly checked the group of people and they all still had their souls. ¡°Hey, we have guests!¡± I shout to the depot, to alarm the others. Turning to our guests I say ¡°Greetings, did you follow our transmission?¡±.


    ¡°We sure did.¡± said an middle-aged weathered woman, ¡°Heard you got some food to share, we also would be interested in some trading.¡±. ¡°You come from the farms in the valley right? Did you come across some strange humans?¡± I asked. ¡°Yeah we did. Our big ones here saved our asses back then. Never before have I seen them or those monsters move so fast.¡± she answered, ¡°Why do you ask, do you know something about them?¡±.


    ¡°Yes a bit, they were once human, the armoured once are mostly harmless and the ones with the thorns hunt any living being, to kill them you should destroy their brain.¡± I said, sharing most of my knowledge about them, withholding the more unbelievable parts.


    ¡°Let me get that straight. You killed one of those bullet-absorbing bastards?¡± A man with a rifle over his shoulder asked. ¡°Yes, but I prefer to use knifes or axes, bullets only slow them down if you don''t hit their head. They also don''t feel much pain and they regenerate really fast. I saw one survive with a knife in its heart.¡± I replied, ¡°And I killed more than one.¡±.


    ¡°But those things are freaking fast.¡± he said, ¡°There must be some trick to it, it would be great if you could show it to us.¡±. Thinking about it, I came to only one solution. ¡°Get your three strongest guys here and we will spar a bit, maybe that will show them how I did it. Sadly I don''t know another way to teach it.¡± I said.


    While my guests discussed among themselves I loosened the belts holding my weapons and laid them on the ground. I did some quick stretching until three guys stepped forward. ¡°Do you have some close combat experience?¡± I asked. The reply was bar fights and one ex-soldier, it was the one from earlier.


    ¡°We will start with solo sparring. Who wants to go first?¡± I asked.

 Chapter 9

    Chapter 9


    The first two were depressing, they attacked when they should keep their guard up, they let me invade their territory without pressuring me and they fell for all my feints. It didn''t take long and they were groaning on the ground. They didn''t get in one clean hit, only some stomach punches, which I could negate by simply turning my hips a bit and flexing my muscles.


    I hope the ex-soldier is a bit more challenging. We start with a small nod to signal that we both are ready and take our stance. It didn''t take me long to notice that he at least some of the basics of fighting. He didn''t fall for the feint, that is my lowered front guard. Seeing that I correct my stance and draw closer, invading his reach. His answer is a quick kick at my lower body. I use my right to block while stepping forward, its really easy to break a kicks strength by doing so and the loss of footing destroys most of his opportunities to punch, while I am free to do so. Noticing his mistake he kicks the ground to keep his distance. Another error. I follow him and now that he is without any stable footing its easy to let him hit the floor. A single low kick does the trick. At least he knows how to break his fall.


    ¡°You shouldn''t sacrifice your footing so easily, quick low kicks are ok, but don''t go for something above knee level. The risk isn''t worth the gain, even more so if you use melee weapons¡± I reprimand him, ¡°We can start with a group fight now, if you want, that is you three against me.¡±.


    Mumbling something about payback time the two I battered before joined the ex-soldier and we got ready for the last round. The two instantly tried to charge me, while the third one stayed behind waiting for his chance. I dodge the first swing, that is way too wide by the way, and outmaneuver the two by placing us three in a straight line, with one of them standing in the middle.


    My revenge is a fast good aimed strike to his flank hitting his liver. One down. My soul warned me of the sneak attack the soldier tried, sidestepping his attack on the back of my face my elbow meets his solar plexus. Two down. The last surrendered, his first smart action of the day. What an anticlimactic fight.


    ¡°You only used your right arm to attack didn''t you? And more importantly how did you dodge the last one?¡± the soldier asked after regaining his breath. ¡°There is more to this changed world than what meets the eyes and I only had to move on the level of an ordinary human, just with enhanced reflexes and senses. I can teach you how to obtain that and how to push your body way beyond what you believe is your limit. But I don''t know how long it will take you to obtain it. You would have to stay here.¡± I say. To further deepen my point I take a blade and cut my left fore arm and heal it right after a bit of blood drips to the ground. Wiping away the blood I show the flabbergasted group a fresh scar.


    I left the group and the small family that joined them during my little spar to further discuss the matter and their options and returned to my smithy, preparing to finally test it tomorrow.


    Happy with my work I decide to take a look if they need some help in preparing the supper. As I enter the room silence emerges. Six people step forward and like the clich¨¦ in martial-arts movies bow their head and say ¡°Please teach us the art of fighting.¡±. I burst into laughter. ¡°Guys that is just hilarious, you just had to ask, not to pay me any respect. You will loose it and curse me anyway.¡±. Getting back my composure I ask ¡°How long will your group stay here?¡±.


    ¡°We want to stay for the winter.¡± the spokeswoman from before says, ¡°But we would appreciate your help for some preparations for our stay. As I saw food for us won''t be a problem, but our cattle also needs something to eat and grain and potatoes ain''t a proper diet for them. We need hay. And I know where to get it.¡±


    ¡°The valley.¡± I assume. ¡°Right.¡± she responds, ¡°As for transportation we can make our cattle carry it, tractors are a really bad idea by the way, they attract those hunters, but we could get some carts. All we need is protection.¡±. ¡°How long till we have to move?¡± I ask. ¡°Maybe a week, there isn''t any snow yet and the grass is still long in this area, although there isn''t much of it.¡± she says. ¡°I will need three days for preparations, then we can move out. In addition there is something I want to teach all of you, so I would appreciate it if everyone could meet up in the front yard tomorrow morning.¡± I say.


    After all is said we eat and prepare some improvised beds for everyone and get a good nights rest. The next morning I teach everyone about their soul, with the though that if more people experience it maybe someone will discover something new, I also tell them about the possibilities I have and in general encourage them to experiment with their soul. A different view point is sometimes all that is needed to make surprising discoveries.


    After that business is finished, I heat up the forge. Soon the sound of metal hitting metal fills the room it takes me almost all day to get a crow''s beak hammer right, my first try failed at the eye, the hole where the handle is fixated. The rest is really easy and doesn''t require any special tempering, it would actually be detrimental to harden it. It just needs to cool down slowly, to ease the stress of the material.


    Satisfied with my new weapon I let the material rest and get some rest. The next day I optimize a handle for my new weapon, using a wooden shaft and some leather. In the afternoon I train a bit with the six vict.... ehm volunteers, most of them don''t know a thing about actual combat, only a bit brawling. I have to start with the most basic stuff, like how one maintains a proper guard and where to go to outmaneuver an enemy,also how to punch and kick using the force of the whole body, that concept was especially hard to grasp for most of them.


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    The last day of the preparation time I used to get everything in order for our travel. Organizing our food, how and where to rest, luckily we had a map for that and of course getting in touch with our big hairy travel companions, I don''t want to startle them when I approach them. It would be a sad way to die.


    We departed the next morning, all our herders had to do was leading the matriarch of the herd. We passed the ghost town without any incidents, we took our first rest in a hollow, I used the surrounding hills to scout our surroundings and cover us from anything watching the mountains.


    A few hundred meters ahead of us I see a group of four hunting soulless, I call my six apprentices to come to my observation spot and watch me deal with them. The four are currently feasting on the corpse of a cow. Taking my time I sneak up to their location using the brushwood as cover, its moments like that that I am happy that those monsters once were humans, any other animal would have smelled me long ago, but those guys didn''t and their eating was way louder than any of my steps.


    They only noticed me when I started my attack. Wielding my hammer and my sax at the same time, which is an easy feat when one has as much mental processing power as I have, I lunge out of my cover and swing my hammer at the closest one to my right. Simultaneously I hack at the leg of the guy to my left, immobilizing him for the moment. The one to my right dies through the thorn on my hammer and the one to my left falls to his knees, looks like I hit a tendon. I back away to have a tree in my back and begin to fight the last two.


    It doesn''t take long and I am the last one standing, its really lucky they fight relying on pure instinct. If not they could have stalled for time to get the injured one back into the fight, which would have allowed them to slowly deal with me. Taking my time absorbing the soulmist I wait for the group to catch up. They don''t lead the herd too close to my place of carnage,the smell could startle them.


    ¡°You really went easy on us, huh?¡± the ex-soldier greets me. ¡°Those guys are simply to dumb. They lack all the concepts I taught you. Only in a prolonged fight do they start to dodge, but I fear for the moment those guys get some battle experience. They can learn and they most probably will.¡± I respond, ¡°That is why I train you, I don''t think I can fight alone forever.¡±.


    We continue on track, always observing our surroundings. While walking I think about how I could get stronger. Sure I could increase my muscle mass, but that would be detrimental after a certain point, too much muscles lower my agility, which is a main aspect of all martial-arts and melee-combat in general. Ironically the ones that have to build up the biggest muscle mass are archers, controversially to most RPGs. An archer needs a lot of strength and since its almost impossible to use a bow while moving, agility isn''t of any essence. Ones aim has to be true, but you don''t need to be flexible or fast for that, you need strength to steady your aim, a good eye and lots of experience.


    A meele fighter on the other hand relies on agility to parry incoming attacks, most weapons aren''t made to block a blow, they will get damaged and completely blocking consumes lot of strength and endurance. It might even lead to injuries. Even with a shield its easier to redirect an attack than to block it, some weapons may even penetrate your shield if you try the block, my hammer for example.


    So should I try to increase my muscle density? No that is a dead end, there is only so much place for the filaments in my muscles. So maybe I should use my soul to simulate more effective filaments.


    Coming to that conclusion I try to separate another part of my soul, like I have done before to create the mental image of my body, but this time it isn''t static, it has to be a dynamic process. After establishing that I give that segment full permission on my knowledge from my studies, although mostly mechanic and electricity oriented it still provided advanced knowledge about physics.


    After that I was left with just barely enough soul mass on my command to establish my soul-sense. It didn''t take long after that till we arrived at our destination, it is a farm, with a huge silo filled with hay. I can also see before mentioned carts. I take a quick patrol around the area. It is save.


    We prepare a fast meal and let the cows graze, we will stay here for the night. We use the remaining sunlight to modify the carts, so that they can safely get pulled by the cattle. When night falls we go to sleep, but not without a night guard.


    The night passes without problems. We quickly load the carts and move out, since the hay is highly compressed we hope that we won''t need to make a second trip.


    AN: @ Shadebladez: The chapter was already written before your reply, hope you have some fun with the thoughts about body modification.

 Chapter 10

    Chapter 10


    The way back was without any problems, everything except us seems to have fled the mountains. Fleeing the cold. As we neared the town we pass a forest, I decide to get some firewood and take the soldier and a cow with me. His rifle could come in handy if we find some wildlife in the woods, I need the additional proteins to make the modifications my soul calculated, I already used them a bit on my left arm, using some of my reserves.


    The results are amazing, but they showed me some new problems, my tendons aren''t strong enough, which I can still handle by strengthening them, but the bigger problem is my endurance, I will have to increase the number of mitochondria in my cells and optimize my circulation. At some point I will have to completely ¡°upgrade¡± my organs.


    As we find a suitable tree, Jeff , the ex-soldier, whose name I finally learned after awkwardly asking, I guess I missed the introduction round when I finished the forge setup, stops me as I want to take my first swing at the tree. He leads my attention to a recently used wild path, following the tracks we find some deer and are lucky enough that the wind blows our smell away from them. A quickly aimed shot from Jeff kills one off them on the spot. He is really good with his gun.


    I still hurry over fearing that the quick regeneration isn''t limited to humans, but my fears are unfounded it seems that the limited processing power of a deer isn''t enough to guide the regeneration.


    When Jeff catches up to me I show him how to drain the soulmist from a body. We quickly drain the blood and bury the innards. We return to our grazing cow and begin to fell the tree. It does take us an hour to fell and removing the branches. We lead our cow back to the track we took before and continue our way home, now with some timber with us.


    We arrive shortly before night falls. We release our trusty ox and let the meat rest for the day, although we skin it now. Then we join the others, talk a bit and eat. Soon we hit the hay.


    The following ten few days we further scavenged the houses in the suburbs, for food, clothes and mattresses. We also processed the wood and finally gained a stable stock of firewood, not that we need that much, since everybody sleeps in the same room.


    We also visited the mall again getting some more water filters. But we need to find a solution to a smelly problem, the canalisation doesn''t work very well when there isn''t someone or something processing the refuse, besides it run dry since there isn''t much need for it.


    Searching around we find a building centre that once sold biological cesspools. Lending a bagger we start the construction of an outhouse. But since warm water is still hard to come by we decide against the construction of a shower, a bucket of warm water and a rag have to suffice.


    The mornings are reserved for my training and teaching session. Everyone is free to join, but my only steady vic... ehm volunteers are the six that directly asked for my guidance. Jeff, Rick, Maria, Tom, Patrick and Susan. Jeff finally begins to get a grasp on the soul-sense, but it exhausts him greatly to feel only a couple of meters away from him. At the moment I can permanently feel a radius of 10 meters around me and see further if I limit myself to a smaller sphere of vision.


    At that note Emelie seems to have an absurd affinity to the soul-sense, with her still quite average soul, average for survivors of the storm of course, she can permanently scan a area of 5 meters around her. But her vision lacks depth, she can only see objects bigger than a centimeter. With one exception, soulmist is much clearer to her than everything else.


    Maybe I should teach her how to manipulate energy with the mist, maybe everyone had a special affinity. Considering that I though about some tests to determine them. Manipulation of energy is pretty easy to test, we just need to test if someone can heat water or ignite some paper. Body manipulation is a bit harder. The best way would be through constant training it seems, which isn''t a bad idea anyway.


    Anyway we need a more effective way to collect soulmist, not everyone can hunt like me or Jeff. The problem is the reach, we can only manipulate soulmist in our immediate surroundings, and the backflow to fill this void is simply too slow.


    Remembering my experiment with the ignition of paper I try to form some tendrils and reach out. When I got quite some room covered I start to drain the soulmist. Its way faster than before, but its quite taxing, I try creating some supports between my tendrils.


    Immediately the strain lessens. Once again I begin to channel, but am interrupted by a lot of foot steps coming towards my direction. ¡°Oh thank god its only you, did you know how it scared everyone to feel a stream like that. I though a second storm is coming but then I felt that the source must be close.¡± Jeff said, while helping me out of my sitting position.


    ¡°I tried to find a way to strengthen the soul faster and it looks like I succeeded. One has to cover a bigger volume, construct a net or 3 dimensional grid.¡± I reply, ¡°But for that you have to train how to send soul-tendrils out of your body.¡±.


    ¡°Hmm didn''t try that yet..... Hey guys let''s get back to work, it was a false alarm anyway and spread the news.¡± Jeff says. The group disperses as quickly as it formed, I guess I should warn them beforehand if I want to experiment with the soulmist.


    As I wake the next day, I warn everyone and declare one of the empty offices as a meditation room. Dumping the morning training I begin my meditation, I once again create my grid of soul tendrils and begin to suck in the soulmist. Then I focus on my body and check the progress of my muscle modification. Three-quarters are still normal, I just didn''t get enough proteins to maintain and enhance my body.


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    Then my attention is drawn towards some not assimilated soulmist in my innards. After some short analysis I find out that it is the food I ate, could I also replicate mass by manipulating energy-bound soulmist?


    Searching for the familiar pattern of sugar I soon come across it. It took me quite some time but I finally get it right, I can create my own nutrients and the drain isn''t so bad either, I probably could automate it for a wide variety of proteins, vitamins and other stuff I will need.


    But my soul can''t support all three of the current tasks, I will have to choose, but before that I need to scan some food. To do that I walk towards the kitchen. I get quite some curios gazes and stare when people see me meditate with a potato in my hand, I hope it won''t start a weird religion.


    After I deemed my repertoire of scanned nutrients adequate, I begin to separate another part of my soul while shrinking the part that searches for modifications. At this point, I have to explain something about the soul-sense, the reach isn''t determined by how much of your soul one uses for it but by its density. That means that even though I passively use much of my soul, as long as I have enough to create my soul-sense it won''t be impaired. Using my body to its fullest is similar to that.


    That means without loosing my capability to heal myself and fight, I can provide my body with the nutrients it needs. I don''t have to eat anymore, but while I do so I won''t be able to strengthen my soul nor search for modifications for my body.


    With that I can travel as far as I want. I could search for other survivors and settlements. But for now I begin to create loads of nutrients, so that I can finalize my planned body modification.


    I needed two days to do that. After I finished I finally leave my meditation room. As I meet the others I get a lot of worried looks and questions, but I reassure them all that I am fine. After a quick meal, to keep the appearance of its necessity, I walk towards our training field. It is just the place we designated for training, nothing special.


    At the edge of it stands the car with which we arrived here. I go towards it and test my strength. I can''t completely lift it, the grip is just too bad and it is a bit too heavy. But lifting up one side of it, while the other remains on the ground is still quite impressive.


    Satisfied with the changes I gently let down the car and turn around. I am greeted with a collection of opened mouths, which belong to the people that watched me. The first one comes over asking how I did that, but I simply replied that it is out of their reach right now, but that I will write down some training manuals on how to do it.


    That is something I have to do in order to leave without completely stopping their advancement. Even though this ¡°settlement¡± has a good vibe, someone has to leave and find other people, we are simply too few to rebuild a civilisation. Who has a higher chance to have success than me?


    Although I am valuable to this community most of my commitments can be done via books, even in the smithy I am exchangeable, I just have to write my knowledge down, the rest is experience anyway. But my ability to manipulate my body is different, if I would have to teach it to someone, not only would I have to teach them a lot of basics about the function of their body, I also would have to wait for his or her soul to grow, hoping it has an affinity for it.


    If I use my time till spring efficiently, I will be almost inexhaustible. I will be the ideal scout.


    The following three months I prepared everything for my leave, it wasn''t hard to explain my intentions to the family and the farmers, that decided to settle down in the vicinity, they couldn''t stay at the depot since their cattle need more grass than it can provide, but they want to settle at the urban fringe, there where also thoughts about staying together and moving with everything to a different location, but if they do that they plan to leave me a note.


    I wrote a lot of books and manuals in the time, so that they could advance without me and discover their own techniques. I also intensified my training with Jeff and also forcefully fed him as much soulmist as he could handle, so that he will be able to defend everyone. I didn''t sleep in that time, at least my soul didn''t.


    I can meditate while sleeping, I don''t need my brain for that. At this point I was able to support 3 major programs. My standard setup consists of the nutrient program and the image of my body, for healing purposes. Additionally to that I switch between soul strengthening and body research.


    When spring came my body had changed completely, if someone would do an autopsy and research parts of my body, without ever seeing it complete he would doubt that I was human at all, maybe even that I come from earth.


    It was a tearful farewell, especially the children couldn''t hold back their tears, since I always would take me some time to teach them something new. But everyone knew that if I have to go, we may be able to survive with this generation but what about the next and the following? We are simply too few.

 Chapter 11

    Chapter 11


    When all this started all I had for my protection was a leather armour with some metal plates, now with my increase in strength I wear a full metal plate armour, which I specially crafted to reduce the loss in agility. There were only few and extreme movements I couldn''t do while wearing this set. I took care to darken every piece of it, covering it with a blackish iron oxide, it provided protection against rust and reflection, but if it gets warmer I will have to either cover it or ditch it. I don''t want to be baked alive.


    As for weapons there were only three changes to my arsenal, I ditched my axe and added a bow and a sword. I couldn''t find a proper gun or rifle, I lacked praxis and ammunition for them anyway, while I am capable to craft new arrows. Right now I only have five of them but I carry around twenty additional arrowheads with me.


    The bow is monstrous, I created it out of steel, no other human than me should be able to draw it. At least I didn''t meet them yet. My sword is a bastard sword, the unholy unification of a longsword''s blade and a claymore''s hilt. The blade is thicker and wider than one would normally forge, since I had to make sure that it doesn''t break through my own strength. The hammer also got an upgrade consisting of a metal handle.


    In a steady pace I made my way towards the valley, passing some farms and feral fields, back home the guys prepare the sowing, but there is nobody here. Following the road I reach the first big crossroad. Taking out a map I check my options. The left road leads to some villages, but the right one leads towards a big city, I also note that on the way to it there exists a military facility.


    I take the right way with the intention to check out the base, maybe the survivors in the city evacuated there, also if my guess that near-death experience strengthens the soul there could be a lot of survivors at the base. The distance to it is 200 km. At my current pace I will need a day of non-stop jogging. An easy feat for me, although an inhuman one. But that is the reason why I (!) am making this journey.


    After a boring monotone journey I reach my destination, strangely I didn''t come across a lot of living creatures, human or not. I guess there are more attractive places than this promontory. Especially for the soulless, at least as long as they can''t eat grass or relearn herding. Although the first would actually be easy to achieve, since we once were herbivore. The information for that should still rest in our DNA.


    I finally reach the forest, where the road leading to the base is crossing my path. Unbeknownst to me the street was watched by two people in military uniforms, they saw me hours ago. Immediately one of them went to base to make a report. When the soldier returns to his post half an hour later he got an update on the situation and was shocked. That person in black had jogged for half an hour. Beside they cold see him, with binoculars of course, more clearly now. What they saw shocked them even more, it looked like a heavy armour armed to the teeth with antique weapons runs down the highway.


    The soldier returned once more to make his report. It was decided that they would meet that strange person with utmost caution. Ten man and their leader gathered at the gate, armed with rifles, they had too many bad surprises already, they didn''t need another one.


    As I arrive near the gate I am greeted with ten guns pointed at me, I saw them long ago but still approached. I slow my pace an raise my hands to show my cooperation and will to talk. What I didn''t consider was the fact that it looked like I was raising my hands to draw my sword. One of the soldiers lost his cool and shot without getting a command.


    I react instantly, my soul extends engulfing the bullet and converting its kinetic energy into heat. The bullet stops for a moment and it would fall down, if I didn''t freeze it in place denying every conversion of energy. All it takes to do that is a bit of my concentration. I quickly create an automated program to stop any fast moving object around me, that doesn''t weights too much. I don''t want to stop my enemies with that, it would drain me to fast, but the energy of a medium calibre bullet was manageable.


    The speed of my soul is just hilarious, sadly I can''t transfer it onto my body, it still has to listen to the laws of physics, my conversions also has a limit in their output. But compared to the amount a body needs, the energy of a bullet is just laughable. A hail of them on the other hand......


    ¡°Cease fire!¡± I shout, while raising my arms even further to show that I don''t intend to fight. ¡°CEASE FIRE YOU IDIOTS, can''t you see he tried to raise his hands?¡± says a man that is apparently their leader. They lower their guns. I pick the bullet out of the air, while lowering my hand. ¡°I should use telekinesis more often...¡± I think to myself.


    The soldiers assume that their comrade missed, they were too far away to see the bullet stop, although my motion while lowering my hands looked kinda strange to them. But they though nothing of it as they assumed it was caused by my armour.


    While stepping closer I loosen my belts and hold them, weapons attached to them. I don''t want a repetition of what happened before. When I step closer to the group of armed man I say ¡°Catch!¡± and gently throw the bullet to its shooter, I then hand my weapons to the closest guy to me. Seems like I forgot the weight of my weapons, the guy that received them almost drops them, because he didn''t estimate the it. I reach up and take off my helmet.


    I hear a breath of relief coming from them. Looks like they still didn''t trust me till they saw my face. ¡°Thank god, I though we found yet another kind of monster, but you look like a normal human.¡± their leader greets me. ¡°HOW THE FUCK!¡±. I hear a shout from my left. I turn around and see that the shooter finally got what happened. ¡°Maybe not as normal as you though.¡± I say quiet enough so that only their commander hears me. Louder I continue ¡°So you do have some problems with the changed? I could probably help you.¡±.


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    ¡°Let''s talk about that inside, I am sure that running for hours was quite exhausting.¡± he invites me. Although I don''t really need any rest I still accept his invitation. I follow him inside. ¡°So how many survivors do you have here?¡± I ask. ¡°I know of around 200. but I don''t know if there are others around the city, it is too dangerous to go there at the moment.¡± he replies, ¡°How many are there from where you came?¡± ¡°Just 20. So we really need some more people for long term survival, right now its relatively safe there, the cold drove the changed down into the valley, so towards here.¡± I say.


    We reach a small house, which we enter. He leads me to an office and signals me to sit down. I take a seat and he sits down on the chair behind the desk, it seems like this is his office from before the apocalypse.


    As soon as he sits he begins to speak ¡°I don''t know exactly WHAT you are, but I know that I at least can reason with you. We are in dire need of some help, so name your price and we can talk about it.¡± ¡°I don''t need anything, but like I said there is a small group of survivors up in the mountains, I would like to have your group trade and interact with them.¡± I reply.


    ¡°Then let me brief you about everything, but first I would like to see what you are capable off.¡± he says while standing up, ¡°Follow me.¡± . He leads me towards a gym. Arriving there I decide to get rid of my armour, it would be dangerous to fight someone in it, dangerous for them.


    ¡°Guessing by your choice of weapons you are a meele fighter right?¡± he asks. I nod. ¡°Our meele combat instructor is among the survivors, warm yourself up while I get him here for a spar.¡± . I grin while I warm myself up. This is going to be fun. ¡°Bring some more fellows.¡± I shout at the commander''s back.


    He soon returns, followed by my soon to be sparring partner and some curios soldiers. ¡° So that is him huh? Looks rather fit.¡± my sparring partner says, ¡°I think we will need more than just one round to evaluate this guy, he seems to be at a good level, guessing from his posture at least. Wait a moment for me and we can get started.¡±


    After he warmed up, we got started with the fight. Since I wanted to enjoy the spar and wanted to impress the onlookers, I took my time with the fight. But the ending was rather obvious, he stood no chance. Turning around I say ¡°I need some more helping hands to show my full potential, would you guys lend me a hand?¡±


    The next spare was 10 versus me. I tap a bit more into my potential. In this fight my movement were mere blurs for the onlookers, some of the volunteers couldn''t even react to my movements. Honestly the hardest part was not hurting them too badly. I was easily twice as fast as any of them.


    The onlookers were simply dumbfounded. ¡°What did you expect from someone who ran for at least two hours with a 50 kg armour and caught a freaking bullet out of the air?¡± the shooter from before asks, while lifting part of my armour. Noises of disbelief erupt in the audience. ¡°Is that enough for you commander or should I stab myself in front of you and heal myself, by the way most of those changed humans can do that too, which means you either have to destroy their heads or damage their body heavily enough for it to fail to kill them.¡± I say.


    ¡°I will pass on that one. It is just past lunch and I don''t want to upset my stomach. Come with me and I will give you all the information you will need for the job.¡± he replies.


    We return to his office, after I took my armour and weapons with me, and he begins his explanation. ¡°Our situation is a bit more complicated than a horde of hunting changed, but from your actions till now, I at least can judge that you won''t make matters worse.¡± he begins, ¡°Like I said before, I know of around 200 survivors at this city, we only have 50 here the rest are either kidnapped or went rogue. They are led by a former soldier.¡± He shows me a picture.


    ¡°That guy and his preachings changed a lot of people. He used their moment of weakness to influence them. We lost a lot to him, people, food and a lot of weaponry. As far as I know 75 of his followers are soldiers and the rest are civilians. But I only know where they settled down, not what they are doing, nor what they plan to do. But when we observed them we got some seriously bad news. He and most of his followers are drunk on might and violence, we already confirmed ten deaths.¡±


    ¡°So you want me to remove him and his elites? And return the people to you?¡± I ask filled with doubt. ¡°That would be the preferable outcome, but you could also take the people with you to your settlement, I would even provide food and transportations. All I want is to see those people free from misuse. If we tried that there would be too many deaths, but you might be able to ''join'' them and deal with it from the inside.¡± he replies.


    It is really tempting for me, all I need are more people and he presents a possibly agreeable solution. ¡°I will have to confirm your informations, but I will try to solve this problem.¡± I say. ¡°That is all I wanted to hear.¡± he replies, with a sliver of hope shinning in his eyes, ¡°Then I wish you good luck.¡±


    With that I leave the base and run towards a city, I will need halve a day to reach it by foot. I soon reach the suburbs and my pace drops, since I detect a lot of activity here. In a steady pace I cross the districts, dispatching all hunters I meet, they are easy prey now, but I still noticed that they changed quite a bit. They grew a lot and gained even more muscles, that slowed them down a lot, but their sheer destructive strength is ridiculous. At least to a normal human.


    Soon I reach a vantage point and see my destination.

 Chapter 12

    Chapter 12


    It is a big mall, It has only one bigger window-front, which is heavily barricaded right now. A quiet good choice for a building to turn it into a fortress. I can also see five guards on the roof of the three story building. I don''t think that I will get in there unnoticed, so I slowly walk towards the guarded entrance.


    The guards detect me soon after I leave my cover, but they aren''t on edge like the guys at the military base. They just lazily look towards my direction, it seems they don''t think of me as a threat. When I draw even closer I notice that there is actual electricity running in the building, seems like the mall has an emergency generator. There are lights burning in the corridor behind the guards.


    ¡°State your business and your name and you may come in, but be aware that we ain''t the welfare.¡± I am greeted by one of the guards. ¡°I just need a place to rest from my travels, but if I like what I find I also might stay here.¡± I say. ¡°If that is all you need you may stay for a day free of charge, but if you stay longer you will have to contribute.¡± he replies.


    Up till now I didn''t get a too bad impression of this place, but I guess I look rather independent to others, so I won''t be target with discrimination instantly. But if the information I got is true the innards of this group may be beyond rotten. I will have to thread with caution and judge without being blinded by prejudice. My moral will have to be my guiding light.


    I enter the building and begin to take a look around, there are a lot of people here, it looks like there are over 300 people here and that is only the first floor! It seems like every survivor gathered in this place. When I try to go up to the second floor I am rebuked with the words that only authorized personnel is allowed there, but if I could pay the fine I could also be one of those lucky ones.


    Returning from the staircase I begin to wander around, looking for an opportunity to gather some intel. Something I notice after a short time is the lack of weapons, only some guard lookalikes in military uniforms are armed. That strikes me as strange, since I know of the weapons they stole from the military base. I expected that there are a lot of weapons around, considering the number of soulless I noticed while crossing the city.


    I quickly learned how the mall survived the initial feeding frenzy, one of the employees withstood the storm and drove every changed out and locked the door. Three days later the military arrived here. He is a resident of the upper level now. This term alone taught me that they established a caste system. That isn''t necessarily bad, but it stops growth and can easily lead to cruelty.


    There are three castes here, the refugees, which came here to find protection, the guard, which mostly consist of the rogue soldiers and have the privilege to be armed and the elites, which lead the group of survivors. It is an easy system and has the potential to be rather successful, if the duties, numbers and privilege are shared fairly. There would also has to be a institution to judge the people without taking their rank and titles into account.


    But I soon got to see the ugly side of this community, I found the injured and weak, some of the wounds were clearly caused by guns. I could have bribed my way into the upper level, but I wanted to judge this system and the best way to do that is by seeing how it cares for its ''lowest'' members.


    It didn''t care for them at all. In this makeshift hospital there was only one person caring for the wounded. The only one around that helped them, was a woman in nurse clothes. ¡°What do you need to help those poor fellows here.¡± I ask the nurse. ¡°You are new here huh? Better leave as long as you still can. But since you asked. Multiple miracles, to be honest, the three with the bullet wounds won''t survive the next day and I have some guys with badly set broken bones, sadly I ain''t a doctor, I did what I could. At least we don''t starve.¡± she replies ¡° Not thanks to our ''great'' leaders though.¡±


    That was quite a mouthful, but I decide to first help the ones I can help. ¡°Lead me to one of the guys with the broken bones, maybe I can help. Ohh I will need some food for that though.¡± I say. Mumbling something which I couldn''t understand, she leads me towards a bed with an injured person.


    As soon as the nurse left I talk with the person about what I will do. ¡°First I will push your soul away from the area I have to treat, that will scare the shit out of you, then I will fix you up, although I can''t heal you completely.¡± I say to him then I cut myself to show him that I can in fact heal myself. The boy on the bed watches me with big eyes, not saying a single word, only flinching when he sees my blood.


    I begin the treatment, it is the first time I do that, I always avoided touching a foreign soul, fearing that I would harm them, but at the moment I have enough trust in my abilities. I begin to push away the boys soul, at first he struggles and takes a sharp breath. His defence is like a water hose spraying against a tidal wave, it has no effect, my soul pushes him away without harming it.


    As soon as I have control over the wounded area I shut down some of his nerves, effectively numbing the area. Then I begin to rearrange the bone fragments and hasten the regeneration. It doesn''t take long but it tires his body. As soon as I am ready I motion for the boy to eat what the nurse brought to me. She gave me a surprised look at that not only did I apparently succeed in treating him, but I also gave, what she assumed I wanted as payment, to the patient.


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    ¡°I am confident now that I can treat the more critically wounded.¡± I say, ¡°I am sorry I had to use this tough fellow here as a guinea pig, but he won''t have any complications. But make sure he doesn''t strain his arm too much, it is still weak. Could you move the three in critical condition together?¡±


    Soon I began my operations on the other three. Since they were unconscious I easily overpowered their soul and collected it to small balls in their heads. Now with full control over their bodies I began the operations. I couldn''t use the nutrients of their bodies, it would have to many detrimental side effects. It took me two hours and when I awake from my deep meditation and release their souls, I am greeted by what I guess are the families and friends of the wounded.


    ________________________________________________________________________________


    ¡°What a strange day.¡± Ellie though to herself. It started so horribly when three guys with bullets in their bodies got carried into her makeshift infirmary. She lost all hope when she saw those wounds, but nonetheless tried her best to safe treat them to her best abilities. It didn''t take long to make a strange turn around, a strange stranger arrived, clad in his pitch-black and intimidating armour and armed to his teeth he asked her what she needed to help her patients. He offered his help with some of the lesser serious wounds and all he wanted was something to eat.


    It dumbfounded her that she met a person in this harsh world, who doesn''t want his payment and even more someone who could work miracles. She had given up on the boys arm long ago, it was a complicated rupture located near the elbow. The boy was healed and her saviour asked for more, not payment but work.


    With amazement she watch how he treated the three she gave up, he just sat there, but when she moved aside one of the bandages she applied, there was no blood. She could see the flesh grow and heal. It was like an angel descended to heal the people god apparently had forsaken. She hurried to gather the people acquainted to the healed to share the miracle. Fearing no one would believe her she didn''t say why they had to come, but they still followed, since they just returned from their work anyway. Most of them fearing for the worst.


    ________________________________________________________________________________


    What they saw washed away there fear, the wounds were gone only scars remain. They wanted to shout out in joy but a gesture from ''their angel'' made them stop. ¡°I have other things to achieve here, I would appreciate it if you could keep this a secret for a few days. But could someone tell me how it came to those wounds? And how your live is?¡± I said.


    Filled with a new-found hope they did as I said. The wounds were inflicted when the three returned from their work, which consists of scavenging the nearby houses. They were chased by some of the changed, the panicked guards opened fire and some stray bullets hit the fleeing people.


    But what really shocked me was their everyday live, they would rise early to scavenge, mostly weaponless as they were forbidden from being armed, only a few used some simple meele weapons, most simply ran. The guards only protect the building nothing more. And for that protection they took a hefty toll of what was scavenged.


    That lifestyle was simply suicidal and to make matters worse, some of the ''elites'' had some nasty habits. The most harmless build harems with every person they wanted, but the more wicked enjoyed mindlessly hurting others and other sinister pleasures. They hide behind terror and the fear of being outcast from the ''only'' save haven. Most didn''t know of the manned base outside the city at all.


    The only one, who had fought the injustice was a guy named Steve, which currently was nailed to a cross, that stands in the atrium of the second floor. Everyone had been forced to watch this torture. As far as they knew he is still alive.


    From what they told me, that Steve seems like quite a likeable leader and even more importantly one whose visions were compatible with my own. The currently existing system relies strongly on isolation and suppression, the current leaders won''t risk loosing their followers while interacting with other groups of survivors. It is more likely that they would enslave them.


    If I want to help these people I have to achieve three tasks. Firstly free Steve, secondly free the guards of the influence of the elites and lastly eliminate those rotten beings on the top. After that I could lead them to safety. The people I helped provided me with a list of corrupted individuals.


    Another thing I learned while I healed the four people was that everybody had a different looking soul. Could I differentiate between the wicked and the good by reading their soul? Maybe. I will have to test it. And I will have the opportunity for that.


    For my first job I leave the mall, once again greeting the guards. Once I was out of sight I climb up a building next to it nobody saw me. Night has fallen over the world. No moon could be seen, it is almost pitch black. But soon the moon will break through the clouds. It was the perfect night for shady things. It was a night for murder.

 Chapter 13

    Chapter 13


    Spreading my soul like wings around me I jump towards the roof of the mall. Using my soul like that allows me to push myself upwards, which prolongs my jump by quite a lot. There are no guards on the roof, seems like they don''t see a need to man it at night, I guess they wouldn''t see anything useful anyway and they don''t have spotlights. My target is now right below me. I see him nailed to a cross. There were some lights lit in the inner courtyard, I guess they are remnants of its use as an pleasure garden.


    ¡°So the dark angel descents to end the martyr''s suffering...¡± a weakly voiced Steve says, while I descent, slowing my fall with my soul. ¡°Either you can see my soul or you are delirious.¡± I respond. ¡°What a cruel god it must be to banish such a beautiful soul....¡± ¡°Stop that crap, I am neither an angel nor did I come here to end you, far from it actually.¡± With those words I use my soul and rip the nails out and catch the falling martyr.


    It takes me half an hour to return him back to an acceptable state, his soul didn''t resist at all and so I tested what I could get by reading it. It was a mix of memories and thoughts, the result was a pretty accurate definition of his character. What I found pleased me, he would be a good leader for his people. Time to get them under his control. I lead him towards an hideout and begin my hunt.


    It is really handy to know where every person around you is located when one tries to assassinate someone. My list is a bit long though. I sneaked towards where the first one should be located. He is fast asleep and alone, I enter his room and his soul, soon he is helpless. I try to not destroy his soul while reading it, I only want to find if he is guilty or only manipulated or blackmailed. But very soon I draw my blade and give him my judgement, he is guilty of many crimes against his fellow men.


    This procedure soon becomes my routine. I need an hour to clean the guards of its most prominent and high-ranking evildoers. The outcome are four dead and five knocked out people. I also learned an interesting piece of information, the only persons with the keys to the third floor are the elites and nobody except them is allowed there at night. I guess they satisfy their fleshly lust in the day.


    Not one of the guards I ''interrogated'' knew why that was the case, most even criticised this decision, arguing that they couldn''t help them in case of an emergency. That is actually a sound argument, so what could be the reason that not even one key remains on the 2nd floor? Which secrets did they need to protect so urgently?


    The door is unguarded, thick and has an expensive and secure lock. Every attempt to force it open would alarm the whole second and third floor, hence it wasn''t guarded. But it isn''t a hindrance to me. It is not more than a small telekinesis exercise to me. I open the door and walk towards where the six elites are according to my soul-sense. They are awake.


    I enter the room, but I wasn''t prepared for what I see there, I would never be. The six of them were stylishly dinning, but their dinner filled me with such anger that I lost my control. On a big tray there lay a big cooked animal, except it wasn''t an animal it was a human child. Even though there wasn''t a lack of food, even in the lower levels of this building, they were eating their own kin.


    What happened to their mind? Did they always have those tendencies? Could the storm have changed them? I would never find out, my soul itself exploded in rage, creating a wave that I willed against them. It completely overwhelmed them, destroyed their souls and left their empty hulls on the floor, which I killed.


    Bathed in blood I awoke from my rage. I don''t think that any of them wasn''t guilty, but I still lost my calm. I cant allow myself to ever let that happen again. Not after I witnessed first-hand what I was capable of. I fled from the mall. I had left orders and a map for Steve at the hideout.


    From what I observed the next morning there was a lot of panic when they found the bodies, but that was perfect for Steve, he easily managed to take control, no one in the guards wanted a bloodbath and the civilians backed him with all they got. They finally got some hope and they weren''t willing to give it away.


    The next few days the community in the mall was filled with activity, in preparation of moving to the military base, and with stories of a two-faced angel, one side filled with mercy towards the injured, sick and oppressed and the other filled with malice towards those that enjoy suffering and injustice. I really should keep up a more human appearance in the future.


    When they left towards the military base I followed them and kept their path clear of any soulless, all they found were corpses of the changed ones. Something they also declared a miracle, I am sure of it. When they left the city I also left them, there were other places I still wanted to check out.


    My way further leads me away from the mountains. I follow yet another highway, this time towards the capital of this small country. It took me almost a month to reach it. It was now the 1st of April, at least if my sense of time didn''t mess up at some point. The way took me so long because I checked every city I crossed for survivors, but I only found few groups, which I advised to travel along the highways towards the other groups I left behind.


    I wonder why there were so few, did they die or did someone else collect them? I hope the later and they simply missed the few I found. I finally arrived at the borders of the capital. I have never seen it before, I always stayed in my hometown. I never had enough to spare to travel around, nor did I want to. But now I see with my own eyes why everyone told me to visit it at least once.


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    Even while deteriorating it still had an atmosphere I never witnessed before, it filled me with awe and amazement. Those buildings are huge. While I observe the scenery I decide to climb the nearest skyscraper to get a better view of the city and more easily detect any activities and settlments. I soon enter the nearest building I deem high enough for my purpose. Of course the lift doesn''t work...


    My climb was really monotonous, even for someone like me it is a pain to climb this many stairs! Not a physical one though but one for the mind. I swore myself to not use those damn things to get down, I will simply glide down. The view that greeted me on the roof almost made my climb worthwhile.


    What I found after a short observation definitely made it worthwhile. I can see a beacon, consisting of some flags and a bright flashing light, it looked like someone was rotating an aircraft-spotlight, used to find aircraft in the previous wars. The beacon is near a big park, or what I assume was once a park, now it looks more like fields in the middle of the city. I guess I found a rather large settlement.


    I jump from the building and begin to glide towards my destination, using the other buildings facades to regain altitude. When I got close I let myself fall to the ground and begin to walk the remaining way. The survivors built walls between the buildings to wall off the park, it didn''t take long and I was spotted by a guard, not like those heavily armed soldiers I met before, it is a simple lookout.


    He didn''t sound any apparent alarm, but he continues to watch my approach. When I come into shouting range he begins to question me, about my business here, if I have seen some mutants, I guess that is the term they use for the soulless here. I stated my business as scouting for a group of survivors and that I wanted to create a permanent trade and interaction, in short I am an ambassador.


    As for the other one I informed him of a group of ten hunting type soulless in the east. He opened a small hidden door in the wall and signalled me to come in. As soon as I enter I am greeted by three guns pointed towards my face, two are unloaded I felt with my soulsense, I guess they have to save ammunition and want to intimidate me.


    I soon learn their reason. They want me to strip and check for any mutations on my body, I guess they made some bad memories with soulless that were smuggled inside by their relatives or they met intelligent soulless, which would surprise me. I didn''t find any unidentifiable or unknown soul-patterns on my way here.


    Since I wanted to keep my human appearance I complied to their demands. I took of my armour and revealed my honed body, thankfully not one of them made attempts to lift my armour, I guess they don''t want to make me think that they will steal my stuff. After they are satisfied with what they saw, I was allowed to enter their community and meet their leader, clothed of course.


    One of the guys that gave such a warm welcome accompanies me towards a building where, according to him, their leader resides. It is the building with the beacon on top. Trying to make some small talk I ask about how their everyday live is going and if they expect to need more food or if their harvest could suffice. But his only response was that I should mind my own business.


    Up till now the only response towards the news that there existed other survivors was positive and filled with happiness, except in two places, the group with their rotten caste system and this place. But it could be that I just got the wrong guard for small talk. While we walk I take a look around, there are a lot of people working on the fields. From the current size alone I would guess that there are way over one thousand people here. This estimate is based on some planning sessions I had with my group back home. We calculated how much farmland we would require.


    We reach the building, but a receptionist, a freaking receptionist in an apocalypse, tells me that I won''t get to talk to their leader today. So I ask if I can take a look around, they say me, that as long as I stay away from a few restricted areas, I am free to do so. I say my farewell and walk towards the fields, I want to inspect what they planted and how their crops are coming along.


    As I take a look around I have to ditch my former estimation, the only reason the fields aren''t bigger is the lack of water. It is possible that they have other fields outside the city. As time passes I see more and more people, there are even buses arriving from outside the settlement. They are filled with farmworkers. When night arrives I count over ten thousand people with my soul-sense.


    I guess they really collected people from all around the city and also the neighbouring ones. It is a sight to behold, all those people chatting in the plaza while eating. I find a good and peaceful vantage point at a nearby hill and enjoy the atmosphere and the so sorely missed noises of human bustling activity and the murmur of their chatting. It is a peaceful scene and healing scene in this scarred world. Maybe I really just had bad luck with the guard.


    It doesn''t take long until I am approached by a young women, I wait for her to speak before I turn around. Naturally I already felt her approach long ago.

 Chapter 14

    Chapter 14


    ¡°Hello traveller. I need to ask you something, but I have to ask you to not overreact.¡± she greeted me. What a strange greeting. ¡°Hello. And ask away.¡± I reply. ¡°What are you?¡± she asked in a whispering voice. An even stranger question followed a strange greeting, but I guess she can feel the extent of my soul and is confused if not even scared by it. ¡°That depends what you question.¡± I reply with an equally strange answer, ¡°If you want to know my profession, I am a scout from a far away group of survivors, here to check if something remains of our past government.¡±


    ¡°No that is not the answer I seek, I am not interested in your attire or your profession, I am more interested by that mighty thing that fills you. It is the first time I feel something that strong from a person.¡± she says now almost inaudible, while checking if somebody was eavesdropping. ¡°Would you please follow me?¡± she asks, ¡±It isn''t save to talk here.¡±


    Asking myself what could possibly scare her in such a peaceful place I agree to come with her. The brown haired women with her petite frame leads me away from the plaza towards a building that looks like it suffered from a fire, only the upper floors of the building were damaged. The surroundings told me that only few people came here. My guide ceaselessly checks for followers and uses a few trees for cover.


    In the building there are roughly a hundred humans, I hope they don''t plan to ambush me. We enter the building. ¡°Aaah I see you brought the stranger Lily.¡± an old woman greets us, ¡°What a radiant light you are o traveller.¡± Inspecting her closer she appears to be blind, her pupils are milky. ¡°Why are you hiding?¡± I ask.


    ¡°Because we see, what we see and others don''t. They foolishly belief that we gained this sense by robbing from others by causing this apocalypse, they think of us as demons, that are deformed by their deeds in body and mind, they are blinded by believe, rage and their lack of the sense they hunt down.¡± She replies.


    ¡°How bad is it.¡± I ask. ¡°Let me just say they burn books and leave the rest to your imagination.¡± she said, unwilling to speak of the horrors. For those that don''t know it, there is a saying that who burns books, also burns people. It is like the witch hunt. ¡°All that only because you have stronger souls.¡± I murmur more to myself than to anyone specific.


    ¡°So you think it is the soul we feel? We think it is the life force.¡± she says, ¡°It fills this world and is connected with everything.¡± ¡°Trust me those are souls and what you feel in the air does not belong there, those are the remains of the souls of the dead, they should have returned as souls, but they flooded this world as mist, washing away those that weren''t strong enough.¡± I say with confidence.


    ¡°How do you know? How can you be so certain?¡± she asks, her voice sounding like a sinner which is given salvation. I guess the propaganda did leave their marks on them, if everyone around you accuses you to be a demon, one will start to think that they might be right. ¡°Because I could feel it when it happened, I could feel souls before the soulstorm came and I witnessed the grinding of souls in the depths of death.¡± I answer. ¡°I believe you, I wish, hope and choose to believe you. We aren''t the damned, the accursed, the demons.¡± She says loudly, tears flowing from her eyes.


    ¡°You travelled this world, you came from a faraway place, I beg you please lead us away from here. We have everything ready to leave, we always prepared to flee, all we lacked is direction and courage. Please lead us.¡± she begs, soon others follow. I am not willing to damn them, it will be an arduous travel. The price I will have to pay is the loss of any diplomatic connection to this big group of people. But I am willing to pay it, if it saves my kin from the flames. And I think that they would think of my people as demons anyway.


    ¡°Get ready, I will disable one gate we will leave as soon as possible.¡± I say. The approaching night hopefully will give us cover. When everyone is ready I storm the nearest gate and open it, the guards were easily disabled. We didn''t even cover two hundred when an alarm rang in the distance.


    Soon I could hear motor-noises, they send armed vehicles to kill us. I fall back to stop them. Ignoring my lone figure they open fire. I stop their bullets and soon they are the ones swarmed by bullets. The vehicles fail fast under their own fire. We lost nobody to the ambush, but we quickly flee the scene and the city.


    But we can''t continue this harsh track indefinitely, well at least my new followers can''t. I lead them towards an abandoned farm I passed before, there they rest. In the meantime I search the area for something I found on my way in the city, a herd of cows. It didn''t take long till I found them. Connecting my soul with the matriarch of the herd, they soon follow me. That only works on herbivores or former pets.


    I return with the herd to the refugees and together we arrange some transportations. We will be on track for at least two months, our provisions won''t be enough for that, but I think we can get more on the way.


    The journey isn''t really eventful, there were only a few close calls and injuries when we stopped at cities to salvage for food. In the middle of June we finally arrived at their new and my old home.


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    Jeff''s POV while Oliver''s journey:


    We moved towards a nearby village, since the city wasn''t really well fitted for our purposes. The past month was filled with never ending field work, luckily we got some reinforcements, almost tripling our forces. Those guys one day just arrived at our settlement, claiming they come from the big city down in the valley. We welcomed them warmly, they were a bit strange though. It is easy to work with them and overall they are normal people, but they got a strange belief.


    They worship a fallen angel that came to heal their wounded and brought them justice. At first I was worried that they were a strange form of Satanists. When I listened to their stories I found them a bit strange and thought that they might all be bat shit crazy. But one day a guy named Steve came with a group of people to trade with us, from him we learned their story. It was Oliver all along, the one''s that came here are those that worship Oliver and learned that we are his home. I just chuckle at that, knowing that he won''t be pleased by it. But I will not tell them to leave, they are good workers. Shall Oliver deal with this problems.


    The new arrivals were rather confused by our morning ritual, which includes strengthening our souls. Our collective absorption of soulmist causes quite the turbulences. They are strong enough to startle even the untrained souls, which we learned the first day after our new additions arrived. Steve too was surprised by the training everyone of our old group absolves everyday. We finally began to get some benefits from this, not like Oliver though, we found our own ways. Some learned to infuse tools with their soul, allowing them to harden and repair them, we also discovered that wounds inflicted with those weapons disturb the soul.


    Against the soulless that is surprisingly effective. They get stunned by it, their soul is weak and easily shaken, and it inhibits their regeneration. The soulless were now easy prey for us. Sadly it doesn''t work with range weapons, we need to hold them to infuse them.


    Others like Ellie excel in manipulating big amounts of energy, they can''t use it to do precise movements, but they are really good at ploughing fields. We had to stop the newcomers from praying every time they see them in action. The newcomers soon joined our trainings group.


    Steve was also interested in learning how to use his soul, but since it takes a long time we arranged for one of our trained people to accompany him and teach his people. We also traded some of our food for a salvaged solar cell and some tools to use it. We finally got running water again, even a small water heater is in operation. We could finally take a warm shower.


    The days, weeks even months pass without any problems, only some surprises, some of the women are pregnant. I begin to start a family.....


    Oliver''s return:


    Finally we arrive at the military base, I came here to ask for the current location of the settlement I call home. The guards there welcome me and tell me all I need to know, since I want to return as soon as possible I don''t stay long, but I notice that their souls grew stronger. It seems that my teachings spread while I was gone. I too taught my new companions how to train and use their souls, some of them are really good in this. But sadly nobody was able to learn my technique of healing and regeneration, some could only learn a smaller regeneration boost, nothing really useful.


    While I travelled with them I learned a lot of things about every person in the group, soon they too will become my home.


    Then finally came the day of my return, first we saw the fields. They are huge! How did they plough this much land? Water isn''t a problem her though, since we are on the wet side of the mountain, meaning that the clouds rain on this side to rise higher and pass the mountains.


    Then finally I see my people. It is a joyous return. A festival is quickly organized and soon there are chatting and eating people everywhere. I am swarmed by the children and some adults as well, they want to hear stories from my journey and I enjoy telling them some, sparring them the unpleasant parts of course.


    Later that day I talk with the older people about what we should do about the fanatics in the capital. We come to the conclusion that we won''t and can''t do much against them, but we will stay hidden from them and save as many as possible. There is another thing that worries us, the absurd growing speed of the plants. They don''t pose a problem directly, but they will sooner or later cover everything, even the abandoned cities.


    We are finally enough people to survive and rebuild this world and soon we return to a normal live. People die of old age and children are born, humans hate, love, work and rest. The time flies, years pass...


    AN: The first arc ends with this, but don''t worry it was merely to set up the world and create our main character.

 Arc 2 Chapter 1

    Arc 2 Chapter 1


    We write the 10th year after the soulstorm. Up to this date there have been founded many new villages and cities, live returned to an order, there were still dangers lurking outside the walls of the settlements, in fact they grew even stronger. But mankind found its way, like it always did.


    Oliver arises from his bed to greet the new morning, looking out of the window he deduces that it will be another sunny September day in Evervale, the city he helped to found. Right now there are around five thousand people living here and a lot are arriving every day, the city has the reputation to be extremely safe, but also that to be secretive. Only few ever talk about its location or how live goes there, only that in a big area around it there aren''t any changed humans or monsters.


    Those who seek it are led to the city after they gather at a openly known location, trade also happens there. The reason we established it this way is that we found many places that are hostile towards those with a strengthened soul. The believe I encountered in the former capital seems to have spread far and wide.


    Those that enter have to stay at least a year here and from most we get a reading of their soul. We already found way too many spies, some defected others died. It seems like fanatics are a problem in every age.


    After all this time I still look almost the same, I stopped my ageing long ago. And I made another decision, I would never have children, not that there weren''t some women that are interested in me, it is the simple fact that I am so far away from human right now, that I lost most of my human DNA and the ''scrap'' parts I once discarded while modifying myself seem to have been important to father a healthy being. My position and lifestyle also aren''t able to create a healthy family.


    I am away from home way to often. Someone has to defend our land from the monsters and the soulless and I am the strongest and the fastest since I learned how to fly. It is rather taxing but as long as I don''t have to dodge something I can fly at a rapid pace, but it isn''t good for combat. Too much concentration just for movement.


    The monsters that appeared are further evolved soulless humans and animals. Some are degenerated to such an extent that one can''t determine their origin. Thankfully they lack intelligence and soul-strength. A lot of them are stunned by a simple soulwave and their modifications consist mostly of overgrown muscles and changed skeletons.


    Around a year ago I reached a bottleneck in my training, I seem to be unable to amass more soulmass in my being. It was a strange feeling to witness it simply dissolve into nothingness when I absorb more soulmist. Since then I try to find ways to further improve myself, not that I am weak I am by far the strongest in the city.


    My body is even further improved than when I infiltrated the capital, I used my resources on research, since I couldn''t strengthen my soul. My strength and resilience at this point is simply ridiculous.


    Deep in thought I get ready for the day I live together with Peter, Sarah and their children, since I need someone to do some of my chores, it would be simply to much with all the time I spend on my duties. My morning begins with a breakfast, what else? I still enjoy eating you know?


    After that I head towards the training field. I train a specialized group of people and prepare them to use body-modification. Only those with extremely precise energy manipulation could attempt to become one. Their first training includes the creation of their body image with their soul. For that they need a very strong soul and a lot of knowledge.


    I lead them on their way, some already advanced to their first modification, I consult them on their advances and about their possible drawbacks. My other duty takes place in the afternoon, I patrol a huge area around the city, eliminating wandering threats. The soulless have proven countless times that they can adapt to every environment. There exists a huge variety of them by now. We also learned that only whole souls can create children with whole souls. The soulless still have children though.


    My patrol this day was almost without any events, but then at the outer border I found something troubling, a group of people which didn''t travel towards the location we announce via a radio-station, since we got some solar power going. They travel roughly towards the city. At their current pace they will reach it in three days.


    Normally I would escort such a group to the staging area, but this group is heavily armed and tries to stay out of sight. And they do a great job at that, sadly they never expected a flying observer that can detect them through their soul. They wear camouflage gear. A closer examination shows me that their souls aren''t trained, so it can''t be a training session I ain''t aware of.


    So who was curios enough to send those scouts? I lower myself to the ground. I fall from the sky right in front of them, disabling their guns while fighting, all I have to do is break a tiny piece of metal and clog and jam the trigger with it.


    When they finally notice me it is way to late for them to react. ¡°What is your purpose in the vicinity of our city Evervale?¡± I ask, noting how terrible yet fitting this name is, we will never give up this valley, never ever. They instantly try to shoot me. Either they never had friendly intentions or I startled them a bit too much. Their attempt fails anyway, not one bullet leaves their barrels.


    ¡°Cooled down yet? I am still waiting for my answer.¡± I say getting impatient. ¡°We don''t talk with demons.¡± one says drawing his knife. I disable them, while thinking that they aren''t cooperative or consequent at all, he just told me he isn''t allowed to tell me anything. How hard can it be to remain silent?


    When they all had hit the floor at least once and didn''t attempt to stand up, I crouch down next to the blabbermouth and beat his soul up, while extracting all the information I need. They come from the capital to check what we built in the last ten years and if they can get our help in their war.


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    So they finally started a war huh? Probably with someone who doesn''t approve of their fanaticism. The name they gave themselves as a country was also new to me. That they founded a country at all was big news to me. I dig deeper and learn that the country was founded a week ago to create a unified front against those that oppose their believes. They call themselves New Eden, this name is an even more clich¨¦ one than Evervale.


    The bad news are that they just so happened to also include our city in their country, since we are enclosed by them and the mountains anyway. An ambassador is already on its way to do the formalities..... I guess it bites us now that we never openly took a side in this brewing conflict.


    I tie this recon squad up and bring them to the staging area since it is close by and I have to walk to carry them. With them I am simply too fat to fly. I reach the location after an hour of carrying, I then place my cargo in a box for trading goods that goes to the city and inform the supervisor of the camp of what happens and what to do with our ''guests''.


    Now I wait for the ambassador. But the problem is I don''t know what I should do with him, if he vanishes they will get alarmed, if he enters the village he will find out that we are ''demons'' rather fast. We created this safe zone for a reason, we didn''t want to restrain ourselves while training. The best course of action would be to buy time.


    A convoy to the city is already under way to inform the leaders of the situation. I too am part of our council. We created a rather strange system, where everybody can make proposals for our course of actions, but if you would give bad advice too often you could loose your right to do so, for a limited time of course. The council decides over the proposals and creates laws and regulations.


    It is a strange but really flexible system, but I don''t think that it is feasible when we grow bigger, right now the council is a part time job, a bigger administrative effort would lead to it being a full time job rather fast.


    My thoughts are disrupted by the sound of an approaching convoy. The ambassador arrived, she is a woman with a rather strict facial expression, she is accompanied by ten men in arms. Her company is nothing to worry about, there are a lot of guys around that can deflect bullets as if they were nothing more than flies.


    ¡°Greetings, I am ambassador Evangelia, I come in mandate of the theocracy of New Eden, I come here to welcome you in our community.¡± she greets me, as I approach her. I am wearing my armour right now, which has gotten decorated so that I could use it as my council uniform when I visit surrounding settlements in diplomatic missions, those annoy me greatly since I aren''t allowed to fly there.


    Analysing what she said, I am disturbed by the lack of choice she seems to give us, maybe it just seems like the obvious choice to her that we will join them. So obvious that she doesn''t concern herself with formulating a more complex sentence and asks about our opinion. I hate fanatics even more when they are on what they assume their home turf.


    ¡°I greet you Evangelia, my name is Oliver I am part of the council of this city, I fear the good news didn''t reach us very fast, it was just yesterday that we learned of the founding, so I think we may need some more time to sort trough this business.¡± I reply, ¡°In the meantime I would like to invite you to a tour trough our city. Although I must warn you that our conventions may look strange to you. The seclusion takes a strange toll.¡±


    I hear her whisper to one of her companions ¡°A city? I though it was a small village. This may be a huge find.¡± ¡°I would be more than pleased to accompany you, but I fear my companions have some other business to attend to.¡± she replies loudly. I guess they want to check on their scouts. I give a small gesture towards one of our warriors stationed here and he leads the two of us to a carriage.


    The gesture I gave him soon led to the capture of the ten soldiers, it comes in quite handy from time to time to have such a sign language. Meanwhile I talk with the ambassador, while we drive to the city. The carriage is drawn by a cow and doesn''t have windows, we normally transport our new arrivals with it and we don''t want them to flee before we scan them.


    ¡°This carriage sure shows that you lack some technology right now. If you join us we could sell you some gasoline, which I think is the reason you don''t use cars.¡± She says. ¡°Actually there is no need for that, these cows are a special breed which excels in speed and endurance. We are rather lucky we have them. They need less maintenance than a car and the gas is just plain grass. They aren''t bound by roads too. And all we need to get more of them is to breed some.¡± I reply. Of course we aren''t ''lucky'' we got them, I made them.


    ¡°But we could need some energy sources that is true.¡± I add. ¡°But what could you want as payment? We got plenty of lumber and food, we also mine some iron, but that is all we produce.¡± I continue. ¡°What we need right now is man power.¡± she says, ¡°Of course you will get paid and that could as well be done in gods don''t you agree?¡± ¡°Hmm of course that is an option, but what kind of labor do you have in mind?¡± I ask playing my little game of pretending to not know.


    ¡°I will be honest, we need soldiers to fight against the demons, they created some kingdoms around our territory and unified them against us. They begun this war and we need every help to win it.¡± she says filled with passion. I guess she believes what she said, but it isn''t coherent with what I learned before. As far as I know they declared the war themselves and not against one country but all.

 Arc 2 Chapter 2

    Arc 2 Chapter 2


    After an endless talk about the history of New Eden and how the demons failed again and again to destroy it we arrived the city. Did I ever say that I hate fanatics? And those are even worse since they don''t even separate between the soulless and those with strong souls, they just call them demons. They hunt what they don''t understand. How human.


    Moments like this make me glad that I genetically left my humanity behind. Like this a fanatic and a demon arrive in the mountain city filled with oni. What a bad joke and the poor thing is completely unaware of it.


    We begin our tour with the fields surrounding the city. It amazes her that we can create such big fields without using any vehicles. We use our energy manipulation for it, but I tell her that we use the cows for it. We continue with some of our shops and community kitchens, for those that live alone, she openly enjoys the atmosphere of the city. My objectives right now is to either convince her that her believes are wrong or to at least buy some time.


    I show her our small solar power plant, our water system and some other points of interest, for example our radio-station. We finally get to the council hall, which is like most of the buildings here, rather new and build from salvaged goods or traded materials. We talk about her ''proposal'' and ask for a bit more time to get a proper meeting and conference on the matter.


    Through all this time we tried everything to not let her witness our powers. But what came next blew our cover. All she needed was one question. ¡°Can I join you in your sun down prayers? I would really love to see your church.¡± she asked the question that doomed our cover. There are no churches here and our only evening ritual is a final training session, that includes sparring with powers.


    It was for this reason that I led her here. I helplessly look towards the others. After an awkward moment I reply with ¡°Then come. I will lead you to the pride of our people.¡± She follows me outside and I lead her to our training field, a place I tried to avoid before. Around the field we erected a high wall, we didn''t want a shrapnel to hurt some bystander.


    As we pass the gate our guest freezes in her movements. What she sees is befitting to a battlefield, the ground is torn apart by rampaging and redirected energy waves, people are jumping higher than they should, move faster than some cars, pushed by an invisible force. For me its a flashy spectacle, for her it looks like an invisible monster playing with people.


    ¡°ATTENTION!¡± I shout. They rapidly align and greet me. ¡°Welcome head trainer!¡± Its an awkward title I got, but I am the person observing their training, I only teach a few directly but I also trained their teachers. I used this privilege to stop their training only once before, that was when I searched for people to learn my craft.


    ¡°Today we have a rather special guest. She is blind in our sense. She prays for our destruction¡± I turn towards her ¡°Because we are something she doesn''t know anything about and she throws us into the same pot as the soulless. She calls us demons. Yet she doesn''t even know that we are human just like her, we just trained something that was always there. Let us show her what that is.¡± I say to the group behind me.


    ¡°Unite your efforts gather enough till even a soulless could sense it with his pitiful soul.¡± I command. Evangelia is still frozen in place, her mind racing to catch up to the events. As time passes she feels an indescribable shiver pass through her every being. Then she saw no she felt a giant light in front of her. A giant mass of soulmist was gathered. It got denser and denser.


    Then I felt something strange did the soulmist just manifest and liquefy? I will have to research that later, but first.... ¡°Can you see it now, that which you condemn others for is an innate human ability that just was dormant before the apocalypse. We train it and learn its uses to adapt. We don''t need machines because we are stronger than most of them. The other kind of demons are those we call the soulless and we call them that for a reason. Their soul got blown away.¡± I say to her.


    I didn''t except her reaction. ¡°For I have been violated I shall smite myself.¡± she said while shoving a dagger in her own heart. Did I ever say that I fucking hate fanatics? We let her die. We could save her, but wouldn''t it be the inhuman thing to do? To seal our misery I got a report that the captured soldiers killed themselves with poison. I hate fanatics.


    With that we have a few days till the kingdom of New Eden begins to suspect something, they don''t have to walk like we did in the past, they can drive many times faster than that. They need two days from the capital to come here. I guess we have a week. Luckily I overheard the conversation between the soldier and the ambassador. They don''t know our numbers and since they are in a war I guess they won''t send too many soldiers. Through that we gain another week until they will send the next group to investigate. At that point we have to have found a solution. We need allies. Luckily I know just the right place to find some. After a quick discussion I start my journey. I fly towards the borders of our new found enemy.


    I cross forests, lakes and abundant meadows. Of course I also see some villages and settlements. It is a really bright night and with my enhanced eyes it looks like it is day. A lot of them are decorated and look like they are having a festival, at some I see convoys similar to the one that came to us. Just how big is this country really? How many will follow the call to arms? I memorize the location of every point of interest, if we need to flee or invade it will be helpful to know the area, where bridges are located and of course intact.


    Soon I reach the border, it is easily recognized by the groups of scouts and outposts along it. Seems like this conflict went on for quite some time already. I don''t see any battlefields, but the border area is huge and I can''t see everything clearly so it could be I missed it. I hope there weren''t any major battles yet though.


    I know the rough location of my first destination, I quickly find the river I need to follow. I fly for some more hours and when the sun finally begins to rise again, I reach my destination. It is a very old city, which grew around an old castle and a medieval village. It looks like the new inhabitants cleaned the city core and use the old walls, which were restored, probably to be a monument, as their line of defence against the soulless. There are around thirty thousand people living here.


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    I drop from the sky. I notice something strange when I get closer to the ground and the people. This should be a city of so called demons, right? Why were their souls so weak? We didn''t spread our knowledge, but we shouldn''t be the only ones which discovered how to use and train the soul or are we? Could it be that the ones asking for help shouldn''t be our measly five thousand but the ones we wanted to ask?


    I land on a roof and descent from it into a small alley, which is abandoned in this early hour. I quickly ask a lone man on the street if he can point me towards their government district or building . He gives me a confused look and just points towards the castle. To be blunt I could have guessed that they are there, but castles normally don''t have the image of being comfy, the thick stone walls and primitive architecture make them hard to heat. To add to that the doors are narrow, since the people back in that time were smaller.


    I walk through the peaceful city, that is just awakening and getting ready for the day, I see shopkeepers set up their displays and even some bakers setting up chairs and tables on the streets. I wonder if they have reinvented money here. Back home we only accept trades with goods, since some of us could just copy money it holds no value for us. What counts is quantity since it takes time to create big masses of something.


    In this society though the use of money is actually a good idea, it lessens the traffic of goods and brings stability in prices. Everything gains an objective value, that is free of the individual judgement of worth. More and more people cross my path as I make my way up the hill towards the castle. The atmosphere tells me that the actual war hasn''t really begun yet. There weren''t any weeping widows or orphans around, the facial expressions were overall joyful and filled with hope and the will to work towards their goals.


    It saddens me that what led me here is such a depressing business. I finally arrive in front of the castle, but I have to wait a bit longer, since the gate is still closed. After a few minutes two guards open it and get on their posts next to it. ¡°Never seen you around here before. What is your business here?¡± The guard to my left greets me when I approach the gate. ¡°I am here on a diplomatic mission. I come from Evervale, a city which is sadly surrounded by New Eden, but we refuse their leadership. Like you can guess we would benefit greatly if those fanatics loose the war they started.¡± I reply. ¡°You ever heard of it?¡± the guard on my right asks the other. ¡°Nope. But I can''t imagine any plot that would benefit from giving us this information, that makes him even more suspicious.¡± The other one responds.


    ¡°Fine. We will inform our superiors. But I will need you to leave your armour and weapons here.¡± he says. ¡°I agree to this conditions.¡± I reply. I follow him to a small chamber where I take my armour and weapons off. Then I wait together with him near the gate. After a short time I am escorted to a meeting room. Those doors are really small, I would hate to live or work here. I have to wait again.


    This room looks like it is frequently used for conferences and meetings. There is also a big map on one of the walls. Interested I step closer and inspect it. This map doesn''t show the old cities as inhabited, it marks most of them as ruins. It is an accurate map of all new settlements, except one blank space. Seems like they know nothing about Evervale. We did our job concealing it too well it seems. We also have created a similar map, so I already know most of the settlements on it. The borders on it are interesting and new though.


    Finally someone approaches the room. I guess there were other morning businesses to take care of than an unannounced diplomat, with questionable origin. She opens the door and enters. She looks like a middle-aged secretary. ¡°Greetings, I am a representative of the council of New Babylon. My name is Angelika Veron. I heard you have some business with us. So let us find out if and how we can help each other.¡± she introduces herself. Seems like the tradition of using surnames survived here. I reply with ¡°It is nice to meet you. My name is Oliver. As you may have heard I come from a city called Evervale, which as I already checked isn''t on your map. Actually that isn''t surprising, since even the ambassador of New Eden was surprised and though we were a mere village.¡±


    ¡°So am I correct if I say you tried to escape their attention? Are you by any chance what they call demons? Like us?¡± she asks. ¡°Yes and no. As you have already guessed we don''t want to interact with the people from New Eden, because their extreme believes can''t coexist with us. As for the demon part... We don''t really accept that term, but if I were to compare you guys, that can merely ''see'' something, with us, you would be like cute puppies compared wit full fledged devils.¡± I respond, ¡°As far as I could determine nobody here has tapped into his potential.¡±


    ¡°I can understand your secrecy to hide from your neighbours, but what do you mean with untapped potential?¡± she asks brimming with expectation. Seems like she realizes the stakes and sacrifices this war will bring. She hopes to find an easy way. ¡°First of all let me say that one needs a lot of time to train it, but a strengthened soul, which is what those called demons have, is capable, but not limited, to use telekinesis, soul based attacks and waves of energy of almost every kind. Some like me are capable of body modification. As I am currently the strongest I am the only one capable of safe and prolonged, free flight. Which is also how I arrived here.¡± I reply, resulting in a gaping mouth from her.


    ¡°Could you demonstrate some of it please? It is not that I absolutely doubt you, since you were able to enter our city without anybody letting you in. But it might be the easiest way to convince the other councilmen to help you. If you are as strong as you say, your city and its fighters could prove as invaluable assets in what is to come.¡± She says with growing enthusiasm.


    With my agreement we begin the preparations for the ''show''.

 Arc 2 Chapter 3

    Arc 2 Chapter 3


    It is a rather normal morning, filled with my work as a councilmen. Some judicial matters, a building permission and the talk about another diplomat that has arrived. Nothing too interesting, just normal. If there weren''t the disturbing news of a war in planning and the declaration of war from New Eden, I would call it an idyllic live. Yet this changes rapidly when I get an unusual call for a meeting. The call itself isn''t so strange, but the meeting location is. Who in their right mind would hold a meeting in the inner court of our castle? There weren''t even tables or chairs there, not to mention coffee.


    But call is call and I ain''t in a position to disrespect one, even if it seems ridiculous. I leave my office and make my way towards the court. But I am not alone. All the others are also on their way there. Normally a meeting only includes the councilmen with the corresponding specialisation. It just doesn''t make sense to discuss the matters of the juridical court with a farmer, not to mention to discuss agriculture with a judge.


    So why were all councilmen summoned? What could possibly be so important? Did enemy troops arrive at our borders? Filled with anxiety I walk towards the meeting location. The first thing I see is a stranger. Is this the diplomat? Wasn''t he from a settlement we never heard of before? What news could he bring that are so important? Before I know it everyone arrived here and he begins his speech.


    Oliver''s POV


    It didn''t take long to summon all the councilmen here. They got quite a lot of them though, I guess there is a lot more to do than with our five thousand people. It looks like they got a lot of different people here, only a few look like the stereotypical official. Since everybody is finally here and has a good view of me I begin my demonstration.


    ¡°As many of you already know I am a diplomat from Evervale, a small city that is sadly currently surrounded by New Eden, which we deem our enemy. Until recently they didn''t know much about us and though that we are just another normal village. But it won''t take them long to learn the truth. Until then we need to either evacuate or change the borders.¡± I say, ¡°Now many of you might think why should we risk so much for a small town? I will demonstrate some things for you and after that you are free to make a decision.¡±


    With that it begins. For the first part I got the help of five guards. The audience is startled when they ready their weapons, some scream when they open fire. Silence engulfs the court when they see me unharmed and playing with the bullets, without touching them of course. Picking up some boulders from a corner of the court I start to float while being in a vortex of flying granite. The silence deepens. I place the boulders on the ground, erecting a tower with them. Then I try one of my more trickier abilities. I bend the light around me. Rendering me invisible. It needs a lot of my concentration and the effect just doesn''t justify the price.


    It is a flashy trick, that is useless against anyone with a soul-sense. It is impressive thought. I move a bit and regain visibility. My audience is already awed. But my most destructive and impressive move is yet to come. I once again begin to bend light. Creating a space light can''t escape. Collecting more and more energy, aligning the rays and bundling them. I create a laser and shoot it upwards. It carries enough energy to create plasma out of the air and causes a consecutive thunder. Although immensely destructive and long ranged the price is absurd, it leaves my soul completely exhausted.


    To catch and manipulate so many objects at such a speed requires me to fasten my thinking and processing power to extreme extents. The toll is huge. Creating a small fusion chamber is actually easier, but the range for a plasma bolt is just crap, as soon as it leaves the control area it begins to collapse. Range is one of the primary deficits of all soul techniques. Sure we can hurl projectiles over a great distance, but so can others, like everyone with a gun. Sure we can render them ineffective, but we will get exhausted at some point and there are so many of our enemies.


    Exhausted I end the demonstration and let them discus what they have seen. In the meantime I regain some of my strength by feasting on soulmist. When I finally hear that the discussions calmed down I open my eyes and await their decision.


    It is like I have anticipated, hey will rush their advances towards Evervale, but they need at least three weeks to reach it, we will have to hold out this long and help them after they rescue us. As for after the war, they would like us to spread our techniques. As for if we should join their country and their alliance that remains undetermined for now. But they welcome us as their allies.


    Satisfied I prepare to travel home, but just before my department one of the councilman hurries towards me and gives me a small device, he quickly explains that it can be used as an de- and encoder for long range communication. I thank him and bid him farewell. I depart like I arrived. Flying.


    Over the week I make six more of those visits and convince over half of the alliance to help us. After that I make my way back towards Evervale. Once again I thank our luck that not one country has working aircraft. It would be disaster if there were any bombardments. But we have to patrol our vicinity in a wider range to make sure that we aren''t approached by artillery.


    Stolen novel; please report.I still hope that we won''t have to deal with the main force of New Eden until we are united with our new allies.


    Upon my return I am greeted and instantly led to the council chambers. After a short discussion we come to the conclusion, that we should encounter the next group of investigators outside our borders. That could create the image of a big group of soulless that eliminated their force. The good news I brought gave us a lot more options, since we now know that all we need is to play for time.


    Why not go on the offensive? Most of us can move in a rapid pace through the woods. We can flank them and use guerilla tactics to slow the enemy down. Our individual firepower is far greater than theirs. But we won''t be able to protect the city like this, the chance to get flanked is too high. After some time we come to the conclusion to evacuate all non-combatants to a higher place in the mountains. There are some caves we created years ago in case of an emergency and also as training to manipulate matter. They are ideal hiding places.


    I return to my home and am greeted by the two adolescence that already returned home after their training and schooling. I inform them of what will happen tomorrow. That they will be evacuated to let us fight more freely. They take it rather hard, they don''t want to be a burden. They want to help. But I convince them that their best way to help is to continue and lead the training and foremost protect the younger ones.


    In the evening the city is filled with serious discussions and farewells. Nobody here thinks that the war will be filled with glory, our thoughts are dominated by calculations and premonitions. We may seem cold to others, but all our actions are created from the need to protect the ones close to us. They are our reason to live. We aren''t driven by power, it is a to feeble thing to orient our live on it. Wealth too lost its drive when the world collapsed, all that matters are the ones next to us and our collective survival.


    Why oh why must we wage war after we finally regained our footing in this changed world? Is it too ingrained in our very being? Why did we never find such a thing in our soul? Is it in our brain? Our body?


    The next day comes to fast and with it comes war. In the morning we evacuate everyone and as many of our valuable things as possible, that includes some solar panels, the radio station, cows, chicken (Which reached the height of a wolf.) and a lot of books. We already lost so much knowledge, because the atmosphere or the changed micro organisms in the air speed up the composting.


    Then we left the city, a caravan of cows and carts will be our base of operation, a lot of us still need food and water, luckily we always have a big stock of it, since we also try to trade with it. We move towards a big clearing in the forest that surrounds our save zone. When the others begin to build the camp I lift off and check the surroundings. A surprisingly big force is coming towards our direction, it isn''t a problem though, we still outnumber them greatly. What worries me more is that I spot the enemies main force, which is identified by its special flag that points out that their leader is present.


    This is good for their moral, but it is also a rather dumb thing to announce.


    It seems like we underestimated the enemies scouting abilities. They probably got wind of the fact that a lot of forces try to invade the area from this direction. With this the main force stands between us and our allies. We need to change our plans. I quickly move towards the group of investigators, there are one thousand soldiers here. They march towards our city, seems like vehicles are too rare to use them on this small operation. We need to take care of them as soon as possible. I guess it is time for a warm up.


    I lunge into battle and attack their backline, swinging my sword, this one consists of a tungsten and steel alloy. It cleaves through their kevlar armour as if it was paper. One swing and ten people are dead, unsatisfied by that I unleash a huge wave of pressure towards the marching troop. A sound wave of above 180 db can rupture organs. This one is at 250 db, even for me it is dangerous, but I can protect me by freezing the movements of air around me to a minimum.


    This pressure wave is like an explosion. The guys closest to me are shredded and even cooked by it, the ones farther away simply collapse from organ failure. A hundred of them are now simply gone. Finally they begin to react, my attack took them by surprise and the time seems a lot slower for me.


    Overall this fight is a mere slaughter. A pool of blood, flesh and bodies covers the ground. I hate that this is necessary. But this is war. People die. I quickly return to the base. When I return I get questions if something happened. No wonder I am once again covered in blood and flesh pieces. This shock-wave is so ugly, but this isn''t about elegance or showing of. It is a bloody business that shouldn''t be glorified. Not by a reason or by our religion. There shouldn''t be anything that can justify it and yet there are people who force us to do it. Because of them, running away isn''t a solution, they will follow and they will kill. The question isn''t if someone will die, but who.


    Deep in though I reach the commando tent and give my report. It will be a long night filled with discussions.

 Arc 2 Chapter 4

    Arc 2 Chapter 4


    Together we create a plan to minimize our losses while fighting the main force. My estimation of their numbers reached a whopping five hundred thousand and then there are still other smaller armies around. Sadly we can''t simply destroy their supply line, because they don''t need one. It looks like they simply took everything with them. A nation marching to war. I hope they at least left some civilians and their children behind.


    Our fighting plan consists out of constant harassing. We will ambush them whenever we find an opportunity. Of course we will have to be wary of traps. But it is rather hard to trick someone who can detect you through a solid wall. When night falls our first operation begins. We will destroy their most worrisome weapons. Their artillery. With a group of one hundred I sneak into their camp. They didn''t bother to fortify their camp, a bad choice, but I guess they don''t except an enemy that they think is 3 days away to sneak into their camp.


    It is really easy to sneak when you know the locations of every guard around you and you can dampen your footsteps by cushioning the sound waves you create. We come and go without anybody taking notice of us. All they found the next day were the corpses of the guards at the artillery and multiple pieces of modern art where their heavy weaponry should have been. While we were their we confirmed the scale of this army. Sadly we couldn''t reach their commanders, the inner areas of the camp were much better guarded.


    When we returned I decided that it is time to investigate what I saw when this whole war trouble began. The liquid soulmist. I won''t have to partake in any operations for a while. The coming battles are small skirmishes which shouldn''t be a problem for my disciples. I take my leave and fly towards the mountains, to not disturb the others too much with the ripples I plan to create.


    After an hour I finally find a suitable place. I sit down and begin my meditation. This time I don''t focus on my surroundings to gather more and more soulmist, my point of focus is in my own soul, the compass I once found there has turned into the very connection with my body, maybe it was always just this. But right now I have no business with this part of my soul. I concentrate on a small portion of my soul and try to make it denser and ever so slowly it liquefies, what once was like a mist is now a tiny drop of liquid. I have to constantly focus to hold it in this form, but with every additional drop I create and join it with the others I gain more and more control. The pressure I need to create one drop is higher than what my body can hold, that is the very reason I couldn''t advance. All I needed to do was to stop relying on my body as the vessel of my soul. It is now so strong that it has to contain itself.


    As I compress my soul it shrinks to a pitiful size, but it is stronger as ever before, even with the constant strain of holding itself together, soon that becomes a natural thing to do. Since I can now hold as much soulmist as I want, since my body isn''t the limit anymore I begin to absorb as much as I can. But the mist is simply too sparse and if I don''t want to cause something similar to a soulstorm I will have to limit myself.


    And the biggest problem of fighting with the help of the soul isn''t its strength anyway. Sure one needs a certain strength to have enough concentration, reaction speed and influence over the world. But the limit is still the energy one can use. We can''t use the energy of our body, at least if we don''t want to die of hypothermia. Conversion of mass into energy is too slow for most uses. The only reliable and fast energy is heat. But it isn''t unlimited and the resistance against the conversion rises the higher the differences in the atmosphere around us are.


    Stopping a fast moving object actually gives us energy to work with so one could say that most of our enemies give us the means to defeat them. But should they ever figure out how we do what we do, their weapons would soon change and consist of liquid nitrogen. Those restrictions are also one of the reasons I can''t fly too high.


    While I meditate and further strengthen my soul I think about the source of this soulmist. Even though we lived with the consequences for ten years we still don''t know much about the source of the mist. Sure I know that it is created from souls of the deceased and I know that it is the stuff all souls are made of. But what exactly separates a mass of soulmist from a soul? Why couldn''t the soulless return to being humans after they collected a lot of it?


    Was it simply the structure? But didn''t I just compress my soul? Shouldn''t it have changed that? Why was I fine and they aren''t? I concentrate again and delve deeper and deeper. The connection with my body is a big simple structure it is easy to find. But are there others? Did I ignore them all the time or can''t one find them till one searches for them?


    After a short time I find what I searched for. It is an amazingly complex labyrinth of lines. It is a three dimensional maze. I follow a line for some time and while doing so I am filled with memories, memories I have long forgotten. I remember my days I have spent with my parents, before the car accident. This maze seems to be my very being. All those lines are my every though and connections I made between different things. What I once tasted what I though about it, everything absolutely everything is there.


    I wonder. What would happen if I recreated those lines in something different than my soul? Could someone else read it? Could I preserve and share my thoughts? Could I recreate humans from the soulless by imprinting them? At least one of that thoughts I can test right now. I take a small rock and rearrange the atoms recreating some of the lines. Then I begin to read them. It isn''t easy but I can get all the meanings from it that I imprinted. It is like a faint picture of a picture.


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    I ask myself ¡°How long will it take someone other than myself to actually read one of those?¡± I know how to interpret all that seems unclear, I know them already anyway, but how shall I create it for someone who doesn''t? The solution soon comes to me. I have to create it in a way that every possibility reveals a part of the truth. Then there can''t be a wrong way to read it.


    But there is a problem with that. I can''t capture my entire history like that. It is too complex and filled with too many thoughts. A simplified version will have to do. Like that I begin my work while still strengthening my soul. I create two crystals. One holding the story of my live and one holding all my training manuals and knowledge about the manipulation of the world.


    Ironically I finish with the one holding my knowledge first. The one with my history isn''t finished yet, I will have to continue on it at a later time, which could lead to a never ending cycle of work. Satisfied with my progress I head back to our base. When I arrive night has fallen. I return to the council and explain what the crystals are and hand the finished one over to them. I am the one that has the least use from it.


    After that I listen to the reports from our operations this day. We have a few wounded, but most are capable to treat themselves. I will go to the field hospital later. We dealt the troops of New Eden some heavy losses, but their response is strange. At this rate we will need to place a spy in their ranks to gather some informations. When this comes up I am the first to volunteer. I simply am the one with the highest survival chances.


    I could be ripped apart and still recreate a body. With my current state of soul I am rather confident that I am completely unable to die. I probably could leave my body behind and wander the world as a soul. Actually.... Why don''t I do exactly that? I could dominate the body of one of their soldiers and gather the needed intel. I need to steel a body though, without one it is rather hard to hear, sure I could try to read the waves in the air with my soul, but the error rate is too high to be reliable. Reading is also hard when one only relies on the soul.


    I tell the others of my plan. It has been a long time since I last surprised them. I guess it became harder over the time, when I have revealed new ways to use ones soul almost every day. But today I once again achieved it. After everything is said and done, including treating those that can''t heal themselves, I head to my tent and prepare my body for its hibernation. I prepared a mechanism for that a long time ago, it can be a effective tool to fake ones death or to survive a wound long enough to regenerate.


    I shut down my body and begin to leave it. Other than before when I left it with just tendrils to manipulate the world this time I left it behind completely. The area that is a symbol for my connection with my body turned once again into the compass that saved my live when I was stranded in that endless corridor.


    I leave the base, but not without playing pranks on some of the guards. One isn''t a ghost everyday. Although it is an option for me now. Of course I made sure the guards recognized me after I had my fun, I don''t want to create too much of an uproar. It is rather easy to do that, every soul is different in its colours and its patterns, which as I learned are the product of the tiny lines, that represent our very being.


    As a soul I ain''t bound to the laws of physics. I can move faster than ever before. Soon I reach the enemies camp, which they finally fortified. I guess their losses robbed them of their sense of security. I search around for someone to possess. I find a lot of sleeping people. I guess one is as good as the other. I approach a young man and try to push his soul. But it seems I wasn''t careful enough. Abruptly he wakes up, looking aghast as if he awoke from a nightmare. Which I guess isn''t too far from the truth. He begins to pray. It is the first time I witness their prayers. He doesn''t speak them though, I guess he thinks them to not wake up his companions. He prays like a Christian would do. I guess this religion originates from Christianity. It was the dominant religion in this area after all.


    This failure taught me that I should either be more careful or find a victim whose connection with his soul is weak. I guess I should once again visit a field hospital. Surely I can find a poor guy at deaths door there, after we mangled some of their forces today.


    Sure enough I find a soldier with a live threatening concussion. That is an excellent body for my cause. Nobody will suspect if I have ''forgotten'' something and its hard to judge a head wound with the currently available technologies. His soul, like mine once did, already left the body, only a faint connection remains. I don''t sever it, if he can return he is most likely one of us, if he can''t... well no harm is done then.


    I take over the body and begin the repairs, cooling down the surroundings in the process. I awake and with a croaking voice call for help. Soon a nurse draws close and begins to check my condition.

 Arc 2 Chapter 5

    Arc 2 Chapter 5


    I have to stay the night in the field hospital and the next day in the morning they once again check my condition. Good thing that they only have tools for a superficial check up. If they had checked my brain for any damage they would be surprised how much someone can do while their brain doesn''t work at all. After they finish I am free to go.


    Right now I am a wolf in sheep''s clothing or a fallen angel with bleached wings? Either way I am free to move in the camp. Too bad I can''t collect the informations I seek from my hosts mind, but to unravel a brain is a lot harder than using ones soul for thinking and movement. It is like a giant puzzle and you can''t determine the shape or colour of the pieces and of course you lack the final picture. Honestly I am amazed how much easier it is to get a view that shows who someone is from the soul. Maybe the structure and encryption of the soul can be easier and less complex, while still maintaining its task, than the brain. Or the way how the information is saved in the soul can be read in a superficial way, while the brain has to be read entirely?


    Now isn''t exactly the correct time to think about it though. Although if I already had the answer I would have more options to collect intel. I continue my walk. Some people greet me and I return their greetings in kind, but if someone tries to get me into a conversation I have to make a lot of assumptions and if I can''t respond at all I wiggle my way out and ask them about the topic, pointing out that I ain''t in top form. I soon return to the tent I was appointed to, good thing that the guy I share my tent with came to the field hospital to help me move some of ''my'' stuff.


    As the first day in this camp comes to an end, my room-mate or rather tent-mate asked me to come along, not knowing what he has in mind I have no choice but follow, it would be too strange if I didn''t without a valid reason. Also since I don''t really know where to start with the collection of intel, I might as well go with him. As I follow him I notice that a lot of people also walk towards our destination. We reach a field that is filled with people and at one end I can see a podest with an altar.


    I already heard that they have something akin to a church, I guess I finally got to hear for what exactly those fanatics pray. We got a place close to the altar since we apparently left early. When the sun reaches the horizon the mass begins. A priest walks up towards the altar, he is carrying a small golden crucifix. Reverential he places it on the altar. He knees down in front of it offering a quick prayer. Mimicking the people around me, I too kneel down and pray. This prayer is a simple ''Our Father''. But the speech that follows is something that destroys the image of yet another normal christian church.


    ¡°Once again we gather and pray. Once again we have to fight. We fight to free the souls that the demons enslave in themselves. They robbed our neighbours of their souls and made them to mindless demons that crave the flesh of the living. Tomorrow our purge shall begin. Even till death we shall strive to destroy them. There is no higher thing than freeing the souls of the enslaved and return them to god. Don''t fear death, your faith protects you from enslavement. We shall free our brothers and sisters, even if the world has to burn, we shall return the demons to their fiery pit. Many of you fear, fear because our leader isn''t here. Today I will reveal to you that he can''t be here, because he is creating something far greater than what we can achieve here. If he succeeds, all will be free once again. Together we shall return to our lord and once again return to live.¡± The priest preaches.


    Not a single sound was uttered while he spoke. Not one questioned that this freedom means death. Not one questioned how their leader knows what he knows. I guess he is a demon himself. There have been few that came to the conclusion that the souls are missing from the soulless, without ever feeling them with their soul. This whole religion is fishy in that aspect. The only conclusion I came to is a demon in their highest rank. Maybe he thinks of himself as an angel?


    Either way the absence of their leader worries me. What is he planning? I get a bad feeling about that. The mass soon ends and the group disperses. I once again follow my tent-mate. We rest for the night. I quickly modify the body, so that it stays alive on its own and return to my own one.


    I give a quick report about what I found and the worrying news. I also advice that with their mentality we have to expect suicidal battle tactics and attacks. They simply don''t seem to care about their lives as long as they can ''free one of their brothers''. Did I ever say that I hate fanatics?


    After that I return to my puppet and sleep. The next day I once again wander through the camp, doing whatever I am asked to do and gathering as much information as I can. Their weaponry, their training and of course their scouting patterns and schedules. Around the middle of the day I take a ''nap'' and make a quick report.


    It is a shame that our enemy is just another group of normal people. Killing is so much easier if you can view them as monstrosities. Their only flaw is this damn fanaticism. They laugh they cry, they weep, sleep and eat like everyone else. But their goal isn''t survival it is to clean the world of what they deem wrong. They pushed aside one of the most human traits. The will to survive.


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    When I return once again to my puppet I encounter a small problem. When I possess it I feel a distant echo of a soul. It seems that the owner of this body is finally coming back. I estimate that he will need at least another day to return. Seems like he wasn''t washed away as far as I was. I will have to leave the camp with this body or a lot of the intel I collected will be useless. They would change the tactics.


    Thankfully opportunity knocked at my door, or rather tent entrance. I got an order to move out to scout the area. I knew of this scouting group and I know that we will be ambushed. What I didn''t knew was that I will be part of it. But this is simply perfect. I prepare to move out. Equipping armour and the rifle I join the others at the outer area of the camp. We move out towards the nearby forest, always scanning the area for movements.


    The ambush is fast and precise. Everybody dies quickly, getting hit by an explosion. That really isn''t very enjoyable, thankfully I don''t feel much pain in this stolen body. Still I patch it up after I messaged the ambushers with my soul. It isn''t a very precise thing to do, but with broken vocal cords it was my only option. I quickly begin to patch the body up and follow the others back to our base. There I lay my puppet down in my tent and switch bodies.


    Now I will have to wait for our sleepy head to wake up. I hope I won''t have to destroy him. In the meantime I go back to the council and take part in the conference. We discuss about the movements of the different forces on the field and where the most advantageous position for our allies would be to engage in battle. We also get a report from them which states that through our efforts they barely encounter any scouting parties. The enemy is basically blind right now.


    Soon we come to the conclusion that the best place would be at the biggest bridge in the area, it leads over a ten meter wide river. Sure it isn''t that big, but it is perfect for us. We destroyed their artillery, but our allies still have some. They can''t cross the river and we are still in their back. We will whittle them down. If they are desperate and try to charge at our allies they will be hindered by the terrain. It will be a suicidal attack for them.


    For that to work effectively we will send about half of our men to our allies. They will have to catch a lot of bullets. The rest will use guerilla tactics and kill as many as possible without being caught. There is a reason why warfare changed so much and we stopped using big units to openly attack.


    I ask to get the gem back to further encrypt my experiences into it. I need to add a new chapter about out of body techniques and experiences. I return to my tent to get to work. Of course I also continue my ''diary''. In the middle of the night my guest awakes. He still needs a lot of time until he begins to move, I guess my possession didn''t help in that aspect.


    After half an hour he can finally move, but it seems he still can''t see very well. Because when I draw near him he mumbles ¡°Brother I have returned.¡± I think he mistakes me for one of his companions. Then he begins to cry. ¡°There was no god. Only an endless river grinding our brothers and sisters to dust.¡± He says almost choking on his tears. ¡°You escaped it brother.¡± I reply, ¡°Welcome back among the living, the world is as bleak as ever and those which you once considered your family would now hunt you down, especially after what you said.¡±


    ¡°I welcome you among those that know some of the truths of death, among those which you once labelled as demons. Use your soul and see that all of us are still human.¡± I greet him. ¡°Some more some less¡± I add silently. When he does as I told him his face grows pale. ¡°So that is what they see. If we just had listened. If we just hadn''t listened to him.....How many innocent have died by my hands? What have we done...What....What are you?¡± It seems he finally noticed my soul. I tried to hide it to spare him yet another shock. ¡°I am probably the first that returned or at least the only one that could grow to such an extent. I am one of the few witnesses of the storm that washed away the souls of so many of us.¡± I reply, ¡°I am one of the leaders of the enemies of New Eden. My name is Oliver.¡±


    ¡°What a monstrous soul you have... I guess we were lucky that it doesn''t have any might in this world¡± he says, ¡°I guess I will soon fall together with your kin...Our, no, their forces are too large to be defeated.¡± ¡°Actually there are a lot of things New Eden never learnt of. Their enemy is a lot stronger in numbers than they though. And then of course there is this.¡± I replied while creating a ball of flames over my hand. His eyes widen. ¡°Is this... Is this hard to do?¡± he asks. ¡°Not at all. There are a lot of different things we can do. For example taking over an almost dead body, just in case you wonder how you came here. I for example am almost immortal. Attacks that destroy my body can''t kill me. I could rebuild it if I get the time.¡± I say. ¡°Seems like we picked the worst enemies huh....¡± he says. Exhausted he falls into a deep slumber.

 Arc 2 Chapter 6

    Arc 2 Chapter 6


    The following day I gather those that will follow me towards our allies. Since we will be engaged in open combat it was decided that our best healer and fighter will go there. In short me. I am torn inside, sure I can defend this half of our people. But the others are out of reach. It would come to this either way. I can''t be everywhere.


    When everyone is gathered we move out. We will need a whole day of walking to go around the enemy camp and reach the bridge. But since only a few of us can be on the move all day we will need one and a half to reach our destination. Still we are a lot faster than our enemies, if they don''t use cars or other vehicles that is.


    We only take provisions for two days with us, so our luggage is rather light. We speed across the land, always using the terrain to take cover. Meanwhile I sometimes rise to the sky while bending the light around me. When I reach a certain hight I regain my sight by letting the light hit my eyes again. I scan the area for scouts and return to the ground. We are safe right now. It seems our actions in the past days made them give up on scouting. There was nobody round except us.


    When we finally reached the bridge we were enthusiastically greeted by our allies. I was directed to the commando tent. It is the biggest tent in the whole camp. When I enter I instantly understand why that is necessary. Every country that is part of the army has multiple representatives here. Overall fifty people are crowded in this area. I hope that they have at least elected a general for the upcoming battle and don''t intend to split their forces, just to not loose their control over them.


    ¡°I greet you all. As announced we come to strengthen your defences. We will need a list of all squads and send one of us with every squad or bigger unit, we should also manage it in a way that the front lines will get a higher density of manipulators.¡± I say after I entered. ¡°Your reinforcements are very welcome Oliver. I am chancellor David, the spokesman in wartimes of our alliance. In the name of all our allies I greet and invite your people to our alliance.¡± The man in the biggest chair replies. What a clich¨¦. ¡°I thank you for your welcome, but I will have to decline your invitation. We don''t plan to be a permanent military force, only the enemy which would hunt and kill us forever brought us to war.¡± I say according to the will of the whole council. We don''t need more land or resources. We just need peace.


    ¡°A strange thing to say if you are as powerful as some of my council claim. I guess your way of growing stronger doesn''t work without realizing the worth of live and an increased disdain of taking it. I heard and saw many monks that lived by a similar principle.¡± he responds, ¡°I think a friendly relationship and trade will be enough for us.¡± That is a huge burden taken from my shoulders. I don''t want to end this conflict just to be drawn into the next.


    ¡°Although I would like to see a demonstration of your powers myself, but I guess it isn''t the right time for that right now. I will have the list you asked for, with the information where to find the respective squad leader, prepared at the end of our meeting. Right now we try to discuss how to proceed with the battle.¡± he continues. ¡°I don''t need that list, I will fight in the front lines. Please send it to my people for me, they will need some time to get acquainted with the people, to recognize who to protect. We don''t want friendly fire in the heat of the battle.¡± I reply. ¡°Alright. We will now proceed with our discussion.¡± he says.


    We discuss for hours. The formations, the possible encounters and a lot of what if-plans. All the while the different countries try to get a bigger part of the prestige. This bartering with human lives disgust me, but I myself seem to be part of the problem. My demonstration of power dismissed their fears and made them more confident of their victory. They also try to involve me in their game and schemes. They try but don''t succeed. I don''t make or take any promises, nor do I show any interest in the honour of battle. There is no point in arguing with those that never saw the battlefield. Maybe I should just remind them of the horrors of the not so distant apocalypse?


    Night has fallen long ago when I finally leave the suffocating tent. I return to the fires of my people and learn that a lot of them spend their time with their new teammates. Which is good news. Seems like they are quickly accepted and made some new friends. I just hope they won''t regret getting close to them when death already awaits at our doors. It is certain that some of us will die, we are here to save as many as we can, but we aren''t almighty. After checking that all our needs are met, I go to the bridge where we will soon shed blood. We have a lot of scouts out there, we don''t want to give them the advantage of a surprise night raid.


    I sit down on the middle of the bridge contemplating our nature, which only let us resolve a misunderstanding through force and death. It won''t be the first time it happens and I fear that it won''t be the last time. Should we really give humanity our techniques? Give them more force? In our small community we led everybody on a peaceful way, we scanned their soul and learned of their problems before giving them power. We corrected arrogance and anger issues, we showed them the horrors of death, they learned of the feelings of the dying. Our ways are strict and well controlled. We never handled our powers as something that is simply useful, we oriented our lives on it and a peaceful way of living, even if it meant deceiving everyone around us. Sure we kill if we must. But we never initiated the aggressions. Tomorrow we again will fight to protect our and the lives of those that are dear to us. I don''t sleep this night. I watch the stars fade away and the sun rise. There in the dawn they come. The camp arose long ago alarmed by the scouts.


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    The battle will begin soon. I rise and walk towards their front to greet the enemy and try to end it without more bloodshed. Thinking along the lines ¡°Those that never try will never succeed.¡±. The hope dies with the first bullets that fly towards me. Their foolish nature merely angers me, why can''t they even consider peace. Why is bloodlust all that fills their eyes? Why does only fear of death fill me? Not my own death, but the fear for all those lost lives and souls.


    At least I should fill them with fear! Take away their lust for death and carnage and replace it with fear. Not the fear for the safety of their loved ones or even strangers, but the selfish fear for their own lives. That at least I will teach them to understand! I don''t need to draw my weapons, their time is long over. I simply reach out and with a wave of soulmist I fling at them I stun them. A hundred of them collapse, I severed their spinal cord, their weak soul can''t resist mine.


    Each of them carried a rifle and a knife for close combat. I pick them up with my soul and fling them at their comrades, embedding them in one of their respective eyes. Like a rock would slow and break a rivers stream I stop their advance, making their flanks easy targets for our artillery. A column of cars moves towards my direction, they have mounted guns and move in a wide formation, bypassing their own troops.


    They won''t move far. I pick up the explosives the dead had and bombard them with them. The survivors quickly flee. The battle finally escalates. Both sides are now in range to open fire effectively. At least one side could. New Eden''s troops fall like stalks in front of the scythe. Meanwhile my people protect their allies. We don''t seem to have lost anybody yet, but we can''t stop a nearly infinite stream of bullets.


    A storm of bullets hits at my location. I catch them and begin to rotate them around me, creating a vortex of shrapnel with me in the centre. The flying pieces of metal tear through metal, armour and flesh, while I move deeper into the enemy''s army. The air around me drops in temperature while I steadily pour energy into the projectiles. Meanwhile I convert some of the mass from a handful of metal pieces into pure energy, I use it to slowly create a bomb, I compress more and more air into it. The air heats up through the pressure and begins to emit light.


    Surrounded by enemies I drop my vortex and focus on a protective field around me. Then I let my miniature wannabe sun explode, it didn''t reach the point of core fusion yet, but it is still destructive enough. The once chilly air now roasts the humans around me, the shock wave kills everything in a one hundred meter radius around me. I don''t know how many it got, but there are still many left. I once again lunge into the battle.


    I slaughter ceaselessly for a whole day. There are so many of them. If they just would focus on me they could easily destroy my body, but luckily they couldn''t, they couldn''t pack enough people or fire power in the space around me to reach me. And of course I denied their every attempt to do so. They soon learned to evacuate the area I am in, but I too noticed it and used their tactic against them, manoeuvring them into traps they would have easily avoided. I ain''t their only enemy.


    When we finally outnumber them they begin to retreat, I also saw that some cars fled, which seemed to have their military leaders in them. Since their order was abruptly destroyed. Finally this ridiculous bloodshed came to a halt. They simply tried to overrun us with sheer numbers. No fancy tactics, no position fighting in small groups. Just a suicidal rush. What madness. My presence alone was enough to break their wave. They couldn''t even attempt to rush over the bridge. We expected a lot of hard to deal with tactics, a prolonged fight where we would besiege each other and use my people in their back to whittle them down. But they came and got slaughtered.


    There are a lot of questions. Why? Were they that confident? And if so was their advantage in numbers the reason of said confidence? Or do they have a trump card? Once again I have a bad feeling about their missing leader. What could he plan to do?


    I jump into the river to quickly cleanse myself of the guts and blood of my enemies. A disgusting stench of blood and death lingers over the once peaceful river bank. After my quick bath I make my way to the commando tent. Silence follows me as I walk. Every conversation comes to a halt when I walk past. I guess what they saw created an impression of a monster in human skin. In my skin. A monster that craves death and slaughter. Sure I wanted to inflict fear into my enemies thoughts and I surely succeeded, judging by their actions to evade me and their hasted retreat.


    I finally reach my destination.

 Arc 2 Chapter 7

    Arc 2 Chapter 7


    I enter the tent, silence follows me. In the all encompassing silence I take a seat. Minutes pass, nobody dares to break the silence. Is their fear so deep? My conviction to not spread my teachings further grows with every second. If they can''t even accept their ally, how should they accept a part of their own population with powers such as mine, how could I know that those with power won''t misuse it and cause the distrust to grow. If we could simply teach everyone at the same time it wouldn''t be such a huge problem. But that is physically impossible. We are to few, to do that. Should we wait? Wait for a more accepting and stable time?


    Or should we deny them the knowledge? And just create our own nation. Either way we will have to end this conflict first. We need to either redeem or eliminate the fanatics. I hope that dealing with their leaders will make it possible to reintegrate them into the existing communities.


    I break the silence. ¡°How many died?¡± This question of mine awakens them from their trance and dumbfounds most of them. The monster they saw in me spoke its first words. And all it was interested in was how many of its allies died. They excepted anything but that gloomy question. They excepted an arrogant speech or a claim for land fuelled by the greed for might, even a invitation for celebration over this bloodbath would be easier to understand. But all his thoughts and curiosity were dedicated on their dead. The being they saw ripping people to shreds and showering the surroundings in blood, the demon of war they unleashed on the battlefield only wants to mourn their dead. Could it really be that they don''t want to fight? Even though they have almost godlike powers?


    ¡°Not one.¡± David finally replied. ¡°At least we have protected some lives.¡± I say while releasing the tension that has build in me in the battle, ¡°What should be our next steps?¡±. Another sentence that alienates him from the other councilmen. At least they saved some lives? Didn''t they loose nobody? Who could he want to save beyond that? How could it be more perfect than defeating ones enemy without loosing a single man to them? The longer they know Oliver the farther away from them he seems to be. Not only power wise, even his nature becomes more and more incomprehensible for them.


    ¡°We should chase them. Following their current course they most likely flee towards the old and their new capital. As far as we know they won''t get too many reinforcements there, but their fortifications are rather troubling. Yet we can''t simply try to catch them before they arrive there. We aren''t faster than them and we will have to look out for traps and ambushes.¡± David replies. ¡°Then we should prepare to march in an appropriate distance behind them. We still have some siege weapons and if push comes to shove I will find a way to break their defences.¡± I say, ¡°I will take most of my people with me, only those who wish to stay will march with your group, the rest will be in my group, with their family.¡± With these words I leave the tent. Not one wants to stay with them, the gazes they get from the normal soldiers make them uncomfortable.


    We don''t need to walk for long until our family is partially reunited, only those that stay in the mountains aren''t here. The group that stayed behind the enemy''s lines had decided to catch up to us after they saw them flee. We leave the stench and the battlefield behind us and walk towards a forest. In a clearance that is large enough for our needs we set up our camp and begin to talk. We talk about the idiotic bloodshed, home, the people we left behind and so much more.


    The following day we begin our march. Our group keeps itself separated from the main army, they don''t understand our ways and we won''t force them to understand them. Actually there are more and more persons that voice the opinion that maybe we shouldn''t share them with the wide mass at all. More and more wonder what this power could do in the hands of those, that don''t have our training, that strengthens the character and the moral of our people. We don''t see our power as a burden, nor do we see just as a convenient thing to have, something that gives us opportunities we never had before. We learn to see it as a responsibility. They were entrusted with it by me and their other teachers. They were chosen by the community and weren''t chased away and they learned of the value of life. We never take them lightly, but sometimes it is the only way.


    Our newest addition Charlie, the man I possessed and whose name I had to learn from himself, its strange how sometimes one doesn''t uses names at all, is finally fit enough to walk around. We won''t teach him yet, he still has some things to learn and he has to reassess his values. Something most of us had to do before they were taught. Once I freely shared my knowledge, but when our might grew more and more, we changed this, we deemed it too dangerous for ourselves to teach possible troublemakers. It seems likely that we will come to a similar conclusion regarding humanity. We deny the masses our teachings to protect them from themselves. Maybe we could find a way to deal with the only reason they could force us to share our knowledge. The soulless. A global solution to get rid of them. That isn''t an easy task.


    We march for over a month, there aren''t enough vehicles for everyone and we don''t want to split our forces, the supply line has most of the bigger vehicles and thankfully they never got raided. All the forces of New Eden and even the inhabitants of the settlements seem to flee towards the capital. What a crowded mess it must be right now. The reason for the lack of vehicles is simply the lack of people that know how to repair or build them. And even if we had the plans for them, we lack the knowledge to produce the parts for it. We lack a lot of specialized people. In our community before the apocalypse it was common that one only learned a single field in depth and the others were taught in a superficial way. This concept hurts us greatly now. We will need hundreds of years to regain the lost knowledge and the hastened decomposing of dead wood and other organic materials makes it even worse. Sure with our abilities we can copy a lot of things, but that doesn''t mean we understand them.


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    Finally we see the capital in the distance. The whole place is swarming with refugees and soldiers. Most of them aren''t behind the fortifications, they just don''t fit into them. I hope they don''t plan to swarm us once again and only use those that they can actually arm. They lost a lot of equipment in the last fight though. It even surprised me that they managed to not starve on their way back. I guess they got supplies in the settlements they passed. Our forces once again look puny compared to theirs. Some might think now ¡°Then why did you let them flee at all?¡±. Well there exist multiple reasons, for one a sudden turn around and ambush would have been devastating, we only did so good in the prior battle because we carefully planned it and choose the location. They had only one direction to attack us, which made our shields or manipulators insuperable. Of course an undying demon that broke their tides played a big role too. Overall we won flawlessly because they were fools, fools that anticipated an easy and quick victory.


    What should we do now? Bombard the city and slaughter civilians? Attack and meaninglessly shed the blood of the innocent? No. We came here to end the conflict. There must be another way than extermination. To start on this way we will have to pull out the root of the problem. The elites and of course their leader. Foremost we need more information. Is it possible to convince the masses? How deep is their belief? David was easily convinced. Can we be successfully convert others in a similar way? I hope so. Too much blood is on my hands already, I do not wish for more.


    We discuss what we should do now, the opinions differ greatly, but we all come to one conclusion, a battle on their grounds, or even in their city is something we have to avoid at all costs. We would be annihilated. The empty sky scrapers and ruins are perfect for the defending side. We would pay a heavy toll for each step we take into the city. We can''t besiege them effectively. We are too few to cover the area around the city, to interrupt the delivery of food, although we can diminish them by patrolling. But that is risky, since we would have to split our forces. At least we can deny them their fields around the city.


    We begin to fortify our camp. If they attack again they will have to overcome multiple pits and slopes, manipulators are great in moving big masses of dirt, although I would like to see their talents used for agriculture instead of warfare. In just one day our five thousand people create a huge fort. The walls are build out of the materials we collected from the houses of the suburb and lots of dirt. To block bullets mass is the most important factor. Although a steel plate can block a bullet, it will bend with every hit. A hill of dirt just absorbs them and it doesn''t need as much repair. On the contrary with every bullet its density rises. We have a lot of room to spare, so we don''t need compact solutions.


    Strangely there weren''t any aggressive movements from our enemies. They remain in their city. No scouts. No tries to surround us or to interrupt our building operations. They don''t seem to care that we are here. Do they plan to play for time? Do they have a trump card? Once again we lack informations. We need to change that. I will change it. My appearance has to change for that though. Too many know my face, the face of the person that personalizes their every fear. The bringer of death and insanity bathed in blood. A living storm of death. It would be strange if they couldn''t recognize me.


    I prepare my allies for my leave and discuss some scenarios and how I would react to them. Then I return to my tent and begin to eat and change. I deform my face and give it a feminine hunch, my body too has to change, Although I will still be male per definition I will look like a woman for everybody. It is the most efficient and hardest to uncover disguise. The demon they know is male. Now even if they check my whole body I will appear female, Although my innards aren''t. The adjustments to my voice are rather difficult but with some help and references from my people I get it to a natural level.


    After one day I finished and change my clothes, leaving my armour behind. All that is left is to sneak in. That shouldn''t be too hard, since they still accept refugees. Although they check them completely. But as far as I and David know is their only way to ''identify'' a demon through ''the disfigurements they have as marks from the devil''. They won''t find them, because there aren''t any, at none of us.

 Arc 2 Chapter 8

    Arc 2 Chapter 8


    A hour before dawn I move out and bypass the city. Their guards don''t have to know that I come from their enemies base. When the sun rises I approach the outer perimeters of their settlements. I have to pass a checkpoint to actually enter it, but the guards there aren''t suspicious of me at all. I am just another refugee in this area filled with them.


    My destination isn''t in this area though I need to get to the centre and to get there I have to get past the gates, which are sadly closed. After questioning some people on the streets I learn that only authorized citizens are allowed to get past them. Looks like I won''t be able to get past them the official way. Which could prove to be a disadvantage. I could simply scale the walls while being invisible, but if someone in there discovers me and can''t remember ever seeing me it could cause a ruckus. I would have liked to get a permit to disband and disarm such events. Sadly I don''t think that will be possible.


    I could use my abilities to heal some people and get the reputation of a godsend and could be invited, but just as easily that could lead to me being accused of witchcraft. It could work or horribly backfire. But the biggest downside would be the time it would consume. I want a fast way in, while not casting the security of this operation aside of course.


    Going in with my soul alone is too risky, especially since I suspect that their leader can feel them. When I leave my body behind I loose a lot of my power. The last time I did that I couldn''t even push aside a normal soul. I don''t want to get attacked in this form. I think the reason for this drop in power is the lack of ''footing'' I don''t have a foundation to push from. It is like standing on ice and trying to push a car. My body is my anchor that gives my soul weight. It allows me to push and pull things with my soul.


    In the end the only way I could come up with was to scale the walls and hope that I won''t draw too much attention. Nobody saw me as I landed on the other side of the wall. I walk about the plazas and streets, listening to the many gossips. Strangely there isn''t any talk about their defeat or the refugees. They speak about new citizens though. Seems like there is a lot of propaganda at work here. They spread that they won and the refugees are just new settlers that want to bath in the glory of the capital of New Eden.


    Why would one spread such lies? To remain the stability of the city of course. But is that stability worth so much? Why do they need their people here. I sit down at a bench in a park, focusing completely to hear every chatter from the people around me. Surprisingly they don''t talk about war at all. Could it be that this area has been isolated for way longer than I though? What are they planning here?


    I walk around the city for the rest of the day, they live a really normal live, considering the state of their country that is really strange. There doesn''t seem to be a lack of food or other things here. It would be normal to ration the food when the city is under siege, but there aren''t even attempts to do so. That indicates that whatever they plan will be put in action soon. I will have to infiltrate the government buildings and get a hold of an influential persons soul.


    ¡°You don''t come here often do you?¡± an elderly man says while sitting down beside me. ¡°Ah crap old people and their unerringly memory for faces.¡± I though to myself. ¡°No I only came here today, the weather is rather nice and I got some time to spare. Normally I am too busy to wander around and chat with people in the park.¡± I reply trying to create a believable cover. ¡°You don''t have to fool me young miss, I saw you come out of a blind alley near the wall. I know that you come from outside the city, you don''t live in any of the houses there, I know that for sure. You see when one is as old as me, one has a lot of time to spare, and I like to watch the city while most of it still sleeps and I like to chat with my neighbours.¡± he whispers. My thoughts are racing at the moment. How can I minimize the risks? Did he share his knowledge of me with someone else?


    ¡°Don''t fear an old man like me. I won''t tell anybody and those stinking arrogant guards are the last ones I would ever talk to. But there is something I want to know. What happens out there? You see all we have been told is that there was a rise in demon activity in the surroundings and we should stay in the save area. Not that we could leave... They even denied us access to the floors of buildings that could provide a look over the walls, saying that those buildings aren''t save anymore. What a load of bullshit. I helped in building some of them and I can assure you that they will stand proudly for another hundred years.¡± he continues to whisper. ¡°So this is something akin to a golden cage huh?¡± I ask. He nods. ¡°What do you know of demons?¡± I ask, ¡°How much of what you heard do you believe?¡±.


    ¡°I am just an old man that had his share of deceit and manipulation. I know what they preach everyday, but do I believe it? I don''t. It sounds just like yet another politician blaming all our problems on those that are different.¡± he says. ¡°It is wise that you took everything with a grain of salt. Or maybe you just want to live peacefully... Anyway in the last months an army of New Eden lost a major battle against what they call the demons. For all I know they are just normal humans though and have nothing in common with those men-eating mutants.¡± I reply.


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    ¡°Those people camping in front of your walls are refugees that fled here, although as far as I know the invaders never pillaged any settlements and I was also among those fleeing, so I would know if they did.¡± I continue. ¡°Truly a golden cage.¡± the old man grumbles, ¡°Why would they do that? For what do they need us here?¡±. Silence emerges as our conversation pauses. ¡±Say why are you here? You don''t look like a refugee to me or did you leave behind your belongings?¡± he asks. At this point there are barely any people around and the sun has almost set. ¡°I just wanted to know why we can''t enter and now I wonder what they want to achieve by this lock-down.¡± I answer.


    ¡°Maybe I can help you with that. You see I work as a maintenance worker in the government district, like I said I helped to build some of the buildings and now I am almost the only one with some knowledge about electricity lines in buildings. I don''t have to do much, but I can walk almost everywhere in this district. I am but a lone old man, so I would appreciate it if such a crafty young women like you would accompany me. You got in here on your own, while we failed to get out for months.¡± he says, ¡°But it is rather late now, so why don''t you come over and have dinner with me and rest for the day.¡±


    I don''t think he would try something funny and if he does I can still get rid of him, it would even be a place where nobody could witness it. So I follow him to his home, which is rather close to the point I entered the city. While we eat we talk about where we could go to sate our curiosity and how we should proceed. Then we rest for the night.


    The next day we set out on our journey. The old man with his cane and me carrying his toolbox. To the guards to the district I am his new apprentice that wants to learn his craft, hence why I accompany him. On the way he explains to me what I need to do to check upon the overall state of the network in the building. I will do just as he says, while he will chat with the secretary in the building. The same one which once gave me an appointment.


    She still creeps me out. Her very existence in her role, which didn''t seem to have changed at all through the apocalypse. She looks like she just went to work when it all began and didn''t move from there at all since then. It is like she is made for this position. Even the years seem to have passed her without changing her much. Good thing the old man will do the chatting.


    As planned I walk to the fuse box and begin to check the resistance of the fuses and the voltage on the source. When I finish and noted everything down the old man comes over. ¡°She doesn''t know much, but she knows that her boss, our leader, isn''t around as often as he used to be, something demands a lot of his attention and since he is a workaholic I don''t think that this thing are pleasantries. Could be the war though, but she mentioned that he rarely attends meetings at the moment. I don''t think that he believes that he can lead an army better than all his advisers together.¡± he whispers, while looking at the numbers I noted. I wouldn''t be so sure about the last part, knowing how horrible and absent their tactics were.


    But overall the thing I should investigate first is the leaders activities. He is highly suspicious. He is the founder of a religion that founds on a knowledge of souls and soulmist. Although it has a lot of misconceptions. If he learned to use his power he could be the worst enemy we have. Given enough time he could create nuclear weapons. If he reached the same stage as me he is literally immortal, but I doubt that. Nobody among my apprentices is even close to that point.


    ¡°Looks like we are in luck.¡± The old man beside me says and turns around and walks to the secretary. ¡°Looks like we have a problem in the higher levels. I guess there were some complaints about a flickering light right?¡± he asks her. ¡°Yes you are right.¡± she replies, ¡°If you need to you can go up there.¡± With that we begin to walk up the stairs, the elevator isn''t trustworthy anymore at this point in time. ¡°It always annoyed me that the people don''t know shit about electricity. All I would have to switch is the damn fuse that has aged and gained a higher resistance than it should. What use is it to stare at a flickering light, whose power lines are out of your reach and most probably completely fine. But today I finally benefit from their ignorance.¡± he grumbles to himself.


    We reach the floor where the leader is said to reside. A big area is guarded, so we wander around the open areas at first, inspecting the flickering lights. After we acted enough to gain a believable cover we approach one of the guards and ask whether there are any complaints about the lights from the leader. Sure enough there are a lot of complaints. Seems like their leader is working even at night, a time when flickering lights can become your worst enemy. We don''t need to be very persuasive to convince them to let us into the chambers to check the lights. Of course we won''t be alone there, they will accompany us and of course the leader will be informed.

 Arc 2 Chapter 9

    Arc 2 Chapter 9


    With four people we enter the leaders domain. It is a huge apartment, but overall it looks almost empty. There are some lonely pieces of furniture arranged in small groups across the rooms. We greet the leader, who is sitting at the only table and seems to be deep in though. He is a middle aged man and overall he doesn''t look special. He is just another guy that survived the apocalypse. But in his eyes there burns a fire, a cold and merciless fire. His soul has the colour and outer appearance of a cold blue fire, it feels like the pure will to revenge those he has lost. It was a normal soul, maybe he could feel his surroundings, but that would be all.


    He doesn''t take much notice of us. His only response was a short look and a grumble about getting rid of at least one bane of his existence. We begin to ''repair'' the lights. For that we walk across the rooms and take some notes. We also open some of the housings of the lamps. There are actually some burnt lights here, which will have to be replaced.


    While we work I check with my soul on what he is working on. He can''t hope to notice or see my soul while I do so, he isn''t powerful enough to do so. Even David who was greatly strengthened through his near death experience only barely noticed me. The papers he is working on are filled with sketches of a strange object. It isn''t any type of machine or weapon. But those patterns are strange and strangely familiar at the same time. What have I seen that is similar to them? Just in case I memorize them.


    We have done our job and since we don''t have any other reason to stay here we have to leave. When we exit the building the old man grumbles ¡°We didn''t learn much did we? The only thing I could see were some strange scribbles on his papers. Well I didn''t expect to get this far to begin with.¡± I think roughly the same, sure we entered one of the areas with the highest security, yet we learned next to nothing. There exists only one other highly secure area, the guards quarters.


    Since I know that there is probably nobody here that can feel it or at least nobody who can locate me, I scan the whole building, we just left. It brims with activity, but that is nothing unusual in itself. I also located a construct that resembles what I saw in the sketches. Its use still eludes me, it could be a statue or an art installation for all I know. We go to some other places too, but we don''t learn anything new.


    At the end of the day we go into a bar, where guards often go to drink. Strange how not even an apocalypse could destroy this guilty pleasure of humanity. There we hope to talk with some of the attendants of this golden cage, but sadly they aren''t eager to talk at all.


    This night I begin my hunt for the elites. The leader will be the last I will kill, it would create to much unrest and conflict if he dies first and the separate parties in this government would begin a fight for supremacy. My work is easily done, only the next day will the bodies be found. Sadly those warmongers that are filled with an endless greed for power don''t know anything about their leaders plans. Most only see him as a puppet with lots of charisma. A tool to control the masses, they created and fanned the hate to easily wage their wars. They used what their leader created, yet he himself never took part in the war or its preparations. His whole mind and actions was focused on this strange sculpture. He is possessed by its creation. His whole time is spent on it, for ten whole years.


    The next day, there are a lot of rumours on the streets. They talk of deceit and murder, of plots between the chancellors of New Eden, of blood that created rivers on the streets. The last one isn''t true though, I didn''t shed a single drop of blood. My victims all died of heart attacks or through inner bleeding. Those ways are actually rather cruel, their death took longer than when I would have simply ripped of their heads. But I don''t want to draw suspicion. With how I did it, it looks more like a divine punishment or poisoning.


    Then a completely different thing spread. News about an event that will take place at today''s evening prayers. Everybody has to attend. There are many assumptions circulating. From an official funeral for the deceased to speculations about promotions to refill the council. Again we spend the day spying for information in the government district. We learn only a few new things. We finally find someone who knows about the battle that took place. I guess information has begun to leak now that the higher-ups are gone.


    We also learn about the murders or deaths of my victims, but those are rather uninteresting for me. The old man on the other hand talks about them all day long and I lead his speculations on a wild goose chase by giving him wrong hints or thoughts about what could have happened. The last thing we learned on our tour was who has given the order to isolate the citizens. It was the leader, but why wasn''t explained, only that it is necessary.


    In the evening we walk with all the other people to the biggest plaza in the city. The place is brimming with people, everybody seems to have followed the call. The once spacious park is now filled with people and in the centre of all of it there is a stage and a big covered object. It is the sculpture the leader spend all his time on. All this to show ones art? I doubt it. But except for the form I can''t find anything suspicious with it.


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    After another ten minutes the event finally begins. Their leader climbs on the stage and begins his speech. ¡°You all know me. As a leader and as a person that represents and founded our believe. Today I want to share a bit of my story with you. Before the apocalypse that was caused by those damned demons I had a family. A wife and three kids. Now I am alone. I saw how they were killed by those damned demons, not only did they eat them I saw how they robbed them of their souls. Yes I can see them and I don''t damn those that learned how to do it. Those who damned them were those that once followed me and died today or yesterday night. I don''t doubt that they died by the hands of those they hunted and killed in my name. I don''t care about their loss though, they probably left this world and weren''t hindered at all. Something that my family couldn''t.¡± he pauses.


    Silence lingers over the field as some begin to grasp what they have done and wanted. They wanted to chase and kill people that weren''t the cause for all that. That were innocent. They followed a lie.


    He breaks the silence. ¡°I gathered you here today, not to reveal the truth to you, but to smite the enemy we should have fought all this time. Those soul stealing mutants that trap the souls of their victims. For that I need your help though. I need your focus and your prayer.¡± with that he reveals the sculpture. ¡°Focus on this while you pray and together we will send the souls that were stolen back to where they belong, I beg of you to help me free my family and lead her to eternal rest. That was always my goal and today we can achieve it.¡±


    A murmur goes through the mass. Their leader begs for their help, he even lowered himself to his knees and all he asks for is a bit of their time. The murmur grows to a cheer. ¡°I thank you. Now let us pray.¡± he responds to that. A new murmur erupts on the field. They pray, all of them. There isn''t much to see for the naked eye, apart from a huge amount of people bowing their heads in prayer. But my soul-sense reveal something really scary. The soulmist in the area is pushed towards the sculpture. That soulmist finally revealed the secret that it holds, I finally recognise the pattern the inner structure and the patterns on it resemble those on a soul, especially those on the tentacles I use when I manipulate the world.


    It seems like their leader found a way to manipulate energies without using his own soul, but by creating something like a spell circle from games. It is just way more complex. No wonder he needed ten years to do that. But what does he want to do? Those forms and patterns aren''t something I ever encountered. I only recognised a small part and that reminds me of the anchor in my own soul. But it seems wrong and twisted, as if it is a reversed version of it. If it points to a location, where could that be? I follow the compass by focusing on it. What I find blanches me. It is a place I know far better than I ever wished for. A place I spent what felt like decades in. It leads to the corridor the souls of the dead take.


    When I regain my senses, after I lost my focus on the compass. I feel something unsettling. The suction increases with every second. More and more soulmist is pulled towards the centre of the plaza. At least it the bound mist isn''t affected, so we wont freeze to death. Then it simply stops. An eerie silence fills the world. The prayers have stopped. Everyone is filled with a feeling of unease. Then the world shakes, not physically, yet there are many that fall down. It feels like the souls that are around us are screaming and shaking, as if the room they fill is arching.


    Then it collapses. The sculpture looses all function and the mist that was pressed into it dissipates. Dear god I pray that he failed. I pray that it never was his intention to open a gateway. A gateway to the land of the dead. I can only imagine what could happen. To call it a second soulstorm wouldn''t be enough to describe it. An unbelievable pandemonium could break out when the living mingle with the dead.


    Then the silence ends. Again they begin to talk, trying to ease their minds of what they felt. I look towards the stage and what I see chills me to the bones. He looks at a point just above the sculpture. And then I notice it, ever so slowly the soulmist begins to move again. The pull gets faster and faster. I finally see it. He succeeded. A tiny gateway was created. It grows with every second. It now is the size of a human head and the first signs of its appearance can now be felt.


    In a wave the effect spreads through the crowd. The first to feel it is their leader. His soul is slowly pulled out of his body. The last thing he does isn''t noticed by most of the people here, since they begin to panic, due to the strange sensation filling them. But since I began moving towards the stage ever since I checked the compass and arrive now besides him I hear it. His last words. ¡°What have I done...¡± What foolishness. How could he believe that he could control it? What exactly did he expect would happen? His face that was filled with delight, just moments ago, was now an ugly grimace of a dying person.

 Arc 2 Chapter 10 A Cycle of Origin and End

    Arc 2 Chapter 10 A Cycle of Origin and End


    Oh how I wish that I would have studied theoretical physics in the past. With a specialisation in repairing the room time continuum. Around me the people die, their soul is being ripped out of their bodies. The first thing I should do is enclosing this freakish thing and deny it the soulmist it is sucking in to grow. To do that I surround it with a blanket of my soul. But soon the pressure rises. As more and more soulmist tries to pass this improvised blockade I begin to struggle.


    My solution is the same I once found in the corridor. I take it all in. I begin to grow. Faster and faster. But I am still hopeless against this doorway to the limbo. How did that idiot create it in the first place?. As time passes I try different approaches to seal this misfortune of an apocalyptic scale. I also continue to write down my history. Because if this thing ends me I want to at least warn the ones that come after us. With my growing soul this multitasking is rather easy.


    Maybe the thing that created it can give me a hint how to close it. I begin to study it. Meanwhile I check for any survivors in the area. Someone I can entrust my legacy to. But even with my ever growing soul-sense all I find are empty bodies. I have to hurry or this world will die. One thing is for sure though, the soulless die like the flies. A lot of their souls gather at my location. Every soul that comes here is soon becoming dust though. It strengthens me even further. Thankfully there aren''t many human souls coming my way. Seems like the distance keeps them save for now. But everyone I once knew is dead now.


    The price for this fools dream is so unbelievable high. The only ones from my family that are still alive are those we left behind.


    What could have been the day this absurd conflict came to a halt, a day filled with celebrations, became the saddest day of earth for me. A lot of those humans soul still linger around me. They are sturdier than the ''souls of the soulless''. But it won''t be long until they will begin to fall apart. I wrap them in my own soul, protecting them from the crushing pressure.


    Finally I find a hint how I can close this gateway. I need to go to the other side of it. Only from there can I mend the tear in the room. I will have to collect the fringes of the hole and twist them together. Only on the other side the room has a physical embodiment. The walls of the corridor are that embodiment, so right now there is a hole there. A hole that isn''t there only for those who have the right compass, but is open for everyone.


    The bodies of those I protect are most probably dead. I will take them with me. But before that I destroy this dumb sculpture. I tear it into tiny fragments. For whoever reads this gem, I beg you don''t ever let this happen again. I can feel that the world once again changed, the once abundant soulmist isn''t there anymore, only the bound mist is still here, I doubt that another one like me will ever exist again. Nobody will be able to stop it when it happens again. Farewell.


    What a strange coincidence, that the one who found this stone is one of the few that can still feel the world, a rare gift that becomes rarer with every generation. Maybe it isn''t such a big coincidence, this thing shines as bright as a sun when I look at it with my soul, but its outer appearance is that of a simple rock, one among many that cover the ground of the lake I found it in. Maybe a little shinier and prettier than the others, but I ain''t a specialist with rocks. In the past a big explosion is rumoured to have occurred here, but those that researched it didn''t find anything that could have caused it. The one thing we know about it is that five hundred years ago a big city has existed here. On all of the few maps that still exist and show this area there is a capital marked on this location.


    The age of shadows, we call this time period by that today. Our lives today are akin to those of the people that lived before the first apocalypse, at least from what we can guess from the found relics of the past.


    ¡°Michael turn off the lights already. We have to wander for five hours tomorrow to return to the city, you will need the rest.¡± My teacher says as he passes my tent. ¡°Not much use in opposing a good argument, I guess.¡± I think to myself. I turn off the light and get ready to sleep. My last though is about the second stone containing the knowledge about Oliver''s techniques. This night I dream of being a hero. A hero with the strongest soul on this world.


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    Oliver''s POV ( five hundred years in the past)


    In a place with a blurred meaning of time and room Oliver, to be exact Oliver''s soul floats among the souls of the dead, carrying with him the souls of strangers and those he once hold dear. This time there doesn''t exist a way to return, their compasses shattered once they willingly entered this place.


    ¡°I guess it is time to finally find the reason for the soulstorm.¡± I think to myself. I begin to move with the stream, not fearing the friction and pressure that once threatened my very being. Once again it feels like decades until I reach my destination. Here there exists only soulmist, no other souls than me and those I protect can exist here.


    My destination is simply described as a crossroad between six paths. Right next to the tube I came from is another similar sized one. But the soulmist flows into it not out of it. Curios I follow it. Soon we aren''t alone anymore, more and more souls are here. They are born here. Strangely it seems like they grow bigger than what the soulmist enables them to. Does it also happen with our souls? Curios I observe mine and the souls of my companions. Indeed they grow and they grow faster than the newborn ones. Is this growth exponential? Strange.


    I further follow the stream and soon the newborn souls begin to merge with the corridor leaving this place. Are those souls actually newborn humans and animals? So this is the cycle of souls. It makes sense now that the amount of souls grows, if that wasn''t the case then at one point there would be a lack of souls. I return to the crossroad. Long lost is my sense of time.


    Those three pairs of tubes now look like the entrance and exit of three worlds. Or dimensions? I don''t think I will ever know that. I inspect the pair closest to me. Strangely there isn''t any flow from them. I enter them, but this fact doesn''t change even as I follow them. Driven by curiosity I get close to the wall and try to see beyond them like I did with the compass in the sculpture. After some tries I finally see something.


    It is a dead place. I can''t describe it in any other way. All I felt was the lack of life. Could it be that this is the reason for the soulstorm? That one world died and its souls flooded this place and overflowed into our world? If that is the case, could it happen again? I hurry back to the crossroad and get close to the smallest pair of tubes. There is a strong flow coming from them.


    As I inspect them I notice that the tubes are slowly growing. If the size of the tubes symbolize the amount of life in their respective worlds does that mean that those belong to a young world? Is the amount of life growing there. I quickly check on the dead tubes. Sure enough those get smaller, but very slowly. Just how fast is this new world growing?


    A new fear dwells in me. If a surplus of souls can have an effect on the worlds then a lack of them surely isn''t good either. If the new world continues to grow at this rate, then it will surely cause problems. But how can we increase the production of souls?


    We need some strong souls that remain here! They grow faster than the newborn ones. I will have to protect them for a long time for them to get strong enough to survive on their own. But the time will become our enemy in this place, even now I can feel how my comrades and even I myself slowly loose our sanity. This bodiless existence isn''t good for us. I attempt to link my mind with that of the others and sure enough we can converse via our souls. This eases our minds but it isn''t enough.


    We dream, we dream of a world, we create one for ourselves and begin to live once again. I collect more and more souls of the deceased. With them our dream grows. We grow while we dream and a part of our growth is constantly released to feed the ever growing cycle of origin and end of souls.


    Finally I will go to rest, I slowly erase my personality from my soul, giving away my very being to create a foundation for our afterlife. In this place where time is but a twisted illusion I lived many lives. I even had some families and children. We created new souls and implemented the concept of childbirth in our world. All that remains now is fatigue. Others will follow and join me as the foundation of this world of dreams. We will forever protect the balance of the souls. Now I finally will embrace oblivion. Farewell.

 Not an chapter but an announcement

    For all those asking if this is the end: Yes it is the end of the first book, with this end i created the potential for two new storylines though. Oliver was always planned to gain immense strength in a quick pace, he was created to set the world up for a bigger story. Which is yet to come. In which there will also be more interactions between the characters and a bigger focus on a slower growth than in this one.


    For those wondering whether i just wanted to finish him of to start anew. Let me just say that Oliver was always meant to end like this. The big plot was already created when i wrote the first chapter, only the way to get to it wasn''t known completely.


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    At this note i also want to say that i consider to sell the story via amazon as an ebook and i would appreciate any help with that.


    As christmas is just around the corner and i want to enjoy it with my family i will take a break for at least a week.

 continuation of soulstorm

    I started to post a continuation for soulstorm it can be found under the name ''Worldborn'' or through the following link:


    http://royalroadl.com/fiction/6899</a>


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    It will start afresh in quite some aspects, but alot of the core concepts and history are still there.