The hunger had forced him to hunt, and after every successful ambush, he had learned something new about his condition.
“I’ve practiced magic with the tutorial for just a few hours, yet I knew how to cancel my smell, presence, and even how to soften the ground upon my passage. Otherwise, with the heavy ass I got, the animals would have heard me coming from a mile away.” Derek thought.
“I knew when and where to strike. Yet I’ve never hunted my whole life. Heck, I’d never left the city. All this situation is off. It’s like I’ve become a different person.” He looked at his Voidwalker armor as it absorbed the blood instead of cleaning it, bringing it in contact with the Void’s body to feed him.
Once back at the camp, Derek sat down on the biggest rock he could find and kept mulling over the mystery at hand.
“I know who I am. I’m Derek McCoy from Earth. I killed my father and raised my brother Carl like my son. I lost him to a spoiled rotten piece of shit called Chris Wainright.” His voice grew louder and angrier with every word he spoke until only a savage growl remained.
“I attended my brother’s funeral. I got stage four lung cancer. I avenged my brother and killed even cancer.” He laughed at his own joke, yet it was a wry and mirthless sound. “Then the alien ship. The hunger, the madness until an energy spear stabbed me into… this.”
The Void waved at his body.
“I’m definitely not an undead as they are described in Dungeons & Looting rulebooks or Earth’s lore. My powers rise with the sun and go down with it. I’d say I’ve reincarnated into a Fire Dragon, but I’m too small and look nothing like a Dragon.
“The real question, however, is not who I am but if I care. I’ve died twice, I can do it again. This place so far is nothing much and this hunger sure is a nice incentive to leave.” Just like upon his original arrival on Mogar, Derek’s first thought was about leaving.
To take another spin at reincarnation and hope for better luck. Yet unlike twenty years ago, now there was no family or possible future in sight to steer his judgment. There was only his equipment.
“Also, where the fuck does this stuff come from? Who was the guy whose body I’ve overtaken? What-” Derek heard a whimper and turned around with lightning-fast reflexes, calling Ragnarök to his aid.
It was then that the whimper repeated and Derek noticed it came from his right hand.
Even with all the blood collected during the night hunt, the scabbard had turned almost entirely black. Only a few red dots remained and the angry blade quivered in pain.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” For some reason, Derek felt bad for Ragnarök, which was weird.
Not because ego weapons were supposed to be bad. Not because they had met for less than a day. It was weird because Derek wasn’t used to feeling anything. After Carl’s death, the fires of revenge had kept him alive but after killing Chris, even that was gone.
The Void was true to his name, feeling nothing and wishing for nothing.
“Pain.” Ragnarök whined. “So much pain.”
“Are you in pain?” Derek asked in surprise.
“Always.” The agonizing blade actually meant: “Always when you are in your Abomination form” but Derek took it literally.
“I hear you, buddy. Ever since I woke up, I’m always hungry. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yes. Point me up.” Ragnarök said and Derek complied.
The stubborn blade activated the silver and black crystals on its fuller to contain the Chaos long enough to activate its Gleipnir enchantment safely. Golden chains erupted from the scabbard, connecting Ragnarök with the Voidwalker armor and the rest of the equipment bearing a power core.
It also allowed the blade to take control of the Void’s mana. Derek’s paranoia warned him to cut the spell off but his instinct told him there was nothing wrong. That he could trust Ragnarök.
By combining all those forces, the angry blade managed to channel and focus the accumulated Chaos into the tier four Chaos spell, Howling Void. A black spear the size of a small tree erupted from the blade’s tip and bolted up to the sky.
There was nothing on its path but a huge cloud that Howling Void pierced open, leaving a perfect circle as if the condensed water had just disappeared. The bigger bits left after the blast rearranged themselves into small clouds while the rest simply disappeared.
The aftershock from using Chaos magic reverberated through Ragnarök and the Voidwalker armor, but the Davross of which they were made took the brunt of the impact, leaving Derek to withstand the rough equivalent of a strong gut punch.
“That was amazing! Can you do that whenever you want?” He asked.
“Can. Don’t want to.” Ragnarök whimpered as its bloody scabbard still sizzled with wild energy.
Derek noticed that the blackness was gone and the scabbard was back to being bright red. The process had required the equivalent energy of a lesser Blade Tier spell and time to channel the Chaos away from Derek, but it was a success.
The angry blade could go back suppressing the Chaos spark in the Void’s body with minimal effort until the corruption spread again. There was a lot of time until sundown and Ragnarök would use it to refill the various power cores of Lith’s equipment.
“Where did I get you, buddy?” Derek asked.
“Father.” The blade replied, and the image of a tall, rough giant of a man flashed for a second in front of Lith’s eyes.
“Who is this father…” The Void’s lips curled up in disgust as the word also conjured the memory of his Earth father, Ezio McCoy. Then, Ezio’s face disappeared, replaced by a kind man dressed like a poor farmer.
Raaz was tired from a long day of work in that memory, but he talked to a young Lith with a calm and soothing voice as he taught the child how to whittle.
“Father?” Derek echoed and once again Ezio briefly came to his mind before being replaced by Raaz holding his baby boy.
Then, the Void saw Lith as an adult, holding the newborn Elysia after becoming a father himself. He fell to his knees in agony, feeling like his skull was about to be split open from the inside.
He struck at his temples and slammed his head against the ground, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the aching he felt in his very soul.
‘Fuck me sideways, time to intervene again!’ The Voidfeather Dragon saw the human life force stir, but it was still too damaged to allow it to awaken.
The Voidfeather reinforced the barrier between the life forces, cutting himself further from the Void in order to stop the flow of memories before it was too late.
“What was that?” Derek found himself lying with his back on the ground. His body was unscathed but he panted and wheezed like he had just fought for his life.
One word echoed in his mind, answering his question.
‘Elysia.’
