Day 10
Time in the basement was no longer measured in sunrises, but in cycles of pain, practice, and exhaustion that had become as familiar as my own breathing. Ten days since my world had been reduced to damp stone, the taste of bitter concoctions, and the relentless voice of the priest.
After the violent awakening of my circuits and my first clumsy attempt at sorcery, that strange "Reinforcement," he had told me. Such a simple name for something that felt like trying to tame a lion.
It had greatly "improved" my physical abilities, if by improvement you meant being able to run a little longer before vomiting, lift slightly heavier stones before my arms gave out, and endure the leather belt lashes the priest used to "test my endurance" without collapsing immediately.
Now, every movement, every effort, was tied to an internal task: channeling od to the specific parts of the body that needed strengthening.
It wasn't instinctive. It was agonizing real-time calculation.
When running, I had to isolate the circuits that reached my legs and make a thin, steady stream of that cold, voracious energy flow.
When lifting a stone, the flow had to be directed to my back and arms. I felt the od travel through the channels, a sensation of icy needles moving under my skin, and then, when it reached its destination, a strange densification, as if my fibers were imbued with pure intention. The stone weighed less, my tendons gave way less.
Day 12
The ink looks blacker under the light of the lamp. Perhaps because the night outside is absolute. Today was different from all the others. Instead of going out during the day or in the afternoon, this time we will go out at night.
"You have learned to deny the passive, the fleeing. To strengthen your flesh. It is time to apply those principles to something that will strike back at you."
He paused.
"Grab your weapon and follow me."
His order broke the silence. There were no further explanations.
My eyes fell on the dagger on the rough wooden table. The same one with which, in these twelve days, I had taken life. At first, each cut vibrated in my soul, leaving a residue of disgust and nightmares. Now... now the handle fit into my palm with an obscene familiarity. The weight of the cold steel and iron was a reminder, yes, but one that no longer filled me with panic.
It was easier.
We entered the jaws of the forest. But this time, we didn't stay inside. We crossed it with a purpose. The last branches parted like a dark curtain. Before us, in a gloomy valley under a sky full of indifferent stars, lay the village.
But the first thing I noticed was the smell. A smell that stayed with you. It smelled of metal, of dried blood. A heavy smell that hung in the still air.
The priest paused for a moment, sniffing the air.
"It smells like a slaughterhouse," he said, simply.
I tightened my grip on the dagger. The village seemed to be asleep, but that smell told a different story. It said that whatever had happened here had ended long ago, and that what remained was not good.
"Shall we go in?" I asked.
"You will go in," he said clearly and firmly. His tone brooked no argument.
"I'll go in?" I stammered, incredulity overcoming me for a second. "Just me?"
He finally looked away from the village and fixed his gaze on me.
"You will face the servants of the one who killed your kind," he said.
The air escaped from my lungs. A sharp, dry blow to the stomach. "Fellow creatures." The word brought me back in one fell swoop to that night. Not to the blurred memories, but to the pure, animalistic sensation: the crimson color that painted everything, the sound of glass shattering.
And in the midst of the chaos, He walked slowly, too slowly for the carnage he left behind. That black figure looking at me like a stone in his path, that it didn't matter, that I could be stepped on. His gaze was empty. A recognition of my complete insignificance.
"Will he be there?" The question came out as a gasp, tainted by that memory.
The priest turned his head. His profile was stark against the night.
"No, he doesn't come down to collect the leftovers. This," he said, pointing to the village with a short movement of his chin, "is his dogs' feast. The ones who lick the plate after he has eaten."
An instant, almost shameful relief washed over me. I wouldn't be there. I wouldn't have to face that again. My pulse, which I didn't know was pounding, calmed down a bit.
But right behind the relief, something else rose up. A bitter, metallic aftertaste, like swallowing bullet dust. I wanted him to be there. I wanted that thing, that being that had walked among the screams of my friends, to feel for once the sting of fear, the paralysis of helplessness. I wanted to return his stone gaze and see if, when I stabbed him with the consecrated iron, his red eyes would finally open with something other than hunger... but with recognition. Recognition that I existed, that I had returned, and that I had brought him pain.
"Go," the priest ordered, without gentleness. "Step hard. Don't let the smell of blood confuse you... now it's your street. And that stone you were... today it has an edge."
I didn't nod. I didn't need to. My body was already moving, down the slope toward the village, the smell of ancient carnage in my nose and the taste of metal in my mouth. I wasn't going to hunt. I was going to claim. And everything that smelled of that night and those red eyes had better be prepared. The stone had rolled down the hill, and it was coming to break their teeth.
XXX
Houses destroyed. Doors torn from their hinges, windows smashed from the inside, as if something had needed to get out urgently.
People... or what was left of them. In the alley between two houses, a shape lay in a dark pool. One arm was missing from the shoulder, torn off with such violence that shreds of fabric and pale strands hung down. Further on, against a wall, another. She was still sitting, her head tilted at an unnatural angle, her torso cut open from top to bottom like a butcher's whim. It was not the work of an animal.
And among the rubble and debris, the others moved. Ghouls. Walking corpses. The priest was right: they were not the undead with consciousness. They were puppets. Flesh reanimated by an alien, corrupt will that breathed into them a nervous and clumsy hunger. One crawled across the ground, dragging legs that no longer worked, its bony fingers scratching at the earth. Another leaned against a wall, its head turning slowly, with a spasmodic movement, following my scent. Its eyes were bright. There was no intelligence in them. Only one impulse: to consume.
But amid all that carnage, amid the stench of burst guts and the spasmodic movement of the ghouls, a small, perverse joy arose.
Lines.
These were too sharp. Clear as engravings on glass. They crossed the body of the ghoul advancing toward me, from the tip of its deformed skull to the sole of its bare, dirty foot. There weren't one or two. There were too many to count. A swarm of cracks in reality, each glowing a deep red. They were beautiful.
Without realizing it, a smile slipped onto my face. It was cold. It was the smile of a watchmaker who finally sees the master gear. It was the smile of someone who has found order amid chaos.
The ghoul advanced. And I, of course, was not going to be left behind.
The coldness of my smile turned into an electric impulse. It was not a burst of panic, but of anticipation. I began to walk, one step, two, measuring the distance to that network of beautiful and lethal lines moving toward me. Then, without transition, my legs burst into motion.
I sent all the hatred, all the cold rage, all the frustration of having been an insignificant stone, into my muscles. The ground, soaked with unmentionable things, seemed to give way beneath my feet, propelling me forward in a burst that defied the gravity of that cursed place.
The ghoul raised its arms, its hooked fingers seeking to tear. Its brightest line, the one that ran from the crown of its head to its groin, pulsed like a black heartbeat. The world shrunk to that trajectory and my outstretched arm.
Just as it was in front of me, as its breath of rotten flesh hit my face, I didn't stop. I slid. I lowered my center of gravity, dodging its clumsy grasp as if it were a dance move I had rehearsed a thousand times. I passed to its right, so close that the rags of its clothing brushed my arm.
And at that intersection, as inertia carried me past it, my right arm shot out in a short, perfect arc. The dagger did not stab. It grazed. It grazed softly, almost delicately, that main line that crossed his side.
My run took me three steps further. I stopped and turned, already breathing calmly. The ghoul had been frozen in his grasping posture.
The ghoul had frozen in its grasping posture. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, from the perfect black line my dagger had traced across its side, a dark thread emerged.
The crack opened with a damp, dull sound, like rotten fabric tearing. Black blood gushed out, soaking its rags and dripping to the ground with a heavy splash. It collapsed, like a rag doll whose strings had been cut. Its body hit the ground with a soft, wet thud, and the dark blood began to form a viscous pool around it.
I looked at the dagger. The tip was stained. It didn't disappear. I had cut something real, something that left a mark.
But that mark, instead of deterring them, did not cause the other remaining ghouls to retreat, as anything with a shred of self-preservation instinct would do after that demonstration.
On the contrary.
The one that had been crawling stopped, raising its rotten torso and emitting a raspy moan from a throat that shouldn't have worked. The one leaning against the wall peeled itself away from the wood with a dry crack. From an open door beyond, another staggering figure emerged onto the street. And from behind the barrels, the broken windows, the shadows of the alleys... they all began to come.
Damaged bodies, open torsos, missing limbs, all moving with that same mechanical, hungry impulse.
The pool of blood at my feet seemed to be the center of a circle, and I its unwitting guardian. They came from all directions, closing in slowly but surely, their shuffling footsteps creating a dry whisper of feet on earth and debris. Their heads turned in that jerky motion, their glassy eyes fixed on me.
My cold smile froze, solidifying into a grimace of concentrated alertness. I had underestimated their nature. They were not animals fleeing danger. They were tools of a perverse will, and their only programming was to consume until something stopped them completely.
I tightened my grip on the dagger, feeling the stickiness of black blood on the handle. The lines upon them glistened, beautiful and multiple, a forest of paths to their destruction. But there were too many. Too many paths, too many bodies. I couldn't cut them all before one reached me.
I took a step back, and my heels grazed the edge of the viscous pool. There was no further retreat. The priest was somewhere in the shadows, watching. This was the true test.
I inhaled, filling myself with the stench of my enemy. My eyes scanned the closing circle, looking not for the brightest line, but for the first one I would have to cut. The one belonging to the nearest ghoul, the one already raising a fleshless arm, fingers like claws, just three steps away.
The chorus of death grew louder. And I, in the center, with my stained dagger and my lethal vision, prepared to dance.
The first one lunged, and I no longer saw only lines. I saw the point, marked by a bright red line. My dagger didn't slide in. It sank in. The flesh gave way with a wet sound, and dark red blood spurted out in a hot rush that splattered my hand and sleeve. The ghoul fell to its knees.
There was no time to clean myself up. The second and third arrived in unison. Crouching down, I drew a quick line along the thigh of the one on the left. The flesh split open like overripe fruit, exposing pale, necrotic muscle before red flooded everything. As he collapsed, I used his swaying body as a shield against the third. From behind that bleeding body, my arm shot out in a low thrust, seeking not the heart but a knot of lines in the abdominal cavity.
The dagger sank in. A stream of foul liquid, blood and worse, soaked my arm. The smell was unbearable: rotten viscera and old iron. I pushed the impaled body forward, entangling the next ghoul, and withdrew my blade with a sucking sound.
I was gasping for breath. My clothes were splattered, my hands soaked in a red that was cooling fast, sticky.
The lines were still there, guiding me. Each one showed me the most efficient way to turn a body into a bleeding ruin. And I followed them, moving in an ever-tightening spiral, leaving a trail of mangled bodies and red puddles in my wake.
A cold grip took hold of my ankle. One who was crawling on the ground, his legs useless, had caught up with me. His fingers, strong as pincers, closed around me. Without thinking, without elegance, I turned and stomped on his arm, feeling the thin bones give way under my boot, before plunging the dagger into the line that divided his skull.
The dance had become frenzied. He was the butcher in the slaughterhouse, and the ghouls kept coming, drawn to the feast of blood, even if it was their own.
XXX
Exhaustion.
The word sank into my bones, heavier than all the blood covering me.
I don't know how many there really were. Quite a few. The ground around me, within a radius of several meters, was a landscape of mangled bodies and dark pools that still smoldered slightly in the cold air. No longer were there any humanoid forms to be seen, only piles of flesh and rags, crisscrossed by the lines I had blindly followed. Silence had returned.
I am bathed in blood. My clothes are soaked, heavy and cold against my skin. My hands, up to my elbows, are painted a dark, sticky red. I feel its viscous texture drying on my face, on my neck. It's not just their blood; it's mine too, from superficial scratches and blows I didn't feel in the frenzy. The metallic taste is on my lips.
The dagger hangs limply from my hand. Its blade no longer shines; it is completely dulled by a thick crust. My arms tremble from the sheer fatigue of having forced every muscle to move with deadly precision over and over again.
From the doorway of a ruined house, the priest emerges. He walks among the debris with insulting calm, his boots avoiding the largest puddles. He stops in front of me. His eyes scan the battlefield, then settle on me. There is no approval in his gaze. Nor disapproval.
"Anger is good fuel," he says at last, his raspy voice breaking the silence. "But it burns fast."
I try to respond, but only a dry gasp comes out. I nod slowly.
"Satisfied?" he asks.
I look around at the horror I have created. Satisfied? No. It's as if something has been drained from me along with their false lives. The echo of my friends' laughter from that night has not disappeared, but now it shares space with the silence I have imposed here.
"It's done," I manage to growl, my voice hoarse from tension and stifled screams.
The priest watches me for a moment longer, his nose wrinkling slightly at the stench I give off. Then he nods sharply.
"Good. Now go wash up. You stink. That's it, let's go."
I blink, the slice fighting against disbelief.
"Huh? That's it?" I'm not the smartest person in the world, but common sense, what's left after so much carnage, screams inside me. "I don't think it's ideal to leave all this... carnage in the village just like that. Someone will come, see this..."
He's already turning around, starting to walk back toward the edge of the forest with exasperating calm. He throws the answer over his shoulder, as if talking about the weather.
"Don't worry about it. Someone will come and clean it up."
I stand rooted to the spot, staring at his back, then at the landscape of mangled bodies and dark puddles at my feet. The blood on my hands seems even more obscene under that indifference.
"Someone? Who? The people from the neighboring village? Are they going to 'clean' this up with buckets and mops?" Bitter irony seeps into my tone.
"No," he replies, with the patience of someone explaining the obvious. "Exorcists will come."
"Exorcists?"
I watch him walk away into the forest, his back straight even now. I know he's not just a priest. But fatigue crushes all curiosity. My eyelids are heavy, my limbs tremble with sheer exhaustion.
I'll ask him tomorrow.
Day 17
The same routine as always, but now with a new tool for the job. The priest calls them "Black Keys." A name that sounds more like a locksmith than a weapon, but he insists that's what they are: keys to lock doors that should never have been opened. Doors like the flesh of vampires, ghouls, or the manifestation of evil spirits.
They would have been very useful that day in the village. I could have stabbed them with one of these from a distance. But they are difficult to use. For starters, they are not swords. They are essentially long, heavy iron stakes with a cruciform hilt and a blade wider than would be practical for cutting.
They are not sharp. They are designed to pierce and stab.
And yet, for their size, they weigh surprisingly little. The priest wields them as if they were a fan, throwing them with a precision that defies physics, spinning them in the air before they stick into their target with a sharp, final sound. I tried it. It was a complete failure. Not only because of the technique, but because my hands are too small and my wrist doesn't have the strength for the rotational momentum he uses.
But today he showed me a trick. A shortcut. You don't have to carry the whole key.
"The shaft is a conduit," he said, his voice deep. "What creates it is not muscle strength, but your magical energy."
Yes, that seems to be it. The priest complicates it with words, but in the end that's what it is: the hilts are empty. They're like... syringes. And what they lack to become weapons is od. My od.
I tried it. I grabbed the cruciform hilt, that piece of cold, empty metal, and concentrated.
And then, it worked.
It wasn't a flash. It was a growth. From the heart of the metal cross, as if sprouting from it, a blade emerged. But it wasn't metal. It was a pale, translucent sky blue.
The priest nodded once.
"Good."
Well, another achievement accomplished.
Day 20
Today we started with something that at first seemed completely absurd to me: Bajiquan.
The priest spent the first hour showing me stances, how to root my feet, how the strike comes not from the arm but from the hip, how it is an art designed to destroy the enemy's internal structure at close range. Short, explosive movements designed to break armor, tear apart organs, and shatter bones.
And the same idea kept running through my head: What for?
Why learn to punch, kick, break, when all I have to do is see a line and slide the dagger? It's faster. It's cleaner. It's definitive. A blow, however perfect, only wounds. My lines annihilate.
I told him. I told him it seemed useless.
He called me an idiot.
"Those eyes of yours are a monstrous gift," he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a cloth.
He came closer, his gaze fixed on mine.
"What do you think will happen the day you encounter something that could blind you? Not physically. Something that clouds your perception, that poisons your mind. Or the day you're so exhausted, so hurt, that maintaining that vision blows your head apart from the inside? What will you do then? Stay still, like an insect waiting to be crushed, because your only trick no longer works?"
He remained silent, letting his words sink in.
"The lines are your sharpest sword, yes. But Bajiquan will be the fist you have when they take your sword away. It will be the kick that breaks the knee of the guy trying to blind you. It will be the knowledge of how a body is held, so that if one day you cannot see its lines, at least you know where its center of gravity is, where the collarbone meets, through which exact point of the rib you can reach the heart fastest. It is the plan B that will allow you to survive long enough to recover plan A."
He was right. I hated it, but he was right. I have become so dependent on that vision that my body has become just a vehicle for the dagger. If they take my eyes... I am useless.
So today I didn't draw a single line. Today I sweated, every muscle ached, and I learned to strike with the base of my palm to transmit all the force of my body into a single point. I learned that a fist is not just a fist; it is a hammer whose handle is your entire being.
The priest watched me, correcting my posture with a sharp tap of his cane.
"Don't learn to fight to kill," he said during a break, while I gasped for breath against the wall. "Learn to fight to buy time. Time to breathe, to think... or to see again."
So, even though every blow seems like a step backward compared to the deadly elegance of my lines, I continue. Because now I am afraid. Afraid of the day when the world takes away my eyes of death. And on that day, I want to have more than just a pair of empty fists and a useless dagger. I want to have a fist that, even if it doesn't erase, can break enough to clear my way back to the light.