CHAPTER 10: the black soul

The days continued like before. The only difference was that Yerald couldn't stay up that late. Because of that I spent more time in my room. Slowly counting the days away.

With every day that passed I was rewarded with some souls. I could feel my strength grow with every soul I consumed. At this moment I was able to know exactly where everyone was based on the sounds they made and their sent.

At first, I was overwhelmed with all the information that entered my mind. I would have been happy with the result once an adjusted to my new censes, however I felt bad for eating the souls of those innocent creatures. Sometimes when I ate them it gave away the feeling the creature had, which was mostly fear.

I knew that fear, I had experienced it myself. Knowing that their fear was much, much worse than I could determine from their souls made me feel even more sympathetic towards the creatures.

Yet the taste and the reward in strength rendered me unable to stop. It was addicting. It gave me a constant urge to consume more, like a child in a room full of sugar with no parents to supervise it. The only thing holding me slightly back was my willpower and the pity I felt towards the creatures. With the first of those factors slowly crumbling like a rusty old chain that nearly gave in to the strength of the beast that tried to escape.

Today I walked down the stairs as usual. But I couldn't hear the heartbeat of Yerald anywhere.

I inhaled the air in the room, but his cent was definitely downstairs. I walked over to the table where he collected al is research. I saw multiped sketches of me and the souls of the creatures I ate.

Although you could with all of them immediately recognize that it was souls you could see a great difference between all of them, even in the same species.

Then I realised that his notebook was lying open. I picked it up and flipped through the yellow pages that had taken a considerable amount of damage. When I opened the first page, I saw that it was actually a diary. This one was from this year. But I doubt that he started his recache only this year. Mainly because he kept the others here prisoner for almost two years. Driven by curiosity I went to look for the other diaries.

I looked in the dusty book shelfs. my breath made some filth fly up in the air. Most of the books were as filthy as the bookshelf and all of them were old. I couldn't even read the titles of the books. While most of them were just so far worn of by years of usage some of them were in a perfect shape. They were written in another language.

I picked up one of those books and flipped it open. There was no dirt or dust caught in the books what surprised me. All the books were covered in it, then why didn't it spread to the inside?

I closed my eyes and focused on my surroundings. I could feel the presence of those books. Then it hit me. It was magic. Those books had a spell cast on them to prevent them from suffering damage.

Suddenly I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. I was so focused on the books that I didn't realise that the others had woken up.

I turned around to look at the four people that entered the room.

"Hello there."

They were surprised that I spoke to them. Normally Yerald was around to stop us from having a conversation.

"Where is Yerald?"

I focused now on Gert who asked the question. I grinned from ear to ear as I said.

"somewhere downstairs."

They looked at each other. It was rare for Yerald to not be in the research room.

As I expected was Allenya the first to speak after that.

"Is he..."

"Dead? Probably. I don't hear his heartbeat in any case."

The others were caught by panic. If Yerald wasn't alive anymore then how would they find their friend back? Only Allenya stayed calm and looked at me full of hope.

I noticed her gaze and replied with a slight smirk. Then I put the book down. I couldn't read it anyway. I only found it interesting because it had magic.

I walked out of the room, following Yeralds sent. And there he was. He sat in his chair where he often would sit right before he went to bed. Just like a normal old man.

But the body wasn't of my interest. What I found interesting was the soul that was still hovering above it.

This soul was simply said, broken. It didn't shine like the others and it didn't behave like a hard beat or life force at all. This one was almost frozen with back and brown lines spreading out the core like a fungus.

It looked disgusting as a black liquid slowly ran through the black lines.

For a change I didn't want to eat this thing. So, I looked for a fitting jar in which I could store the soul. since I wanted to keep it for if it could be of use by any chance.

The soul wasn't that big, and it fitted perfectly in one of the test tubes.

After I closed the test tube, I put it in a belt with holes in it that were specifically created for that purpose. I was glad that the foul cent of the soul couldn't penetrate the glass of the tube.

Finessed with what I wanted to do I once again headed to the others. They were discussing what they should do now. Only Allenya was leaning against the wall, seemingly uninterested in what they had to say.

When she saw that I was back, she suddenly jumped up and ran towards me. Gert tried to stop her by grabbing her arm, but she escaped his grip easily.

She was now standing before me, determination burning in her eyes.

"You remember our promise, right? You were going to help right?"

Gert looked at us. He knew that now that Yerald was out of the way no one could stop me if I decided to attack.

("He really thinks that I would be able to face all of them. Yes, I am probably stronger than a normal human, but they are with four and one of them can use magic.")

"Yes, I will help."