unseen presence

"Hey! Is this thing edible?" Derek asked, staring at the mass of eviscerated flesh before him. Black blood and thick viscera soaked the dry sand, a disturbingly familiar sight to Derek. He was ravenously hungry, and his mind had already begun calculating how best to carve out some meat from the fallen creatures. Their hydrostatic skin glistened under the harsh sun, and it took all of Derek's willpower to resist the urge to dig in immediately.

Their method of locomotion and that the dwelled in the cool embrace of the cold sand below reminded Derek of worms back on Earth, except that the Earthworms didn't have a face full of razor sharp teeth. Derek was sure that if earthworms were larger, humans would eagerly consume them.

"Curses!! This hunger is really getting to me!" Derek cursed under his breath, snapping himself out of his morbid contemplation.

"What? Don't tell me you're actually going to eat those things," the mace asked incredulously.

"Of course! They tried to eat me; it's only fair that I eat them back," Derek protested, his hunger trumping his better judgment.

"Alright, have at it. But if you end up dying of poison, don't come to me for advice," the mace warned.

Derek scoffed. "It's either death by hunger or death by poison. You know what they say: only a fool dies of hunger."

"How many times do I have to tell you that not even a flimsy Convert like you can easily die of hunger in this realm? Your body will automatically start eating up your essence if it finds no energy in your cells. This process…"

The mace suddenly trailed off, sensing that it had been dropped to the ground.

"Don't tell me you're already carving some meat?"

Derek answered his question with one of his own. "Can you eat?"

"No…"

"Great. I won't have to share," Derek said, smiling as he began to carve chunks of meat with hunger-induced dexterity. He used a rusted dagger he'd found earlier in a concealed compartment of his armor, putting the acquired meat into his oversized helmet. Whoever owned the armor must have had quite a big head, something Derek was grateful for at the moment.

His blade struck something hard. Derek pulled out a soul core. He shrugged and swallowed it, then proceeded to carve out more meat.

When he was finally done, his helmet was stuffed with meat, a large slab was resting on his shoulder, and five soul cores were digesting in his stomach. Taking those soul cores left him refreshed, as if he had just awoken from a long and soothing slumber. He was up, he was ready to go, and so he did

"Hey, don't forget the soul cores of those creatures!" the mace called after him.

"Already put them in the safest place possible."

"Where, if I may ask?" The mace inquired further.

"My stomach."

The mace's illusory voice rose in exasperation. "How many times do I have to tell you…!!!"

Derek sighed. Listening to the mace nag was giving him a headache.

***

Unseen, floating high above them, a figure with fiery red hair, a chiseled face, and an unsettlingly amused smile etched on it, observed them.

In reality, the figure's mind and consciousness were a fiery hell, his immolating existence scorching enough to put the sun to shame. His very presence was boiling, searing, sweltering, and roasting the environment.

He acknowledged the sun with contempt, feeling that it was cold.

His gaze was fixated on Derek down below, introspective.

His faction was loosely connected, with seven different leaders who were not the best of friends. They would happily take advantage of each other, given the opportunity. But "the devil one knows is better than the angel one does not," so they had found a way to contact each other in case of imminent danger. That was how they found out that Ichl's soul was trapped, and its energy was being erased, within the soul of a Convert who was in the living world—something that was supposed to be impossible.

An army of damned souls was sent after him, and even a bargain was struck with the people of the living world to deliver him. But he managed to return to the land of the dead. What's worse, the connection with Ichl's soul was now so faint that it had taken over three days to find its traces.

So, the faction sent someone fast enough to retrieve Ichl's soul before it's completely gone.

And that, was Renai, the transcendent Banal whose presence radiated heat like a furnace, staring down at Derek at that very moment.

He really is just a Convert, but he defeated five Awakened?, granted, they had been weakened by starvation. Not even I managed that feat.

Initially, the plan had been to kill Derek and retrieve Ichl's soul immediately. But on second thought, Renai knew that despite his rash demeanor, he needed to think this through. A young Convert performing realm-shattering feats, and not only just one feat but a handful of them, all by himself, was very suspicious.

Also, the fact that Derek was communicating freely with Ichl's infamous weapon was enough to give Renai pause. But even with all these concerns, he still would have struck only if... there wasn't another, equally powerful existence nearby.

Renai smiled warily, the heat rising from his body seeming to intensify,

"I'll wait until you show yourself before I strike. Ahh, today is going to be more fun than I expected."

The inferno kept burning behind those fiery eyes.