The orange-hued power of the consumed Hallowed settled in Arthur's veins, a cold, vibrant force that hummed beneath his skin. It was different from the first, jarring consumption; this time, the spiritual essence felt… purposeful. It was a raw, unyielding resolve that resonated with the icy calm in his own soul. He felt not just stronger, but clearer. His thoughts were sharper, his senses more acute, and the constant, nagging hunger had receded, replaced by a profound, almost terrifying sense of satiation. He was a predator in his own element.
The city, once a tomb, was now a chessboard. He saw the Hallowed not as mindless monsters, but as pieces to be moved, to be harvested. He could sense their auras from a distance, the faint, shimmering white of the common drones, the sickly yellow of the terrified, the deep orange of the enraged. He knew where to find them, where to strike, and how to consume their essence with maximum efficiency. He was becoming a perfect killing machine, a spiritual harvester in a world of decay.
But with the power came a new, more unsettling side effect. The memories of the consumed were no longer just fleeting images. They were echoes, ghosts in his own mind. He would be walking through a deserted street, and suddenly he would feel the phantom pain of a loved one's loss, or the quiet joy of a shared meal. They were not his memories, but they were his now, a library of lives lived and lost, all stored in the cold, unfeeling repository of his mind. He found himself remembering the Hallowed's final moments, the raw, unthinking rage of the hulking figure from the foundry. He could feel its fury, a cold, silent echo that resided in his soul, a tool to be used, not a force to be feared.
One afternoon, a pale sun casting long shadows across the ruined landscape, he was climbing the remains of a library, its skeletal shelves a twisted testament to a past age of knowledge. He was drawn to a faint, silvery-white aura, a weak and easily consumed Hallowed that was shambling among the stacks. He moved silently, his boots barely making a sound on the dusty floor, his short sword a cold, familiar weight in his hand.
He found it in the children's section, its head cocked at an unnatural angle, its empty eyes fixed on a picture book. Arthur raised his sword, but something stopped him. The Hallowed's soul, a faint, flickering light, pulsed with a rhythm that was… different. It was not the mindless, shambling beat of a drone. It was a rhythmic, almost hypnotic pulse, a faint echo of a lullaby.
He lowered his sword. He watched as the Hallowed's rotted finger, a bone-white appendage, reached out and traced the faded illustration on the picture book. It was a drawing of a smiling mother and a laughing child, a scene of a past that was now gone forever. The Hallowed, a creature of mindless decay, was remembering. It was mourning.
A jolt of something he hadn't felt in weeks ran through him. It was a foreign, jarring sensation. Empathy. It was a ghost, a forgotten echo of his own humanity. He remembered his mother, her soft voice, her warm embrace. He remembered the simple, unadulterated joy of a shared meal, a quiet moment of peace in a world that was now gone.
The hunger, his new master, screamed in protest. It demanded that he feed. It told him that this was a weakness, a foolish sentiment that would get him killed. He was a predator, a harvester, not a sentimental fool. He had a mission. He had a purpose. He had to become stronger. But the faint echo of a lullaby, the silent grief of a Hallowed, was a more powerful force than the hunger.
He watched as the Hallowed, its rotted form trembling, let out a low, mournful groan. It was not a sound of hunger; it was a sound of sorrow. It was the sound of a mother who had lost her child, a ghost clinging to a memory of a past that was gone forever.
Arthur turned and walked away. He left the Hallowed to its silent grief, its ghostly memory of a lullaby. The hunger raged, a beast starved of its prey, but Arthur ignored it. He had a new purpose. A new mission. He had to understand. He had to find out why this Hallowed was different. What had made its soul cling to a memory, a sentiment, a piece of a past that was gone forever? He knew he couldn't leave it be. He couldn't kill it. He had to study it. He had to understand what had made it cling to its humanity, its memories.
He spent the rest of the night watching from a distance as the Hallowed, a silent, grieving ghost, wandered the library, its rotted fingers tracing the illustrations on the picture books, its milky eyes fixed on a past that was gone forever. He watched it with a mix of awe and dread. This was a creature that had somehow retained a piece of its humanity, a ghost that was still capable of mourning. What would he become if he continued to consume souls, if he continued to feed the hunger? Would he one day lose not just his memories, but the very capacity to feel, to mourn, to remember?
The urban necropolis was no longer just a hunting ground. It was a spiritual wasteland, a graveyard of lost memories and forgotten emotions. And he, the new predator, was no longer just a hunter. He was a scholar of death, a reluctant archaeologist of a lost world. He was a creature of this new world, and he felt a new kind of fear, a more profound and unsettling fear than the hunger. The fear of what he was becoming. The fear of losing not just his humanity, but the echoes of his own past. He was not a demon. He was not a hero. He was a Revenant. And he was just beginning to understand the true cost of his power.