Afro broke a Dao core between his fingers, watching the luminous essence be absorbed directly into his chest. He took a deep breath, feeling the energy flow, and broke another one right away. He was sitting on a makeshift stone throne, watching the work of some lesser demons in front of him. They were piling up debris that Afro believed contained relevant information; their goal was to decipher any clues about the Sentinel Tyr.
Upon analyzing himself, Afro realized that his new form had granted him only two main abilities. The first was the use of his tattoos to translate ancient writings, a hybrid ability that consumed both Dao energy and his own demonic essence. The second was an advanced variation of soul displacement. In addition to projecting his consciousness, he could now incorporate his soul into another person, sharing certain abilities with them. In Shinjimaru's case, Afro had left a part of himself that he had preemptively overloaded with Dao cores.
Feeling the weight of exhaustion, Afro stood up. He needed rest. He gestured to a random demon passing by and ordered him to take him to a room.
On the way, Afro remained immersed in his own thoughts, analyzing the strangeness of his biology.
"I'm different," he concluded mentally. "Normal demons, when they use a Dao core, have a time limit. The energy fades, escaping through their pores. And if the Dao is too strong, their bodies rebel, it hurts, because that purity is not part of their nature. But with me... with me it's different."
Afro finally reached the quarters. It was a basic room carved into the stone, deep inside the mountain, in a system of tunnels that resembled a giant anthill. The place was austere: a makeshift but comfortable bed, dim light from bioluminescent moss, and the smell of damp earth. The demon who guided him hastened to explain the precariousness:
"The room is like this because this is not even our real home, master. We have come from far away, only for the promise of the Blue Flame. As soon as we are done, we will return to our lands. That is why everything was done in a hurry."
Afro did not even look at him. He just made a curt gesture for him to leave; he had no interest in the explanation.
Alone, he sat in a meditative pose on the bed. His thoughts returned to that fascinating discovery: "With me it's different because, after breaking the core, the Dao is not lost. My body absorbs it, retains it, and sends it directly to my Dantian."
He closed his eyes and tried to make the energy circulate. In his mind, he recalled memories from years ago, when he watched his master's cultivation classes. Afro used to peek in or try to participate in the lessons, even though he knew that, as a hybrid, he could never apply that knowledge. He had stored every detail about how to breathe, how to conduct the flow, and how to transform raw energy into refined power.
"Do things like the heavens," Afro thought, focusing on the image of the celestial order his master preached so much about.
He inhaled and exhaled deeply, forcing the accumulated Dao to move. At first, the energy obeyed, circulating along the paths he had studied so secretly. But the moment he applied the cultivation technique to expand that power, disaster struck. His body seized up like a broken gear. Black veins sprang up all over him, snaking grotesquely beneath his skin.
Afro stopped breathing. His chest contracted in an agony of suffocation that no demon should feel. The trembling began at his extremities and spread throughout his torso until he fell heavily onto the bed. Lying down, he struggled desperately not to lose consciousness; he knew that if his consciousness faded away there, the soul he had projected into Shinjimaru would dissipate like smoke, ruining his plans.
Moments later, he managed to get up, but the world was spinning. The dizziness was intense, and he felt miserably weak. It was then that Hunger, that ancestral thirst he thought he had appeased by becoming more "complete," rose in his throat with renewed fury.
Afro leaned his hand against the stone wall, feeling his sanity slip through his fingers. His claws tore at his fingertips, his fangs grew, and the hair on his body bristled in an instinctive predatory response. He was ready to leave that room and tear apart any creature that crossed his path, until the door opened.
"Master..." Tara called.
Afro turned, his eyes bloodshot, ready to pounce and drain every drop of life from her. But Tara, unlike all the other times, did not back down. She stood her ground, though embarrassed, and offered her vulnerable neck.
"Master, I..." she began, her voice slightly trembling but determined.
Afro did not hesitate. His predatory instinct overrode any remnant of reason. He lunged at Tara, sinking his teeth into her neck with blind ferocity. Blood spurted, hot and rich with essence, flooding his dry throat. He sucked hard, draining her vitality until the tremor in his own body began to give way to the cold calm of satiety.
He slowly released her, wiping the trail of blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, where his claws were still exposed. Afro looked at her, his eyes still wild, but his voice now coming out in a broken growl laden with deep frustration:
"I... need a human... I..."
He couldn't finish. Tara, standing firm despite her blood loss and pain, took the initiative. She wasn't wearing her war armor as usual, just a thin, open linen tunic, revealing the silhouette of her vulnerability in the dim light of the moss. With a quick and bold movement, she took Afro's cold, clawed hand and brought it directly to her left breast, pressing it against the warmth of her skin and the rapid beat of her heart.
The veins in Afro's hand immediately bulged, reacting to that pulse. Tara's gaze changed; there was a glint of surrender and a carnal urgency that transcended her fear of Afro. There, the predator paused for a second, almost taking a step back before surrendering to what that offer meant.
What happened next remained confined within those damp stone walls...
On the other side, Shinjimaru stood on the balcony, his eyes lost on the horizon as the sounds of the monastery reached him like distant echoes. He heard murmurs about the recent incident: it seemed that a demon (Afro) had appeared out of nowhere and broken the arms of three monks outside, disappearing immediately afterward without a trace.
However, Shinjimaru barely processed the news. He was distracted, his hand permanently resting on his navel. He felt, throbbing under his skin, what had finally ruined him and, at the same time, completed him. The afternoon passed in a blur; he worked mechanically, feeling the real world as if he were at the bottom of a well, muffled and irrelevant.
The distraction only ceased when night fell and a voice cut through the air with serene authority.
"Master Shinji."
It was the master monk. The pressure and purity in the old man's voice pulled him out of his deep reflective state.
"Eat," ordered the monk.
The dining hall was full. The smell of rice and cooked vegetables hung in the air as the monks ate in groups, each with their own. Shinjimaru sat down, still somewhat absent.
"Wow, the food is so good!" exclaimed Himari, stuffing her mouth enthusiastically beside him.
Suddenly, Shinjimaru was struck by an absurd hunger. It was something he had never felt before; a black voracity that did not come from his stomach, but from the portion of Afro's soul that now inhabited his body. He began to eat nonstop, devouring the portions with animalistic urgency. Himari, motivated by her master's appetite, tried to imitate him in every gesture, every sip and quick chew, but her attempt was short-lived; she quickly felt satiated and stopped, watching him. The master monk just smiled silently, observing the scene.
Shinjimaru ate so much that when he finished his portion, he asked to eat the leftovers as well. The meal ended and the night progressed. Shinjimaru was put in charge of cleaning the dining hall, moving with seemingly inexhaustible energy.
When the task was done, he went to Himari's room to say goodbye. As he was about to turn to leave, the girl called him. She ran toward him and handed him a small bottle containing blood.
"Father gave us two of these and said one was yours, she whispered. Drink this when you hurt yourself."
Shinjimaru picked up the bottle and nodded. In his room, he washed his face with cold water. For the first time, he stopped to truly look at himself in the makeshift mirror of the basin. The water reflected a transformed face: long, unkempt hair, untied for a long time; facial hair slowly growing; deep eyes, charged with a new intensity. It was the face of a 20-year-old man, serious at first glance, but with something funny in his own melancholy.
He smiled at his reflection, a smile of someone who had already accepted his fate, and stepped out onto the balcony of his room. Under the cover of night, Shinjimaru set off toward the southern part of the village. His goal was clear: to recover Afro's book and sword, whatever the cost.