Upon entering the village I got this mysterious feeling like something was off but I couldn't put my finger on it.
Lenters were shining inside the bungalows, some people who noticed the old guy entering smiled and waved welcoming him back, then when they saw me the smile froze on their faces, and they looked genuinely terrified.
''Apparently I have become some kind of terrifying local folklore to these people.'' I said with a flat and irritated face.
We arrived at the town square where the strange, ancient-looking tower stood. It was entirely round and mysterious, featuring no windows. The only entry point was a tiny door at the base, completely sealed by an iron gate. I sensed an energy barrier surrounding it, giving the impression that it was protecting something within.
''Oh, you are still following.'' The old man's disappointed voice interrupted my observation, as if he had completely forgotten about me.
''Well, you told me to follow you, did you not?'' I replied irritated, with all the sarcasm I could find in myself.
''Well, yes I did, I just didn't know you would make it all the way here alive.'' With a smile stretching from ear to ear, he spoke as if the outcome were completely normal. I had a feeling he was secretly hoping I wouldn't.
I looked at him about to snap but then an old woman came out of the house next to us in obvious haste. She looked crooked, her hair was up in an impossibly large updo, her dress was red, although it was hard to make out the exact color of it as it must have been used for the last decade or so. She had all kinds of trinkets hanging from her hair and clothing and they were tinkling as she was rushing toward us. I found the whole sight kind of funny.
''What happened to you poor thing?'' You look terrible! Who did this to you'' She inquired with so much concern in her voice that it actually made me concerned too.
She rushed up to me and started inspecting me with such intensity that I had to keep turning my head if I wanted to see where she was as she was circling around me fussing over my injuries. She was tiny like half of my size and believe me when I say, I am not that tall.
"I was attacked, fell down a cliff, and broke my wrist. Your friend found me in the bamboo forest,...or rather, I found him," I said, irritatedly recalling our earlier chase.
Her expression shifted instantly, from concern to utter mortification. Then, without a word, she seized my hand and quickly pulled me into the house behind her.
"I'll patch you up in no time, you'll see," she declared, her voice brimming with forced optimism. "You won't have to worry about a thing!"
As we disappeared inside, the old man watched, then let out a low growl. "Eh, finally," he spat out the words. "She was rather annoying."
I flopped down on what looked like a raised bed, and the old lady settled down right next to me.
She closed her eyes, entering a state of intense meditation that frankly unnerved me. Then, unexpectedly, green energy appeared around her hands—a completely bizarre sight. Our usual healers only ever manipulated Aspects and energy from one specific source.
As she held her hands hovering over me, I distinctly heard my bones snapping back into place, and a painful groan involuntarily escaped me.
''Calm now, if you keep moving I can't focus on the issue.'' she said with a slightly annoyed but also in a calming voice as if she was utterly certain of what she was doing.
''Thank you'' I muttered weakly when she finished.
''No need to thank me. You looked like such a broken creature inside and outside. So tell me what is it that you are running from?''
The clumsy, silly old woman had vanished, replaced by an almost demanding expression—serious and wise.
I understood why. I was trouble; the demon guy was after me and would eventually find me. As long as I remained here, everyone was in danger.
''My village was destroyed.'' I said with tears in my eyes. ''I…..''I choked out'' I had to run away….''
And then I could not utter another word as I began to sob, crushing under the weight of the horror of the past.
With a gaze of almost frightening seriousness and resolve, she cupped my face and looked into my eyes, her expression a mixture of pity and determination.
''They'll pay for what they did. You'll make them.''
"I need to find something," I told her, my eyes searching hers for a sign of recognition.
''Do you…have any records of the manifestation called the Something?''
She took her eyes off of me as if I asked something despicable.
She turned around looking away from me and said:
All the information we possess is located in the scriptorium within the tower on the town square. There, you can find records, including ancient folk history such as those concerning spirits.
Then she turned back, her face etched with grim worry.
''I don't know what you are after, but be careful''
And then without any further explanation she turned around and left.
Determined to uncover the truth of my past and the identity of my attacker, I set out early that morning.
Standing before the ancient tower, the familiar, unsettling sensation returned—the same energy I'd felt upon entering the village. It whispered of something deeply old, a secret perhaps better left undisturbed.
The tower's iron gates groaned open as if protesting an intrusion after centuries of silence. I swallowed, then stepped inside. The only light came from a few scattered torches, and for a moment, I thought I was alone. Then, a creeping shadow detached itself from the darkness. It was an old man, perhaps as ancient and time-worn as the tower itself.
The heavy silence in the room was only broken by the frantic drumming of my own heart against my ribs.
"I'm here to research the history of the Something. Can you help me?" I asked, my voice too loud in the stillness. The curator, gaunt with papery skin stretched over sharp bones, unnervingly studied my face with deep, lifeless eyes. He neither blinked nor spoke, simply scrutinized me.
He offered no answer, his expression unreadable but deeply unsettling. It felt like he wasn't looking at me, but into my soul, stripping away surface layers to my core. I froze; my training vanished under the weight of his ancient, intense gaze.
The thick, heavy silence lasted for minutes, broken only by a faint scraping from the room's dark corners. Finally, he spoke. His voice was a slow, gravelly rumble, an ancient sound that suggested he held all the universe's secrets.
"You are the new incarnation, aren't you."
It wasn't a question seeking confirmation; it was an absolute statement, edged with something that sounded more like an accusation or a weary acknowledgment of fate.
His absolute certainty meant I had no reason to lie, clearly knowing exactly who—or what—I was before I entered. Before I could inhale to speak, he cut me off with a sharp, commanding voice, banishing his previous languor.
"Come with me."
He turned and vanished into the shadows before I could reply. Instinctively, I followed him to a hidden archway and a dark, narrow opening. A winding, worn, black stone spiral staircase descended into a deeper, palpable darkness, away from the main room's faint light. The air grew immediately colder, damper, and the silence below was an absolute, hungry void.
As we descended, the man spoke again, his voice echoing off the stone in a low, resonant baritone. "We have been expecting you."
He continued his steady pace into the gloom without looking back.
"You have?" I asked, utterly confused and overwhelmed.
He said nothing after this, leaving my question hanging unanswered in the cold, thick air.
Then, the energy around us shifted dramatically. It wasn't just cold; a profound, suffocating pressure—a concentrated density of negative power—pressed down on my chest and skull. It felt as if the very stone was crawling with centuries of accumulated despair and malicious intent. The air tasted metallic and bitter.
Desperate for a visual reference, I focused my Aspect and lit a small, unnatural, faint pink flame in my palm. It cast a weak, struggling light, unlike the typical aggressive orange.
The sudden flame startled me, revealing a colossal, hideous wraith clinging to the ancient stone pillar. It looked like a gigantic, grotesquely mutated, segmented worm, complete with stubby, vestigial legs and a cluster of faintly glowing, lidless yellow eyes. It was actively growling, a low, guttural vibration I felt in my teeth, its massive form slowly coiling, ready to strike.
Instinctively, I raised my free hand to activate my Aspect, gathering a pulse of pure, cleansing energy to eradicate the entity. However, my escort suddenly turned, his expression blank, but his eyes fixed on my hand.
"Don't! It's not going to hurt you." His voice was sharp, a command that brook no disobedience. The intensity of his gaze was enough to momentarily break my focus, and the Aspect dissipated, leaving a faint tingle on my skin.
I lowered my hand, my heart still hammering. "Why are there so many wraiths down here? This level of residual evil energy is insane."
He looked back at the monstrous curse that was now slowly settling back into the pillar, its eyes still watching me with malignant curiosity. His gaze was distant.
"Many people had come here in the past centuries looking for knowledge," he finally answered, his voice returning to its ancient monotone. "Knowledge only this place holds in all of Japan. They seek the secrets of power and destruction, the history of the most potent of manifestations. But knowledge is rarely a blessing. More often, it is a curse the unprepared mind cannot bear, a burden of truth that crushes the soul."
I suddenly realized why the old lady told me to be careful. I had no idea that a reservoir of such powerful knowledge would be hiding in such a forgotten place like this.
Although come to think about it, it all makes sense.
The area is overrun with wraiths, yet they pose no threat to you because they perceive you as a superior. My own safety is precarious, however. Despite most of the wraiths being weak, a moment of carelessness could prove fatal.
A swift, silent escape was the immediate priority. The subterranean location was suffocating, saturated with an unprecedented, crushing evil. More concerning was the curator's survival. Why had the countless potent wraiths tolerated or ignored him? Lacking any great defensive energy, his continued existence was a confounding, yet-undeciphered clue.
The relentless descent spiraled deep underground. The air grew heavy and cold with every meter, and the light vanished, resulting in a suffocating, absolute void.
"You may use your flame," the man's calm voice echoed in the darkness. "But keep it faint. Strong illumination will irrevocably damage these millennia-old scrolls."
Heeding the warning, I carefully summoned a weak, controlled flicker of Aspect flame. The persistent ember barely lit the immediate ground, ensuring secure footing on the uneven rock and packed earth of the subterranean archive.
"The specific information you seek is stored in the third row of scrolls," he directed, his voice now closer. "It should be resting near that large, carved stone pedestal."
Faced with maddeningly minimal guidance, I was surrounded by stacks of fifty or more towering, fragile walls of tightly wound, ancient Japanese scrolls. Each was bound with faded silk cord, the paper brittle and the ink nearly invisible in the dim, cool air.
The search consumed what felt like an hour, my energy expenditure ticking up with the sustained use of the low-level flame, before my fingers finally brushed against a thicker, heavier volume tucked almost out of sight. It was less a scroll and more a bound book, its covers crafted from dark, treated wood.
Within its densely packed, brittle pages was an exhaustive chronicle of my homeland's hidden history. The tome detailed everything known about the 名前のないエンティティ, the Something—not just the common folklore, but the complete, esoteric documentation: a precise listing of its horrific, multifaceted abilities, the terrible specifications of its ultimate, true form with its rumored unimaginable, reality-bending powers, and a meticulously kept genealogy of its previous incarnations.
"The Something" is an enigmatic entity of unknown origin and purpose. It periodically possesses a worthy host to unleash its power of pure violence and distraction whenever it senses ill will, Its true form is a blood-shrouded, half-smiling, half-raging demonic entity Insolent and mischievous, its power becomes unstoppable when the host's character aligns with its unpredictable nature.
The final chapters delivered a shocking revelation: the undeniable truth of the previous incarnation's identity and fate, from whom I inherited my powers. The chilling finality of my lineage and its burden settled upon me.
The last documented manifestation of the Something occurred more than five centuries ago.
Among the bearer families, the Yokojon house occupies a unique position. Unlike other houses that relied on Aspect inheritance, the Yokojon maintained an older practice: a pact with a powerful manifestation of the Something. This was not a god or a divine being, but an ancient, high-grade spirit existing from before bearers developed the means to classify such entities.
Through a careful system of ritual, worship, and the generational control of negative emotion, the Yokojon kept the spirit stable. In exchange, the Something would merge with a chosen house member at the end of its cycle. This union created a vessel capable of wielding its immense strength without the immediate self-destruction that most humans would face.
Five centuries ago, Lady Kiyoko Yokojon was chosen as the next vessel. However, she refused to embody the spirit's ideal vessel, choosing instead to control it by using only a fragment of its power. For decades, she served as the house's stabilizing pillar and a living weapon against wraiths.
Murakumo was, even then, a whispered calamity. He slew both bearers and wraiths, driven by a desire to shatter what he perceived as a false display of power, order, and structure. More than merely a demon, Murakumo was a living manifestation—a demon created by human fear of death and chaos, born from folklore and the weakness of human consciousness itself.
Her corruption was not a sudden, violent assault, but a slow, insidious poisoning of her very essence. Murakumo twisted her purpose, attempting to unleash the Something true form with a desire to inspire abject terror, transforming her from a helpful entity into a feared, tyrannical presence.
When weakened by her terrifying transformation and internal conflict, Murakumo exploited her, forcing her descent into darkness and soul forfeiture. The Manifestation of Fear used her immense new power, and her agony, to reconstitute some of his fragmented form. Utterly broken, the vessel became his devoted weapon, wielded mercilessly to slaughter Murakumo's opponents.
This collective fear vastly increased wraith creation, infesting sacred and secluded natural spaces, especially dense woods.
The Yokojon, an ancient society possibly linked to spirit study, were the first casualties, forced into deep hiding and ostracized by established bearer society.
She was never seen again, a potent ghost of power and a symbol of darkness triumphing.
The brittle parchment, while confirming my fears, offered no further mention of the Something, thus creating a historical void.
The demon who had sought me out, the one who slaughtered my people, was none other than Murakumo himself. - The shock of the realization cut through my brain.
The greatest of evil manifestations desired to hunt me down, not merely to destroy me, but to violently reclaim the immense power that was now undeniably woven into my very being.
I snapped my gaze up from the document, scouring the vast, dusty hall for the curator but the man was gone.
"This is strange…" I murmured, the silence feeling heavy and oppressive.
A groan from the floorboards above drew my terrified gaze to a horrifying, grotesque silhouette: a massive, tentacled mutation of muscle and malice. Its eyes pulsed infernal red, colossal fangs jutted from its maw, and it spat a thick, corrosive liquid that instantly ate into the stone floor.
"Shit," I cursed, the word a whisper of grim realization. "I should have known there was something wrong with that guy. Of course, the weaker wraiths didn't kill him. This is a wraith lord." The thought of all the weaker wraiths scurrying away from him now made perfect, terrifying sense. "But how did he manage to transform himself into this? And, more importantly, how did my senses fail me? How did I not detect that he was no human?"
"He must have done something while I was completely occupied reading the scroll, using that window of distraction to trigger his transformation into such a powerful wraith."
Wait. I had felt an incredibly potent presence, a deep undercurrent of power that was instantly masked by the general miasma of lesser wraiths.
"It must have been... a relic infused with dark energy," I reasoned, my mind racing to formulate a strategy. "He must have consumed or somehow utilized it to exponentially increase his power. This means that to defeat it, I can't just fight it conventionally. I need to find that object and destroy it, cutting off its energy source and destabilizing its form."
The wraith attacked before I could move, unleashing a deafening, pressurized stream of venom. I dodged, leaping back as the acid hissed on the stone, and countered with a massive energy blast. The air cracked, but the colossal creature merely grunted, the attack having almost no effect.
It swung a massive, hammer-like appendage, trying to crush me into the floor. I vaulted high into the air, dodging the blow that splintered the stone, and grabbed a broken, stone pillar, hurling it with all my might at its face. The stone crumbled like chalk between its monstrous fangs.
"Wow, you're certainly fast for such an ugly creature," I yelled, trying to buy time as I surveyed the wreckage. "Now, tell me, where is that relic you used to make yourself so strong?"
Relentless, the thing gave no time to reply. Before I could dodge, a thick, whip-like tentacle shot from its face, wrapping around my forearm with bone-crushing force. It slammed me to the ground; a sickening chorus of cracks echoed from my body. Coughing up blood, I painfully rose and launched a desperate, wide blast of aspect energy, instantly followed by another spray of venom.
"I need to get in close," I muttered to myself, ignoring the searing pain in my ribs. "The relic has to be somewhere inside its body."
"Get out here, you lazy, useless asshole of a demon spirit! Unless you want to find a new vessel, it's time to show yourself!" I shouted, pushing myself up and wiping the blood from my face.
"This is a hell of a place," a deep, sarcastic voice echoed in my mind. "I see you are having fun."
"You son of a bitch, you've been watching the whole time! We're both going to die here if you don't do something!"
"I do something?" His voice was teasing, almost amused, in my head. "You mean, you do something and if I feel like it, I'll lend you some of my power, but you'll have to show me enough rage to make me want to help you."
"You want rage? I'll show you rage!"
I launched myself into the air again, this time utilizing the full speed of my Aspect. I was so fast that the wraith didn't even register my movement until I was on top of it.
It must have worked because I suddenly felt an urge of power surging through my body.
I felt evil taking over my body. The incredible force was no longer mine. The urge to kill was racing through my body like ecstasy. My eyes turned red and the red veins appeared behind me dripping with blood.
I closed the distance before it could react. Without even making contact, I sensed the molecules in its blood. Its cellular blood structure abruptly condensed, temporarily immobilizing and destabilizing it. A sudden wave of power and satisfaction washed over me. Yet, this power of blood manipulation was not my own; I had no control over it yet, nor did I possess enough stored Aspect to fully wield it.
The attempt lasted less than half a second. The creature recoiled violently and struck me with a blow of pure, concentrated cursed energy. I was sent flying, crashing through a stone pillar at the far end of the room.
For a few agonizing moments, my vision swam in a haze of pain and dust. I could see the massive form lumbering towards me, clearly intending to finish the job. As it reached me, I was assaulted by the reek of rotting flesh, a scent unique to powerful wraiths.
A dense, malign knot of dark energy—that's what I felt, deep within the creature's chest. Its claws sank into my flesh as it grabbed me, ready to tear my head off. In that instant, as its grip tightened, I channeled the power of the Something, leveraging my amplified Aspect. Stretching out my arm, I summoned a sharp, jagged shard of stone from the broken pillar. In a fraction of a second, I drove it deep into the wraith's flesh.
It let out a guttural, wounded howl that sounded more like a choked hurdle. Its claws instinctively drove deeper into my shoulder in retaliation. I screamed, the pain blinding, but used the monster's moment of distraction to my advantage. I plunged my arm through the jagged wound made by the stone shard, frantically searching for the relic inside its massive body.
With a final, desperate surge of strength, the thing grabbed my entire arm and flung me across the room. I smashed through several shelves and piles of ancient books, landing hard in a tangle of parchment and splintered wood. I slowly opened my palm, focusing on the small, grotesque object I had managed to tear free.
"Eww, a tiny dry compressed body!" I exclaimed, my face contorting with a mix of revulsion and disbelief. "Why would anybody eat that? And whose body is it?"
No time to ponder the horrific implications. The curse, losing its power source, slowly stabilized into a monstrous original form. It narrowly missed me, slamming its fist where I'd been sprawled as I rolled away at the last second.
I sprang to my feet, turned, and focused a massive blast of pure flame-based cursed energy. I grabbed its neck, and with a focused burst of power, I made its head explode, a shower of pink cursed energy and blood erupting from its eyes.
When the colossal body finally collapsed, I bent over, supporting myself by my knees, panting, the adrenaline slowly receding to reveal the full extent of my injuries.
"What the hell was this all about?" I whispered hoarsely, staring at the dissipating remains. "That wraith lord must have been explicitly waiting for me. But how did he know I was coming here?"
I looked down at the horrifying, mummified body in my hand. It was sickeningly dense with dark energy.
I'm not sure what this is, but I have a feeling it might come in handy later.
I tried to incinerate it with my flame, channeling my strongest heat, but nothing happened. It remained intact, radiating cold malice.
"This must have belonged to a truly powerful manifestation or used in bounding rituals," I realized, "if it granted that wraith lord so much power and resists my flame."
I tucked the relic into a hidden, sealed pouch—a temporary solution. Regardless of the grim souvenir, I had to get out of here. Now that I finally knew the truth—why Murakumo was after me—I understood my life was a constant flight. I had to keep moving, maybe head to the vast anonymity of the city, intentionally leaving the past behind, focusing on nothing but living my life and getting stronger. I would train, fight, and prepare, until the day I was finally ready to face him again.