Echo

Shakily and with great confusion, Zero stepped back. He glanced down at his trembling hands. Blood. There was pieces of skin and hair in his nails.

He took another step back. "I-I..."

What could he say? What could he possibly start to tell them? The young man's chest heaved wildly. Hesitantly, he looked towards the crumpled body on the floor.

Her neck was twisted at an odd angle, legs covered in scratch marks. Her eyes had be mushed to the point of gouging. There was a gaping hole in her throat.

"She—"

Zero clenched his eyes shut. What had he done? Why was he even near people?

You are a danger to yourself and to those around you.

This was said by the scroll when he had eaten the eye. The said eye felt hot inside him, like it was ecstatic.

Zero shook his head in denial. This was a curse. What had happened? He looked outside the window and walked towards it, drawing it open. His breaths came out in puffs. Why was he being prompted to kill and being taunted by it afterwards.

What was this torture? Why didn't he have any control over it? He forced the tears brimming in his eyes down. He did not deserve to feel sorry for himself.

A girl had just been killed by his own hands. A girl with hopes. Her parents were surely rejoicing within their huts. They were probably poor and frail with no hope of ever going far from this polluted village.

Their only hope and light...their girl. She was dead.

"Shut the windows," Daiyu said, breaking the silence. There were no fluctuations in her voice. Either she didn't care that a child in their care had died, or she was simply a walking piece of ice.

Zero did not hear her the first time, staring like a lost fool into the distance, eyes empty. Daiyu walked up to him, not glancing once at the dead girl. She'd have died anyway, the woman thought.

"Boy, move." She pushed the boy aside and reached out to shut the screens. Night had arrived. The air smelt stale.

Pu'er, the scarred man and the third soldier who was the shortest of the group, came forward into the room. They observed the other youths in the corner. Zero's supposed next victim, the proud boy, was seated right in the center of the room. His eyes were bloodshot, fixated on the dead girl. He didn't seem to care that he had almost died.

" Deliver her corpse to her parents by the morn. A bear did it, she had gone searching for wood." Daiyu tossed something into Pu'er's gloved hands. It made a clinking sound.

"Give them that for their troubles. Immediately after you do so, we leave. Brief the children. Boy, come with me."

Zero had his eyes on his bloodied boots. A self-depriciating smile graced his grimy face.

Daiyu took him by the hand and dragged him out the hall and back into the hallway. As he left the room, Proud boy's eyes fixed to where he had stood instead.

The lantern lights in the hallway seemed harsher now. They flickered incessantly; the watery shadows they made danced to their tune. He bit his lips, followed the steps of the woman.

After a minute of walking, the came into another room. It was different from the one she and her men had their meeting in. It was far from the main hallway. The only stench of blood that reached here, was from him.

She took him in then drew the screen doors shut.

"You have a lot to explain, boy. "

Zero said nothing. He didn't even look up from his shoes. Daiyu could see how he trembled, how his chapped frost bitten lips quivered. He did not seem like the type who would willingly go in for a kill. He did not even seem like he had the guts of a murderer.

She was a golden core cultivator so she could sense the aura of yin on him.

It was faint but the little whiff she got was a sharp, undiluted scent. He smelt like he had been touched slightly by the purest source of dark mana there was. It was what had drawn her attention at the evaluations. Or she never would have allowed a Mutated to try out.

The woman came up to Zero and took off his coat that smelt of everything he had been through since the slavers' camp. His inner garment was in shreds from the shadowbeasts battle and reeked even more than the coat.

Daiyu raised an eyebrow at the smell and left, saying something about a bath.

Zero was not hearing anything.

/Yin spirit. As your next quest grows near, your spirit strength grows. Host of the Yanluo, son of Naraka. You have been granted Echo of Madness./

The Voice, sinister and cold, had returned.

/The Echo of Madness is an unripened form of the hell Alter Ego. It exists sorely for the execution of your deepest and darkest thoughts.To be able to rank to the next level, gain reasonable control of the echo/

/Before the next full moon, keep your kills under 10. It will be wise./

Then there was silence.

For a while, Zero stood quietly. So then, it was his desire— however deeply buried—to have that girl's throat ripped out.

He remembered her smug smile after the boy's jab at him. He remembered how annoying she sounded about the windows.

His hands shook. If he could kill her under such mild conditions, what would he do if it was worse than that?

The young man did not have time to process any of this. The doors were pulled open and two servants, both male, who came in with wooden buckets and a trolley of cleansing items. One bucket was filled with cold water, the other steaming. They drew open the sheer bathing screen in the corner of the room, revealing a reflective metal tub.

They glanced at him from the corners of their eyes. The entire inn must have heard of the commotion.

The cloaked soldiers and the selected youths were at the upper floors reserved for important guests. Just in one day of bringing this strange boy in from the village square, someone had died. A bear they said, the girl had gone to get wood.

In an inn? The best inn in the village? Surely no one would buy that. Especially seeing this monster covered in blood. The two servants exchanged glances as they drew his bath.

"Mutated, they said he was." The first boy whispered to the other, side eyeing Zero who either couldn't hear or couldn't care.

"Don't speak much, said folks that saw the lad come into the village days ago." The second boy took out oils and soaps from the trolley, lathering the water.

"Oh? Came all bloodied too. Old man Gong saw him at an alley. Thought him a robber. I'll tell you, he must be a demon or something. I've seen Mutated folks before. None look like him." They discreetly observed Zero. He had not moved an inch from where he stood close to the windows.

"Poor Wei Xi. Poor girl. And her poor mom too. Bear..." They turned away from watching him. "I wonder what the lass was doing looking for wood. Strange ain't it?"

Zero, who could hear all these whispers, struggled to breathe. He clenched his fists together and bit down on his lips.

Hehehe

"A fellow of mine saw a silver eyed boy walk into the witch's hut down the road. I'll bet you a copper it's him, I will." The first boy let out a laugh only to be silenced with a flying piece of wood that missed his ear by an inch.

The whites of Zero's eyes had turned charcoal black and the silver greatly contrasted against it. He had ripped out a piece of the window, causing numerous cuts and splinters to his hands.

The two servants boys both looked a year younger than him. His jaw trembled as he started to approach them.

Hehehe.

This was like Feifei all over again. He clenched his trembling jaw and managed to utter one statement to the boys.

"P-please...ru-n."