CPH - 1: Nyr önd

Caiden was not having a great day. Not like he ever had a great one this week, or that many in his new life, if he was being honest about it. Even the first one in this world didn't start great.

When he came out of the womb, he... Well, to be honest, he couldn't remember much. He could only remember that his head hurt a lot, he almost couldn't breathe, and he cried until he fell asleep. It was only almost a week later that he sort of became aware of his surroundings and realized that something impossible happened.

He was a baby, which should have been impossible on so many levels that he ended up screaming like a lunatic, or a hungry baby, which admittedly he was part of the latter. But soon enough, after his hysterical side had settled in, he started to calmly analyze his situation while sucking on a woman's breast for his only meal available.

He had briefly forgotten about what happened before being reborn, but once he had calmed down he was reminded of that day, the one he died. He was in the station of Passeig de Gracia in Spain with his wife and kids to see the Sagrada Familia. His wife had always wanted to see it and they never really wanted to leave the kids for too long, so they booked a plane to Spain.

It was already the third day when it had happened. His wife and kids were behind a few meters away while he took the tickets for the sub. One moment, he was looking at her telling them some facts about the church, the next... Remembering it was like watching a video in slow mo. He saw a cloud of dust, smoke and something shiny, probably glass, out of the corner of his vision, his family getting engulfed by it with a confused expression and then the loudest sound he ever heard in his life. The next thing he remembered was crawling and howling for them. The rest is history.

Admittedly, he panicked, cried and yelled out of the top of his lungs for what felt like hours, but after reflecting upon his situation for a while longer, he only felt apathy. Sure, he wanted to find his family, make sure that they were ok, but realistically? Well, first off, how could he do that while being a baby? It would take him years to be independent enough to travel to them, if they could be found, not to mention the fact that they wouldn't have recognized him and either told him to leave or incarcerated him, and those were the best options.

The second thing was that... Well, he couldn't find in himself the emotional strength to actually do it. Sure, he could psych himself up with plans and maneuvers, but that would usually last an hour at best before he was distracted by some other thought. It was like finding the motivation to do something that you don't really care about.

Not that he didn't care mind you, he did. The problem was that his brain was simply... Wired differently. His years in another body and mind had a certain degree of control over his emotions, but not by much, and this control was slowly slipping away. His thoughts and morality were slowly changing. It was hard to catch but he did.

He was thinking about his assailants and, while he had been to war before and had seen many of his brothers in all but blood and friends die, he never truly hated those he fought. He knew they had their reasons and knew some did it because they had no other choice. Thinking about his assailants, however, he could not help but feel absolute rage and wish that they would only die a horrible, miserable and slow death, the same for the people he once understood. Hell, even how his memories worked had changed.

He hadn't noticed this until he started to get bored and tried to remember something he could do. He jokingly tried to think about solving a mind-sudoku and quickly found out that he could indeed remember the position, the numbers and the thought process behind all 81 squares. This definitely caught him off guard, especially considering that he wasn't even aware of it until he paid more attention to what he thought.

It was hard to realize it and it is even hard to describe it. It was like he could focus much better at what he was thinking. In fact, he started to notice how he was starting to remember everything that happened since he became aware of his new life, even if another week had passed by. He remembered the cozy wooden boards not quite lining up to one another, the slight flickers of orange light from an out of view fireplace, and the slight sway of the sheep pelt mounted on the wall right beside him.

This made him test his memory and more, at first noting a specific detail, thinking about something else and then asking himself what he should have remembered. At first, he left a minute pass, then a few, then an hour, then a few, then a day, and so and so forth. He never forgot the details. Then he started to add more random details until he ran out of them and he still remembered every single one.

He then tried to use this trick on memories of his old life and, while he couldn't quite remember some things, what he could remember was rock solid and could not forget. Hell, he could remember every single last detail of his last three days before and during that bombing and following death.

However, there was a catch to his apparent, new form of perfect memory: the fact that he couldn't immediately understand something, he had to actively recall it. For example, he once read about the name of some medieval dresses and their names, and upon looking at his caretaker's dress, he knew it was medieval and it took him a couple seconds before he knew what it was called, and even then he knew it was probably wrong because "Internet" and he couldn't be bothered to try and find the correct name or check if it was true.

While scanning through his memories, he remembered an old subgenre overdone to death (heh) by both legitimate authors and fanfiction writers, the isekai. This immediately gave him a burst of almost childlike wonder of what he could experience, what he could see, what he could accomplish. He was almost too excited about his predicament that, when an older man with a beard and simple farmer clothing came to pick him up and show him outside, he almost visibly deflated.

There were no floating islands, no extra moons, no weird stars, no magicians, no farmer spells, no signs of magic or adventures... Hell, if anything, the most exciting thing he saw was a Christian monastery nearby, which almost completely destroyed his childlike wonder. Especially the Christian part.

When he was brought back to his crib later when the sun was setting, he tried to rationalize all of this and believe that this was simply a parallel universe and magic could have existed here and Christianity just so happened to exist alongside it. It shouldn't have been possible, but hey he was willing to accept any mental escape from the depressing thought of reality.

And so, he tried to do anything to be able to use magic. He tried to summon spirits, he tried to chant, he tried saying "status" both mentally and vocally, even though only a baby babble came out. He tried to meditate, he tried to feel the tingle in his back, but nothing worked.

In spite of this, however, he kept on trying again, and again, and again, and again, all of the methods of drawing magic, chi/ki, chakra, nen, cosmic energy, bullshit x-gene but none of them worked... Except for one.

It was roughly a couple of months after his rebirth and he was still trying to draw power. At this point, he already had given up on having any power and was mostly doing it out of sheer boredom. Aside from the occasional trip outside by what he assumed to be his parents and his caretaker for his next meal, he was basically left in the crib all the time. Is this why babies sleep all the time?

Anyway, after the Nth time he tried to call upon an omniversal deity to do something about his position, he remembered a series he grew up with. Sure, it wasn't always great, but that series also had a way to call upon certain powers. He always watched the anime and only skimmed through the manga to finish it. One of the once "Big three of Shonen", Bleach.

He remembered the series fondly, mostly because it was one of those anime that really solidified his passion for anime and manga... And also his fetish for big titties but he would never admit it openly. Sure, it wasn't always the best and some things were questionable at best, and it would certainly never qualify for him one of his all time favorites, but it was still a series he remembered fondly and kept close to his heart, even though many of the details slipped his mind due to the simple fact that he was more concerned about the action, the fan service and the skip ad button. God, even just remembering it made him grumble like a baby.

Anyway, the power system of Bleach was very much based around one's soul. There weren't many explanations as to how to draw such power, and even less about how to control it, except for a couple. Quincy and Fullbringers. There are also High-Spec Humans, but their methods of drawing power and training vary greatly from one another. The most consistent ones are the white nazis and edgelords. Their methods can be basically boiled down to a single word. Pull.

Of course, each one pulls something different from the environment and their methods of using their power also varies, but for his purposes at that moment, they are to be considered one in the same. However, without a teacher, or even a guide, he didn't know how to even begin. All he could do was just do it and hope for the best.

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Caiden began to imagine small little flickering lights around himself. On his crib, on his blanket, in the walls, on the floor and in the air. Then, he began pulling it all.

In the first few minutes, he thought that he might have failed and that he might actually have to give up, however soon he felt... Something moved towards him. It was big, pretty big, but human shaped. He opened his eyes and tried to look at the shape, but all he could see was the ceiling-... No, there! He could see it! It was faint and, if it wasn't for his basically perfect memory, he might have missed it, but there was the faint outline of a person looming over him.

He didn't know, or even cared that this figure might have been hostile, he simply laughed in both excitement and joy.

Through the faint outline, he could see that the figure flinched and started to walk away, but he wouldn't let that person go so easily! He started to cry as loudly as he could, and that made the figure flinch even more than before.

After a couple of seconds, his mother came in and tried to calm him down. As she did, she sent a small glare to the faint outline and this Caiden did not miss. It seemed like his mother was at least aware of the spiritual side of things and the outline was either someone she knew in life or was someone with some unfinished business in this world... Or the outline could be a shinigami and he simply made a member of Gotei 13 flinch, which would be a pretty nice addition to his resume, if he had one.

After almost an hour or so of cooking, a small meal (he was pretty hungry, after all) and some nightsongs, Caiden pretended to sleep and used all of his mental power to stay awake to listen to his mother berate the outline with hushed tones.

He couldn't understand the language all that well yet, so some context was lost on him, but the outline was basically the fact that she (his mother called the outline Æthelburg, which he knew was a female name from ye-olde England) had to explain why her baby was crying. He couldn't hear what the outline said, but he had heard a series of mumbled sounds and, from the look his mother had, it seemed like the news was pretty shocking to her.

Putting two and two together, it was clear that they were either talking about how I had drawn out some spiritual matter/particles/energy/bullshit and how I could see her. Or maybe they were talking about something completely unrelated. It could be either, since he had no context for the situation or the expressions.

After a while, the conversation slowly slipped away to something else that he didn't catch since he started to fall asle. By the time he had realized that he was dozing off, it was already the middle of the night. He had cursed himself for sleeping through what could possibly be a very enlightening conversation, but soon calmed himself down knowing that thanks to his experiment his mother would probably teach him how to better control this energy, or she would warn him to never do it again. It would all depend on what happens from here on out.

All he had to do now was simply wait and see, which he did for the next 7 years. When he could, he would pull and draw on the spiritual stuff. He tried to also act like a child and he did become friends with them, which allowed him to hear the juiciest of talks. Sure, most of it was bullshit and sometimes they couldn't even hide it, but others were very interesting, even if utterly useless.

Other things he discovered were the fact that his mother used to be a soldier, a really good one at that, and that he lived in a coastal city near a monastery. These things and the fact that the last time his mother was deployed was during a raid against "heathens from the sea", really put him on edge and made him beg his mother to teach him how to learn how to wield a sword. He didn't want to die so young against a Viking raid.

Of course, she did not immediately agree, but with enough convincing, she begrudgingly agreed. It was tough and he almost quit a number of times, but eventually he would always pick himself up and keep on going. Of course, he did not notice that with each defeat his anger grew more and more prominent until, one day, it exploded.

It was like any other and he was getting closer to his 8th birthday, but not any closer to land a single hit on his mother, who seemed like an almighty wall in front of him. His speed, size, strength, experience and skill were simply too much for him to do anything. As he was picking himself up for the Nth time, he could not help but snarl in anger. He was useless to save himself and his family. He was useless to save his friends while in the army. He was useless to help all the people ever loved and cared about. He was useless, always just SO FUCKING USELESS!

Glaring at his mothe- No, at his enemy, he picked up his wooden sword and glared at her with all the hatred he accumulated over these years and just let it flow. He did not care about anything else. All it was important was to defeat the enemy in front of him.

And so, he sprinted to her, lifting his sword high up the sky, ready to strike her surprised, stupid face.

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Hilda should have expected this, and yet, she could not help but be taken aback.

Her ancestors had told her years prior about how her firstborn had an absurd amount of potential since he was a baby. Drawing spiritual energy when he was but a few months old? Not even Æthelburg was able to do such a thing, and she was the most talented warrior her clan has ever seen! That was why she was able to join the ranks of the mysterious guardian angels that protected the world of mortals for a few centuries.

In the following years, his talent and power only grew until her dear Eadgar, her son, was able to clearly see Æthelburg and even interact with her by grabbing her long black vest and pulling it with a big laugh. Hilda felt nothing but joy in those moments, but also an unimaginable amount of dread. She, and everyone in her clan, knew of the preference of monsters towards those with a great amount of spiritual energy.

The priests of the monastery and the guardian angels around the area have easily managed to drive them off and keep those foul beasts at bay, but this still did not help to ease her worry for her son. Especially when he begged her to train him with the sword, once he learned that she used to be a soldier under the local lord, who was actually her clan head.

She had left that life behind and she wished her son could just abandon such aspirations, but his stare and his eagerness... She could not help but accept, but it did not mean she wouldn't try her best to dissuade him from abandoning that path.

Admittedly, she may have gone over the edge and may have broken a lot of his bones, but her Eadgar had left her no choice. He just kept getting up. When his main hand broke, he just learned how to use his left just as efficiently. When his leg was broken, he learned how to use the wooden sword as compensation. When he was beaten up so badly that he could not get up for a week, he would simply not repeat those same mistakes ever again.

Despite his rather impressive talent with the sword however, he simply was no match against her. Even without counting how her spiritual energy had enhanced her beyond almost all the other soldiers in her regiment, be they bigger, smarter and more experienced than her, even with her missing arm and even with her years of not picking up a sword. How could her son even compare? Simple, through raw spiritual energy.

She had thought that she had beaten him up to the ground once again and she was expecting him to stay there until she could get some water for both of them, until she felt the killing intent coming off of her son, together with something even more spiritual than what she had!

Before she could really understand what was going on, his sword was already descending to her head, ready to strike her down. His instincts took over and made her swat the sword off the side while striking his neck.

By the time that she realized that she could have killed her son, he was already on his feet and striking wildly left, right and center, with her barely keeping up the pace.

He was striking with the ferocity of a thousand monsters, leaving her no room to strategize. When she kicked him away to leave her so room to breathe, he would spin in place and launch himself back to the frey. When she tried to strike the back of his neck to put him to sleep, he would simply release a burst of spiritual energy to keep himself awake and strike at her legs. When she tried to remove his sword and pin him down, he simply slipped away and used his fists and a strange style that was too close for her to properly counter with her sword.

This couldn't have gone longer than a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. His strikes became less ferocious, his hits came with less speed, his spiritual energy started to fade as did his killing intent. Not even a couple of seconds after, he would simply collapse to the ground, exhausted and with more bruises than what she was comfortable looking at. She was forced to use almost all of her power to stop him from hurting either of them too much.

She took a couple of moments to breath and collect herself as Æthelburg came running up to them. Her sword drawn and a spell ready to be casted. It took her all but a moment to analyze what was going on and ask her.

"Hilda, what is the meaning of this? What was that power that I felt?"

Hilda took a few moments to catch her breath and explain herself.

"I... I was training with Eadgar, like always, but this time he... He must have been frustrated with something and spent all of his energy. I tried to keep him at bay, to not hurt him too much... But I underestimated him"

Æthelburg looked skeptical at her explanation, as she always did, but did not rebuke since she had no other evidence of the contrary, but she did say.

"That boy's potential... Are you really willing to let such a talent go to waste? He could be trained by the two of us and the other guardians and become our savior! Just imagine him driving all of those creatures back to the hole they crawl from!"

At that, Hilda could do nothing but have a sour expression and frown. While it was true that he could become a great warrior, especially for her clan, she did not want him to walk down such a path. He would be nothing more than a weapon for those at the top, and she did not wish this for him.

Reading through her expression, Æthelburg could do nothing but sigh while closing her eyes, saying.

"I understand that you have your reservations towards your own clan, but please understand that if this episode were to ever happen again, away from our presence, it would lead to disaster. Please Hilda, at least train the boy in the proper way. To control his abilities and emotions..."

Hilda looked at her beloved boy for what felt for her like an eternity. She knew it would not be easy for both, and that his future may inevitably lead him to the rest of her clan, but she had no choice. Æthelburg's logic made sense.

She slowly nodded, solemnly, hoping her son would forgive her one day for deciding his future for him.

—————————————————————

If the training with the sword was hard for him, the one for spiritual energy was even worse. He was excited to finally learn the proper ways at first, but after the first lesson he quickly realized just how much it sucked to learn how to control Reiryoku and Reiatsu, especially when you're a lowly human without major connections with the spiritual or any of that mumbo jumbo.

Trying to concentrate while being poured freezing water on his head at night, trying to spar with his mother while blindfolded, the meditation... It was not only tedious but just annoying enough to be monotonous and just easy enough to be done over and over again without any major rest.

All that, paired with the spars and the usual other types of physical exercise his mother put him through made him always come back to bed feeling like someone just replaced his muscles with cement.

As time went on, however, the effects of this more intense training started to show its effectiveness. At the age of twelve, he was starting to put his mother on the back foot, a few months later, he started to land some hits and at the age of thirteen he was victorious for the first time ever. From there, he started to win more and more, so his mother started to put some limitations on him to increase his proficiency with the sword and controlling his Reiatsu.

Fun fact about Reiatsu, nobody calls it as such here. They simply refer to it as 'spiritual energy', which makes since Reiatsu is a Japanese word and Japan is very much a place not many people have heard of before.

Also, his mother finally formally introduced him to Æthelburg, one of his ancestors. Well, surprise surprise, apparently he came from some form of proto-Quincy clan lineage. Upon asking for more details, his mother and ancestor talked about how they were numerous and how they have their numbers in the thousands all over Britannia, which was what his ancestor called Britain, and beyond. They weren't really a family, and more of a loosely connected group with some unique bloodlines here and there that work alongside "the guardians" to protect the world from "the monsters".

Pressing for more information about these monsters and guardians, it became apparent that he was either in a time before the Japanese shinigami really took over the world of the dead or he was in a canon divergent world where each "zone" of the world had its own group of dead people protecting the dead from the hollows. Which made sense, to be honest. Otherwise, how in flippity floaty fuck would a few thousand Japanese gods of death not only manage the souls coming out of entire world and protect them and the living from the hollows?! It didn't make any sense!

Rant aside, it seemed like they also had their own version of the soul society, although he didn't know if there were multiple soul kings or just the one. He didn't press any further because it would probably seem weird that one kid was so knowledgeable in the world of the dead when he barely even had any knowledge of his own little world.

Also, apparently they didn't know about Hueco Mundo. He had asked about the origins of the hollows, he started to call them like that once he heard about their appearance and behavior and justified it with some half-assed philosophical BS about hollow souls and such, and he had received an answer that didn't really surprise him.

Apparently, when someone dies, there will be literal chains attached to them and, when those chains fall off, the person turns into a monster and starts to eat anything that has even a scrap of spiritual energy. All of this he already knew, but when asking if they had any way to hide, Æthelburg simply said that the hollows that were smart enough to do it simply vanished.

Apparently, none of these people had even seen a hollow use a garganta? That's kinda weird, but then again, maybe they will one day. Also, they didn't know about menos, gillians, adjuchas or even vasto lorde. The biggest Æthelburg ever seen was the size of the monastery, which wasn't all that big, barely the size of a double story house... Well, not that big in terms of the sizes demonstrated in the show anyway.

Anyway, aside from the aesthetics and naming convention, Æthelburg and the other guardians basically filled the role of shinigami. Even their swords had souls and names. Apparently, Oetsu Nimaiya is the original creator behind the concept, however others have been able to crack the formula to make their own spirit swords. Although Æthelburg did say that the swords made by other sword makers are initially weaker than those made by Oetsu, but it wasn't usually a problem since it still performed the same basic tasks as a regular zanpakuto and they still had the potential to grow as powerful as their Japanese counterparts.

This, of course, came as a bit of a shock to Caiden, but then he calmed himself down and rationalized the fact that death gods probably could make long journeys to other much more distant countries. Hell, Æthelburg and his mother already knew about America, although it wasn't called that, by word of mouth. It should not have surprised him that a Japanese design, especially one of such importance for those keeping peace among the dead, could already be well known.

Once the questions were out of the way and Caiden had been formally introduced to Æthelburg, his ancestor, the new training had begun. For the following year or so, he had started to learn how to enhance himself with his spiritual energy, how to sense it and suppress it and even how to use it for spells and such. All was going well and he even started to land hits on Æthelburg in one on one spars. He thought that, soon enough, he would become one of the most powerful humans in the world by the time he had hit his fifties, that he would then become the most powerful guardian in the world and nothing could ever stop him.

But then, everything crumbled before his own eyes and his death came once more.

—————————————————————

It was a normal day, like any other. He was at work with his father. Even if he could lift a person with a single arm, it still didn't mean anything if he didn't help his father out in the fields. Speaking of him, he was aware of the world beyond death. He could even see and talk to Æthelburg, but he was not a warrior like his wife. He was a simple carpenter and blacksmith with some sensitivity towards the afterlife.

He repaired tools and furniture, and he could also make some basic clothes when the tailor wasn't available. He could also make simple weapons for the local guards and militia, but nothing too crazy. His workshop was about half a kilometer away from the village, on a small hill overlooking part of the village facing the sea.

Caiden would usually help whenever he could since it was a good way to help the family, make connections with the rest of the village and even help with his control. His father was very appreciative of the effort, although it always freaked him out a bit whenever Caiden would take a hot metal bar with his bare hands as a prank.

It was a particularly sunny day and all seemed well. In a few hours, when everyone else would be busy working in the fields, Æthelburg, his mother and him would start working on some real spells to use against hollows. He was grinding the axe of one of the local lumberjacks when he suddenly stopped, frozen in place. He was feeling an icy cold sweat running down his back, his hands were frozen in a vice grip, almost crushing the axe on his hand, as his eyes felt locked in place.

He did not know how to describe the feeling that he had at that moment. It wasn't fear, it was an impending feeling of doom that was about to hit at any moment. It was the titanic weight of something much more powerful than he was approaching.

He slowly turned to look at the window overlooking the village and he yelled, his eyes wide open in shock and horror as he saw it.

A black, long smoke coming out of the houses in the village with fire not that distant either, in the coast several ships were parked, with more incoming, at the foot of the monastery he could just barely make out several figures running towards it, the shine of their armors and weapons giving away their true intentions.

The vikings were here and were attacking his village, and his parents were there to buy supplies for tonight's dinner.

Without a second thought, he jumped up from his seat and went to grab his mother's old service sword, which they kept as a blueprint for every sword made for the local militia. A simple cross guard straight arming sword.

Upon taking it, he checked if the edge was still there and cursed himself when he saw that it was as blunt as his wooden sword. At that point, he didn't know what to do. He was panicking and looking everywhere for a better sword. If that pressure was anything to go by, there had to be someone in the viking ranks that was stronger than even Æthelburg.

Screaming a curse, he had no choice but to take the spear in the back of the shop, which was supposed to be taken that day by a kid his age that used it to stab trees a little too much, and then ran as fast as he could to his village.

Thanks to his training and spiritual energy, it took him just barely a minute to reach the village and take in what was happening. Screams were coming from left, right and center, men were being cut down, children were being dragged away to the boats, women were having their clothes ripped off of them and pushed to the ground while everything else was either being taken away or burned to the ground.

Thinking quickly, he threw his spear at an archer that had noticed him before moving to engage a Viking that was having his way with Mildgyð, the tailor. A single punch to the side of the face and he fell to the ground, either unconscious or dead, he did not care. Without hesitating, Caiden grabbed the viking's cloak and covered the poor traumatized woman's body with his own shirt before grabbing the man's short sword and shield. He wasn't familiar with fighting with shields, but it should not matter as long as it accomplished the task of keeping him alive.

Right before the old lady could even thank him, he had heard a few arrows traveling their way to him. Without hesitation, he put himself in front of the woman and blocked two arrows coming for his chest, however the third one planted itself on his left leg.

Biting down a yell of pain, he slowly lowered the shield to better assess the situation.

To his right, a dead archer. To his front, on the same house, an archer up on the roof, another one inside the house, and by the house on the left there was the third one, waving and yelling at them to come. On his full left, there was a street with seven enemies running to deal with Caiden, while fifteen others were either dealing with the remaining guards and militia, or were helping the biggest one deal with his mother, who was holding on surprisingly well, although it was clear she wouldn't last.

Cursing to himself, he turned back to assailants, gave them a single look and then tried to do something that he did with his mother when he wasn't properly trained with spiritual energy. Killing intent. He only knew of it because she told him about it.

Flaring briefly his killing intent and spiritual energy, he made the archer on the roof flinch in surprise, while to one in the house and the one in the corner briefly froze.

That was his chance.

He let go of his shield and threw it at the enemy on the roof, Captain America style, before sprinting to the window of the house.

The enemy on the roof was forced to dodge the incoming shield as the enemy inside the house fumbled with his bow and arrow, clearly still surprised by the killing intent he briefly flared while the guy on the corner of the house, who was less impacted by the flared, more calmly took his arrow and drew back the string of the bow.

However, by the time he was ready to take a shot, Caiden had entered the house with a flying double kick to his enemy's face.

Right when he landed, Caiden immediately jumped up and stabbed at the neck of the fallen guy, who was still trying to recover.

Taking a moment of breath to himself, he thanked his past self for being already used to killing and for his current self to be so obsessed with training his body to be even better than these grunts.

His moment of reprise was, however, short lived as the guy from the corner came to the window to shoot at Caiden, who was lucky enough to roll out of the way.

The enemy tried to knock another arrow, but Caiden simply flared his reiatsu and killing intent again before grabbing one of the arrows of his fallen foe and throwing it like a dart as hard as he could.

He was surprised that such a plan even worked as the enemy staggered for a moment before the arrow penetrated his skull, killing him.

Caiden took a deep breath before getting his sword ready. He was lucky so far, but now the jig was up and he had to make himself ready. He knew there were eight more enemies coming. The seven called up early and the archer up on the roof.

He had to take out the archer first and then move to kill the biggest guys as fast as possible.

Looking around, he noticed a few things that utterly disgusted him. Tata's corpse, the farmer with a weird accent, the heads of his two children, Wynnstan and Wulfrun, and his wife, Wassa, slowly dying because of her throat cut as semen trickled down from between her legs. The door, of course, was closed.

Caiden snarled in rage before snapping his attention outside. Even if he wasn't all that great at sensing people's spiritual energies, he was still able to sense where his enemies were and guess what they were about to do.

The seven vikings were behind the door, ready to bust it open and the archer from the roof was right behind the corner of the window, ready to pop him from the side like a porcupine.

He let a small snarl of rage before the biggest flare of killing intent and spiritual energy that he could muster. He had to surprise them with his ferocity and speed.

The vikings outside froze as the sudden killing intent before they heard a gurgled sound from the archer.

Turning to look at him, they saw an arrow head sticking through his throat.

Then, the door was suddenly sent flying, hitting two of them in the head and making them fall to the ground due to the impact.

The kid then came out of the door and stabbed the closest one standing in the chest, before removing his sword and throwing it at the furthest one's head.

The sword went through a straight line and passed right through his head. Handle and all.

The other three quickly gathered their wits and tried to approach the kid.

The closest tried to use his shield to bash him, but the kid simply grabbed the top, pulled it down, and then hit his assailant with a punch to the neck.

He staggered for a moment, more than enough time for the kid to grab the man's axe and throw it to the other that was approaching with an overhead strike.

The kid then yanked the shield from the first guy's hands and then bashed him with it before throwing it to the third and final guy.

In the meantime, the two guys that had been thrown to the ground because of the door were starting to get up, but right as they did, a couple shield bashes cracked their heads open like a couple eggs.

Caiden took a moment to breathe as he looked around himself. He was depleting his spiritual energy too fast and wasn't recovering it fast enough. He had to start being smart with it, otherw-

Right then, he had heard a scream coming from his right and, looking at where it came from, he was utterly shocked.

It was his mother, getting her hand crushed by the biggest man Caiden had ever seen, who had a bored look on his face.

The man was looking in Caiden's direction and, when he noticed the boy looking at him, he made a dismissive gesture while muttering something.

The remaining vikings, ten of them, immediately turned to Caiden before charging at him.

Caiden was stunned at the scene before a sense of pure, unadulterated rage clouded his mind and only made him see red.

Sprinting with all of his force, he headed straight for the biggest guy.

The ten people seemed unaffected by this and simply poised themselves in position. However, what they didn't expect was for Caiden to briefly vanish in front of them and reappear behind them, heading straight for the big man himself.

The big guy merely raised an eyebrow before boredly bringing down his fist.

Caiden tried to block it, but the fist had much more force behind it than he could ever hope to block.

His arm was broken as he and the shield went flying a good two meters back.

Yelling in pain at the sudden wound, Caiden tried to clutch his injured arm, but he felt something cold and hard pass through his chest.

Slowly looking down, all he could see was a spear.

Looking back up, he saw the man he saved Mildgyð from. A bruised on his head, a sneer on his face and a hand slowly getting up from throwing the spear.

Caiden had but a few moments to look at the horrified face of his mother before his vision slowly clouded itself. Once again, the familiar void of death greeted him as he heard his mother yell his name in pain.

If only he was stronger, if only he was smarter, if only he was better than this, he might have been able to save his mother, kill those motherfuckers and not die.

But ultimately, he was so weak, so... So... SO FUCKING PATHETIC!

He wanted nothing more than to curl up and cry in his misery, but he couldn't because of this fucking-

He paused for a moment before slowly looking down. He saw it. The chain of fate. Locked on his chest and extending down to the faint form of his body, which was slowly fading away down in the abyss.

He knew of a way to get stronger than ever before. To take revenge on the motherfucker that killed him, his village and is probably raping his mother right now. He knew what it would cost, but right at that moment? He did not care.

He grabbed the chain right near his chest and pulled as hard as he could.

It hurt.

It hurt like hell.

But he did not care.

Pull, pull, pull.

He would take his fucking revenge!

Pull, pull, pull.

Kill that fucking guy.

Pull, pull, pull.

Torture his soul.

Pull, pull, pull.

And enjoy...

Pull, pull, pull.

Every...

Pull.

Second...

Pull.

Of it.

With a yank, the chain fell with a chunk of his body... Or was it his soul? He didn't know, or even care.

Because, right now?

He was so, so, soooo....

hUnGrY!

—————————————————————

Eric, son of Åge, snorted in disgust at the waste of resources in this raid. The men and women that would be coming back were going to enjoy a great amount of riches with their loved ones back at home, that was for sure, but losing so many people in just the first village? This was not a good sign and they should just go back home to replenish their numbers. Whoever told him that these were going to be easy targets apparently never went here themselves. He was going to find the fucker that convinced him to go and sell him to his clients down in Jerusalem.

Turning to his second in command, he said.

"Endre, get the loot and the people still alive to the boats. I don't care if you have to drag them out with their dicks out, we're heading home"

At this, his second in command tried to protest his decision and Eric was just as ready to bash Endre's head like the pup did, but right then a... Foul aura came from the corpse of said pup.

Slowly turning to look at it, he saw a monster slowly rising from the corpse of the boy before it slowly expanded itself to the size of two of the houses around him.

Eric slowly retrieved his war axe from his hip and signaled his men to take up arms.

This wasn't the first time he and his elite had to deal with the soul-eating abominations, but it was the first time he had to deal with such a creature with so few people. Not to count the fact that this was the biggest one they had to battle without the assistance of their vörðrs. (AN: A vörðr is a norse spirit that is believed to follow and protect a person from birth till death. I think you can make the connection from there)

The creature jerked its head up to the soldiers as they slowly moved to position and slowly scanned its surroundings until it locked eyes with him.

The creature looked like a dragon, like the ones his father once told him about when he was even younger than the pup he killed, only instead of scales like a lizard, it had fur like that of a dog and the skull was fully out, visible for all to see.

The creature snarled at Eric as he gripped his axe tighter before the two of them roared in unison and charged at each other.

Eric's men and second in command did not hesitate to help their leader in charging the foul beast.

In any other story, what would have followed would have been a battle worthy of the mightiest of legends, a clutched victory for the underdog.

At last, this is not the case, as the creature simply bit off Eric in half, swallowing his soul and body before turning to the rest of the chief viking's men and doing the same with each one of them. None of them were able to put up much of a resistance.

Once done with its meal, the beast slowly looked around at the souls of the villagers that had been looking in horror the whole time and let out a roar of unending hunger as he slowly, one by one, swallowed the souls of those he once considered friends.

His mother, who had realized what was going on, slowly rose up in pain from her position and looked at what was once her son in horror.

She had come to the village to buy her husband and son enough time for an escape, but upon seeing him killing those vikings, she knew that he was going to try and save her.

He should have known better, SHE should have known better. She should just have tried to save as many citizens as possible, and now her husband was nowhere to be found and her son was-

Her mental rant ended as she realized that her s-, no, the beast had stopped its rampage and looked at her intently.

She caught her breath and closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face as she had nothing more to lose. She just wanted the release of the final death. Never to be conscious again. Just her and the void.

She heard the beast slowly making its way towards her, sniffing her hair, her face and her hand before... It turned away and slowly walked away.

She opened her eyes in shock upon realizing this, but by the time she tried to look for him, he was gone.

Why did it spare her? It shouldn't have! It should have killed her! Why did it-!

She collapsed to her knees and yelled and cried in realization. Her son. Her sweet little son. That wasn't a monster. It was her son. He was in there, somewhere. And now, he's gone, forever.

She knew that removing the chains would turn soul into a monster. Her baby knew that too. He turned himself into a monster just so he could save her.

She cried and yelled until all she could do was lay there, exhausted, until her ancestor came to retrieve her, upon which she simply fell unconscious.

Her final whisper was for her son to come back.