Chapter 03: Moral Standing

Lorthic stood there staring in disbelieve at the creature in front of him, it had the body of a gorilla, but its head was that of a horse, baring its teeth that looked like it was stolen from some large animal of the feline family. From its back grew a pair of wings stretching about four meters out, slithering behind its back its tail raised, and at the tip, a snakes head was staring at him menacingly.

"ROAR!!!"

The beast roared as it stormed towards Lorthic, reaching him it stood on its hind legs and beat its chest with another mighty roar before smashing down with both its arms.

Its arms swung down in a mighty fury but an even more formidable and faster force suddenly struck its chest, it lifted the gorilla abomination from its feet as it was flung backward smashing into a tree as thick as two grown men's waists, causing the tree to grown as it tilted back its roots torn from the earth.

Leaning against the now tilted tree the gorilla abomination breathed heavily, blood gushed from its mouth with each breath taken, on its now sunken chest there was a clear foot-shaped indent.

Lorthic slowly retracted his foot, planting it down on the ground he slowly walked towards the gorilla abomination in a swagger, making his loose fit torn black robes flutter.

Standing in front of the beast, Lorthic scrutinized the thing, he had never seen such a strange creature in all his years, and he has been around for a good many of those. Finding nothing that can identify what it was, Lorthic could only theories that it was some kind of creature created artificially through some sort of dark magic.

"What are you?"

Lorthic couldn't help but ask the creature not really expecting it to reply, but at that moment the rune within his soul pulsed and send some data towards him.

<Voodoo Beast>

<Level: 12>

<Rank: Warrior>

<Tier: Copper>

<Difficulty: Effortless>

Lorthic froze for a second after going through the information, 'So it would seem that this little rune gives information about things on this planet, though I suspect that it only happens if the other creature also has a rune or this might just be a special case for me. So many questions yet no answers, how frustrating.'

Lorthic suddenly stared at the dying Voodoo Beast, a thought popped into his head, 'This is like a cheap knockoff version of necromancy'.

Lorthic stretched his hand out towards the dying beast and made a gripping gesture, the beast wanted to retreat it wanted to run away from this horrible being but unfortunately, it had no strength to do so. It felt like it was being used towards his grip and then there was a feeling of being detached from its body, there was no pain there was no way to put up resistance before the beast could think of anything else it was but a small white mist with a glowing blue core within Lorthics grip.

'What a pitiful little soul, it is hardly even considered a soul, more like the fracture remains of one' Lorthic though as he stared a little soul in his grip. The soul was the representation of a creatures emotions, intelligence, and its sense of self, but what Lorthic saw was but a pitiful being with little emotion almost no intelligence relying only on instinct, and its sense of self was waiting in and out of existence like it had no idea what it was.

'They actually broke souls apart from other creatures to create this pitiful thing, it is suffering all the time and its only true meaning is the goals it is given, it will serve its masters until it dies and even until then it will never know what it is, what its purpose was nor why it was in so much pain.'

'Truly a knock of the version of necromancy'

Lorthic thought, unamused by these crude shamans and how they created these pitifully creatures. Although he was also a tamperer of souls necromancer of sorts and could do the same as the shamans or even worse if he wanted, he found it pointless to use such crude techniques.

Closing his hand he absorbed the soul, as such he gained all its memories and all its pain, but he ignored the pain as it was inconsequential to all he had endured over his years of living.

He quickly knew everything the creature knew as if it was his own knowledge in a matter of a few split seconds, he turned north-west and started walking in that direction. The Shaman and his tribe lived there.

Going through the memories he could easily found out how the shaman looked and how its tribesman behaved, although he could only see and hear what the creature had, unlike the creature he could make sense of it.

It would seem like this tribe not only lived and hunted within this forest but also attacked people from the country this forest was within, he saw that north of the tribe was the end of the forest where you would come upon a road that went along the border of the forest, as if the people that build this road never expected bandits, or in this case this tribesman to abduct people and lock them in cages and sacrifice to what Lorthic could only believe to be there a tribal god or some nonsense like that.

Lorthic wasn't a good person, no good person could ever study the mysteries of creating and destroying life, no good person could ever be a necromancer, no good person could ever go even past that path and onto the road of no return that is the Pale Master, no good person could ever have done what he had.

Lorthic knew well that he was no good person, although he was a protector of a nation, did that mean he had to be good and virtues... hell no!

Stepping upon the forest floor his toes dug into the soft dirt, he breathed in the fresh air and smiled contently. He enjoyed the peace, he enjoyed being able to do what he wanted, he was not a good person but...

'That does not mean I am Evil'