The Door

Monsters are quite the strange phenomena, with them seemingly unable to reproduce. They seem to appear in areas mainly containing increased levels of Mana. I can't be sure but it seems possible that they are made up entirely of Mana. All we know is that when they die, their corpse entirely disappearing and only leaving behind a Mana core. Of course, this is still quite useful, since Mana Cores can be used for many things.

While Mana Cores are mostly used for recharging one's Mana Pool, they are also great for powering Magic Artifacts. Many kingdoms have also begun to specialize in a new occupation called artificer, a job which mainly develops Artifacts and Magitek. Although, this means that we still lack undestanding in what monsters actually are however.

-The Study of Monsters And Their Habits, page 10

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He fell into the abyss that is known as hunger, deeper and deeper into the first desire that every person has. A craving for something which you need. He was no longer Charon, he was just a man with a singular driving goal, to consume.

When the conscious mind fades to hunger, that is when instinct takes over. He was no longer human, he was a hungering beast, and his instinct would make sure that he fed.

With a snarl, His legs became covered in a glowing white energy before he leapt towards the soul calmly floating above the irrelevant corpse. The other two competitors also began trying to move forwards before being blocked by a wall made up of shadows as a voice rang out.

"I am not sure what is happening, but I will make sure the young king gets what he wants"

The hungering beast ran purely on instinct, a superior instinct then his competitors. He reached the soul with swift precision before the energy covering his legs rapidly moved up his body to cover his hands.

Reaching out, he grabbed the soul before tilting back his head and letting out a mighty roar. As if to show the success of a true hunter, the beast tilted his head back and raised the soul up.

Without any more posturing however, the man-shaped beast devoured its prize without recourse. Like a man who had gone weeks on end without the slightest hint of food, he stuffed his face with the soul.

As the hungering beast was fed, instinct relinquished control. Charon looked at himself in a strange combination of shock, confusion, and the slightest hint of pride. He could feel the soul entering the void of white energy in his head before the vortex which seemed ready to consume pulled the poor soul in without waiting.

As soon as the soul entered the vortex, several things happened one after the other. The soul was almost immediately destroyed by the swirling vortex of nothingness. Then Charon felt his size increased by at least twice his original size, now standing at around six and a half feet tall.

The mysterious energy seemingly grew much stronger and denser before Charon shrank to exactly six feet tall. Hades and Aeacus began to recover from their hungering state as they looked around in shock at losing themselves to hunger, like a feral vampire who hadn't fed in years.

Charon's eyes widened, as he could now sense a new addition to himself. A Door gilded in gold was now floating in the white abyss that was his soul, as all the types of Mana which had spread throughout his body like veins began to make their way towards the door.

Charon looked at everyone in the room in confusion at the events which had just transpired, before he felt the door slowly open.

Charon's senses were sucked inside the door. He could see that the mana which had begun to enter was turning into a roughly humanoid form as they began walking towards an inky black river with glowing white spots speckling its surface.

Charon could see a cloaked figure, slowly paddling its way towards the figures across the river. Charon watched on in confusion as the cloaked figure slowly pulled back its hood to reveal a face that was an exact copy of his.

He watched on, his inherent curiosity as a scholar beginning to rise rapidly. He saw the carbon copy of himself pull out a set of scales. It held out the scales in front of the figures made up of Mana. The scales would then lean towards either the left of the cloaked figure or the right.

After the scales seemed to judge the weight of something invisible to Charon's eyes, another cloaked ferryman would paddle up the river before gesturing for the figures which had been seemingly measured by the scales to get on their respective boats.

Charon watched on in confusion as the Ferrymen would then paddle up or down the mysterious black river, leaving him and the figures of mana to watch on as the original Ferryman continued holding the scale up in front of the figure in front of him.

Outside of Charon's body, The others watched as Charon had fallen onto his knees. His gaze vacant as he stared off into the walls of his room. Suddenly Charon began to grasp at his head in pain as Charon's senses were forcefully yanked outside of the door as he began to receive several overlapping visions at once.

First he saw a vibrant scene of several huge balls rotated around suns on a black backdrop much like the river. With bright white spots floating in the abyssal darkness from far, far away.

Then, he began seeing flashes of a fight overlapping the original peaceful imagery. Destroying all that he saw as a tear unconsciously escaped from his eye. He watched on as the balls, belatedly realizing they were planets, began to be destroyed by the two figures moving faster than the eye could see.

The white spots were rapidly disappearing before all that was left was a single sun, the corpse of one of the figures, and one of the figures from the fight who looked on the verge of death.

"You are still too weak to see the rest, young one. You will know the rest in due time." The voice knocked Chaorn out of his shock as he could see white energy bursting out of his nose and ears just from having watched on.

Charon could feel as the rest of the vision was locked away within his soul, waiting for his strength to reach the required level necessary. His eyes opened with a flutter as he received knowledge on what he had seen behind that door.

"An afterlife, huh?" Charon could be heard muttering as he slowly got up.

The three people who had been silently watching as Charon had briefly fallen unconscious began to help him stand up. Charon had a maddening grin after the shock began to fade. His curiosity and desire for knowledge burned brighter than ever.

"What just happened?" The Butler stepped, genuinely confused for once.

"It seems that doing multiple rituals at once is a much more dangerous prospect than I first thought. This species being created was more my luck than me actually succeeding at something." Charon explained, slipping into research mode.

"What do you mean?" Hades tilted his head, wondering how that could be possible.

"It seems that I suffered the backlash of all three rituals at once after they ended. Causing my species to have certain issues, such as the vampires feral nature after going hungry and the liches need to absorb the lifeforce of a person in front of their phylactery." Charon calmly explained

"Except for us, it becomes that we need to feed constantly on souls or we lose ourselves to hunger when we see an untethered one." Hades finished as he realized the truth of the matter.

"Exactly. Who knows what other issues we will have. We will need to be aware of this issue as we try to understand our species more." Charon looked at the three men in front of him before wryly shaking his head.

"Anyways, I need to get some rest after tonight. Butler, can you dispose of that corpse?"

"Yes sir, Will you be talking to Adam tomorrow?"

"Yes, I will inform him of everything I have learned tonight."

The Butler then proceeded to grab the corpse before leaving with Charon's two other subordinates as Charon laid down in his bed staring up at the ceiling.