Rebirth

"Hah!"

Mark abruptly opened his eyes as he gasped greedily for air, only to realize he wasn't getting any.

'Huh?'

Confused, he looked at his own body and discovered something weird.

His body was still the same, but there was one difference, he could see through his own hand.

He noticed that not only his hands but his entire body were transparent as if he was a piece of glass.

Just as he was wondering what was happening, a sudden pain assaulted his mind and he let out a low grunt.

Memories started coming back to him like a flood, and his eyes slowly flashed a look of realization.

'Oh, I'm dead.'

He wasn't panicked by the realization but just sighed softly.

The last thing he remembered was piercing his own chest, and then an abominable creature appeared out of nowhere as his bodies dissolved into specks of light.

Mark was confused not only by what happened, but also himself.

This was because he had become one again.

...Almost.

When his soul split apart, for some reason the maniac version of him possessed knowledge on how to get out of his predicament.

Now that he had become nearly whole again, he couldn't help but wonder:

"How did I get this information?"

It was thanks to the information he received that he had known how to save himself, otherwise he would have been dead thoroughly or turned into a mindless puppet by now.

The even more peculiar thing was the bracelet he got from the old lady, for some reason it shone the mysterious red light the same as the abominable creature's eyes.

...It was too convenient, almost as if someone set up this whole fiasco.

'...Forget it, I need to know about the current situation first.'

Mark glanced around him and saw a deserted location with piles of rubbles that seemed to stretch hundreds of meters long.

He could see a few charred dead bodies in the distance as they were shown by the morning's sunlight.

He also saw a dead body under his feet and instantly recognized, it was his body.

He chuckled lightly and pity flashed in his eyes.

Despite looking at his own dead body, he wasn't feeling any sadness, pain, regret, or anger, but just pity.

It was as if he was looking at the dead body of a stranger.

...In fact, he was.

When the merging process began, his soul had already got rid of the parts of himself that were unsuitable for the two remnants.

So only two of his truest self remained, the rest had been removed and destroyed.

He could not be considered as a man who was once known as Mark anymore, but something different.

He shook his head lightly, it wasn't the time to care about who he was or what he was.

Mark held his chin with his right hand as he thought to himself:

'A battle seems to have occurred here, but this is the location of a government's base, why the bureaucrats aren't here yet?'

As he felt there was once again no answer to his questions, he decided to shift his attention onto something else.

He examined his surroundings carefully before concluding:

"Based on the position of the sun, it should be around 8:00 A.M to 9:00 A.M."

"And this should be the northwest area of the city, the abandoned section. Quite a convenient location for a secret base not going to lie."

Mark remained silent after that as he thought about his next objective and said:

"All right, I guess should return to my home first and-ARGHH!!"

He suddenly felt a scorching burn on the right side of his body as he let out a painful scream. He clenched his right chest tightly as he fell flat on the ground.

"ARGHHH!!!

As his screams resounded across the space, his right face slowly cracked before spreading to his entire right side.

Mark felt his thoughts turn messier and more chaotic by seconds as evil thoughts started filling up his mind, telling him to destroy and lay waste on everything there was.

The cracks on his right side started to become more and more abundant, until they completely shattered and revealed what was underneath.

Mark's right side instead of a human's regular features, was now a bunch of dirt-colored worms with sharp teeth protruding out of their mouths

They squirmed intensely as if trying to escape from something and let out the most jarring, inhuman shrieks Mark had ever heard:

"KYARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Mark was panicked by the appearance of the worms that replaced his right side with them.

Even though the existence of the worms and the evil thoughts in his mind scared Mark, he didn't let his panic overtake him as he slowly closed his left eye and took a calm breath even though he couldn't breathe any air.

He tried his best to concentrate on himself and chased the evil thoughts out of his mind.

After a long time, the worms that were squirming madly slowed down their movements gradually. Eventually, they settled down and Mark's right side returned to its original appearance.

He let out a sigh of relief before opening his eyes and lightly pushed his body to stand up.

'Evil spirit...' Mark thought to himself in annoyance.

When a living being died with its remnants fully remaining, it would become an evil spirit soon after.

Evil spirits were similar to Corrupted creatures that they were under constant corruption. But unlike most Corrupted creatures which were led by their bestial instincts, evil spirits formed a semblance of consciousness and their powers remained the same but they could no longer descend to another rank.

It could be said that evil spirits were a small lesser branch of Corrupted creatures in general.

Mark with unawakened Corrupted and Divine remnants in him could be considered a special kind of evil spirit.

Due to his tenacity and almost unwavering will, he managed to offset the corruption for now. But by his state of mind, he assumed he only had 3 days left before he becomes a pile of dirt worms.

'...Then I need to get a body, with a body I temporarily won't be in a state of an evil spirit anymore.'

An evil spirit could possess a body if they pleased, but on the condition that the body must share similarities to its former body, the body had died recently and another condition was required to make a body fully owned by an evil spirit.

Once possessing a body, he would not suffer from the corruption for the time being.

It would solve Mark's problem, for now. Until he could find a long-term solution.

That was also why Mark didn't consider possessing his now-dead body.

He held his chin in thought for a few moments, before deciding:

"My next objective will be the morgue then."

But before going to the morgue, he needed to drop by a certain place first.

....He had made up his mind about a certain matter regarding his identity and he wanted to tell the two most important kindreds in the world to him about it.

With his mind made up, he shifted his gaze to the southwest section of the city before slowly hovering above the air.

He flew straight to that direction without ever looking back at his own body.

...His silhouette got further and further away until it could no longer be seen.