A very normal technique

Moseying through the distant plains, I found myself a new companion trailing behind. After helping out the little girl, she for some odd reason started to follow me around, which made sense considering that she had just lost her home. The girl referred to herself as Lazari, a fairly demonic name.

We walked through the plains instead of using roads, as using roads was for sacrilegious partisans!

Speaking of sacrilegious partisans. There seemed to be a group of them ahead!

Well, let's just walk away from them. Nothing wrong with avoiding problems, or at least trying to.

…

"Heh, boss! Look over there!"

"I'm not blind, we're in open field godsdamnit!"

Looking over to two lost travellers in this field, excitement rushed through this group of brigands as they found new prey.

Experienced in maneuvering through the yellowed waist high grass, the brigands quickly encircled the two.

"Heh, I call dibs!"

Roused chatter and crude gossip spread through the brigands. Inspecting the two as if they were hand me downs from a pawnshop, in their eyes, the two were as good as theirs after all.

"Hm? The ass is wrong with her?"

In the midst of inspecting his new property, the boss immediately noticed an incongruence with these travellers.

Ignoring the sketchy looking dude for now, the girl seemed to be in a terrible condition. She was smeared all over in blood like she was dunked in the stuff, however, the blotches of deep crimson only emphasised her scarlet eyes, a motif of demonic beings. And, if the girl was a demon, it was highly likely that this sketchy man was a dark arts cultist, or perhaps even another demon.

His keen commander's eye wouldn't let go of such crucial details. He served in the army before he resorted to banditry after all, and he wouldn't be living all this time if he didn't know how to identify threats.

And this was most definitely a threat.

"Shaddup you retards! Open yer eyes, she's a bloody demon!"

Immediately warning his men, he had them loosen their encirclement and back away.

These two must be here for something.

"So, what does a dark artist have to do in these parts?"

…

Dark artist? Why does everyone call me that?

That doesn't even make sense! Dark artists are known for their life draining dark arts, not their black cloth ware!

"Sigh, we're just travelling,"

Watching the presumed leader of this group, he didn't seem to buy it. No, perhaps this is a checkpoint set up by the kingdom. It must be the case, this group seemed rather organised to be simple bandits immediately encircling the two. They definitely weren't bandits. Their encirclement was tight and their ranks were guarded, similar to the procedure followed by the military of the Moonshine Kingdom.

Sensing the truth of their identity, I tensed up as I executed a well thought out, rational plan…

Drop kicking the leader, I was highly successful in taking out their commander whilst also leaving the rest in a bewildered state. Pressing on this advantage, quickly silenced a nearby agent, presumably, the vice commander by forcibly inoculating my essence into him, causing the latter's own life essence to corrupt and slowly break down.

Similar to the method I used to mutilate that demi human before when I was in a ballistic state.

By injecting my own Heretic essence into other beings and have my essence spread like a virus unless they themselves were at a certain threshold of power, then their own essence would break down, ultimately leading to their deaths. It should also be noted that although this method of killing was fast and nigh irreversible, it also caused excruciating pain.

Unfortunately, the dark arts that dark artists used also caused a similar effect, visually at least. Seeing the poor soul shrivel up to a husk as parts withered off, only solidified the image of a dark arts cultist. It would cause many misunderstandings if I kept using this corrupting technique in the future.

Fear enveloped the brigands as they witnessed 'dark arts' firsthand. They were deserters of a noble's private army, so they were naturally cowards and this display was enough to make them consider dipping. In fact, a majority of them had already dipped, leaving the others behind.

Well, they wouldn't be going far with Lily chasing after them. She was really good at cleaning up. I guess birds were extremely hygienic animals.

"Urrg,"

Oh, seems like the commander is still conscious, gonna have to fix that. Placing my hand on him, I start pumping my essence into his body.

"HNyYaa!"

Mhm, we're gonna- we're gonna pretend we didn't hear that. Moving on, I turn around to find a blade slashing down at me. Sidestepping I allow it to sink into the corpse of their leader. What untrained units.

I've come to use any sort of weapon less frequently, noticing my heavy reliance on them, and remembering the fight against that Knight was embarrassing. The guy just refused to get hit, playing untouchable as he parried everything.

Sigh, so instead, I sucker punched the unit in front of me, when I would have usually forked out his intestines. Nonetheless, the guy just falls to the ground while spasming. As long as I fight unarmed, I can easily corrupt anyone's essence, which seems really scummy now that I think about it. Not even my ancestors did this, but that was probably because they didn't have a chance to, rather they could just crush people this weak with their presence alone.

Alright, looks like they were about to target Lazari, but after my display, they seemed to back off. That was perfect as it allowed me to kill them, but without the hassle. Hmm, but it seemed Lazari wasn't taking this chance, after her display the previous day I would have thought she'd killed these guys by now.

Oh, actually, she might need to be cleaned up, after all, all that blood coagulating on her clothes might be really uncomfortable, making her unwilling to make any strenuous movements. We should have cleaned her up before leaving the village.

I really am a cruel person, aren't I?