Haru imdiately closed his right eye, wincing in pain.
"Ouch! Sothing got in... dust... shit..."
He rubbed his eye forcefully, feigning irritation.
"Are you alright?" Isabela asked worriedly.
"Yeah, yeah... I’ll just... keep it closed for now."
"I need to learn to control this eye..." he thought desperately. "If Flavius sees, if the Custodians find out... I don’t know if this represents danger or anything, but until then it’s better to avoid it."
Flavius observed for a second but agreed. "Alright. Split up then. We’ll cover more ground that way."
He pointed in different directions.
"Isabela, you go east. Kira, west. I’ll stay in the center with Yukihi. Haru..." Flavius looked at him, still rubbing his eye. "...you go north. Smaller area, fewer spirits. Can you manage?"
"I can."
They separated.
And when Haru was alone among the tombstones, far from Flavius’s eyes... He opened his right eye again, and saw the spirits with absolute clarity, and above all, felt intense hunger.
...
He walked among the tombstones with his right eye completely black, seeing spirits with a clarity that enchanted lenses could never provide.
A weak spirit wandered nearby, a translucent shadow of an old man, moving slowly, without purpose.
Haru approached.
The spirit noticed, turned, its blurry humanoid form gaining details by the second: wrinkled face, empty eyes, mouth open in a silent scream.
It attacked.
The fight was quick, absurdly quick.
The spirit ca running with its hands raised to grab Haru.
Haru dodged sideways, slashing with Vorath. The blade passed through the ethereal form, but the spirit scread, energy dispersing.
"Is this... Master Rank?" Haru thought, confused. "It’s weaker than Vorath..."
The spirit fell to its knees, its form beginning to dissolve. Haru looked at the agonizing spirit.
Haru picked up the consecrated flask, but stopped.
He looked at the spirit, then at the glowing core within it, a small sphere of condensed energy that pulsed weakly at the center of the ethereal form.
"Looks like... a dungeon core."
*HUNGER* whispered his spirits, hungry in his mind.
*WE CAN EAT. WE MUST EAT.*
Haru put away the vial and reached out to the spirit.
It was instinctive; sothing inside him KNEW he could, that he always had been able to, that the Devouring Covenant wasn’t just about dungeon cores but about energy in general.
He pierced the spirit’s ethereal chest with his fingers.
Haru’s hand passed through the translucent form as if plunging into icy water.
He felt the core, solid, warm, pulsing, and pulled.
And as he pulled, the entire spirit began to be sucked in, the ethereal form compressing, entering the small core Haru held, the old body turning into mist turning into light turning into nothing except that tiny sphere the size of a marble, shining pale blue in the palm of his hand.
It was small compared to Vorath’s core; this had been the size of a fist. It fit between two fingers.
Haru brought it to his mouth and swallowed.
The spirit couldn’t resist, it entered. Not just as energy... but as mory.
Haru had flashes of mory:
*Pain, stab in the chest, betrayal, "why you..."
*Fear, darkness coming, I don’t want to die, not yet...
*Last mont, blood in his mouth, cold ground, alone
Haru staggered back, his hand going to his chest as if he had been stabbed too.
His breathing faltered, dizziness, voices echoing in his head, not his, the other’s, the spirit’s, fragnted mories mixing with his own.
"He... was a rchant... was murdered... died alone in an alley..."
Information ca in flashes: the killer’s face, the body’s location, hidden money that was never recovered.
```
[QUEST UPDATE: Devouring Covenant]
◊ Consus 100 Dungeon Cores.
◊ Progress: 1.001 / 100
```
Haru looked at the number... ’1.001.’ The thing had gone up another 0.001.
"That ans... if I eat 100 spirits, I’ll have 1 complete dungeon core..."
He took off his enchanted glasses; they seed to obstruct more than help now that his black eye saw perfectly. He looked around the cetery and saw through the fog.
There weren’t just twenty-three runaway spirits.
The cetery was teeming with them, dozens, maybe hundreds, accumulated over years, spirits that were never purified, wandering forgotten among the tombstones.
The fog covering everything prevented others from seeing what he was doing. Because of the distance and the mist, he couldn’t see Flavius, Isabela, or Kira.
He was alone. "I can... farm here."
10 spirits, tolerable.
Haru hunted thodically. He would cut it open, extract the core, and swallow it.
Each one brought flashes of mory: violent death, slow illness, sudden accident, but he could separate those that were theirs and those that weren’t his... Yet.
Progress: 1,010 / 100
30 spirits, it starts to affect him, the dizziness returned stronger.
mories began to mix, he rembered things he had never lived. The face of a son he never had. The sll of food he never ate. The sensation of being stabbed three tis in different places.
"Which of these deaths was... mine?" He stopped, taking a deep breath. "None. I’m alive. I’m alive."
He continued.
Progress: 1,030 / 100
50 spirits, the boundary begins to blur.
Haru pursued a spirit that seed stronger than the others, not just a shadow, but a form with details: light armor, a dagger at its waist, agile movents.
A rcenary.
The fight lasted longer. The spirit counterattacked with real skill, dodges, thrusts, trained combat patterns, but Haru won.
He extracted the core, swallowed it, and this ti... overload.
mories exploded in his mind:
Twenty years of career. Fifty contracts. Twelve deaths by his own hands. Combat techniques. Escape routes. rcenary codes. Final betrayal. Poisoned. Agonizing for three days.
Haru scread, not from physical pain, but from ntal overload, he fell to his knees clutching his head.
"I AM HARU MIZUKI."
"...no, I’m Gareth, a rcenary of the Black Company..."
"NO! I AM..."
"...Marcus, a rchant, I have three children..."
"...Elaine, I died of fever at twelve..."
"...HARU! MY NA IS HARU!"
The system alerted.
```
[WARNING]
◊ Spiritual contamination
◊ Continued consumption may result in:
- Permanent mory fragntation
- Loss of self-identity
- Psychological collapse
◊ RECOMNDATION: STOP IMDIATELY
```
But the hunger didn’t stop. "More. I need more." Haru tried to get up, staggering and trembling, searching for the nearest spirit, seeming to be losing her sanity, until...
"MASTER! Master!" Kira’s voice cut through the fog, bringing Haru’s sanity back to life.
She appeared running between the tombstones, her maid outfit dirty with earth, scratches on her arm, clearly having co from a real fight. She stopped when she saw Haru.
He was crouched down, reliving mories, hand on the ground, breathing irregularly, his right eye completely black, leaking darkness, sweat dripping.
"Master... what..." Kira approached, then stopped.
She sniffed the air, her ears flattened. "Master..." her voice ca out low, frightened, "...your scent has changed."
Haru slowly stood up, turned to her.
Kira stared at the master, black eye, different presence, sothing wrong emanating from him.
The scent was no longer just Haru. It was Haru mixed with dozens of others, layers of death and mory clinging to him like an invisible second skin.
"It’s alright." Haru said, but his voice ca out strange, his own, but with an echo of others underneath.
He placed his hand on her head, smiling.
"How many did you catch?" She tried to cut off the worry, change the subject.
But Kira didn’t seem relieved.
She continued looking into his eyes, one a normal gray, the other surrounded by pure black.
"Master... what are you doing?" Her voice trembled. "Nothing’s right... sothing tells nothing’s right..."
Haru was about to answer when she sensed a presence.
She turned.
A strong spirit stood five ters behind her, not a shadow, not a distortion, but a presence, almost solid: a tall man in full armor, a long sword in his hand, eyes gleaming ice-blue.
But it didn’t attack, it only observed.
And then it spoke, its voice echoing as if from a deep well:
"You... are not alive."
Kira pulled out the daggers Gandloaf had given her; she saw nothing but felt a great deal... "Master, there’s sothing around..."
Haru held Vorath, but the spirit didn’t move.
It continued staring at Haru with those luminous eyes, its head tilting slightly.
"Sothing inside you... devours. Sothing that shouldn’t exist in the world of the living."
He paused.
"You carry hunger within you. Not just hunger as a concept... but hunger as an entity."
Haru’s dark eye pulsed.
The spirit smiled, not a friendly smile, but recognition.
"Ah... I understand now."
He raised his sword.
"You are an abomination."
The spirit held the sword raised for a few seconds, staring intently at Haru, but did not attack... it took a small step back, but enough.
"...I understand."
The blade lowered slowly.
"You are not the problem."
Kira remained motionless. "Master...?"
"You are the vessel."
Haru clenched his teeth. "What are you talking about?"
"Answer !" Haru took a step forward.
The spirit rely smiled slightly.
"Necromancers play with the dead... but you..."
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