I moved through the forest like I'd never touched the ground.
The air around me parted with each step, no drag, no weight, no friction. It felt… unreal. Like I was gliding rather than walking. So this is what it felt like, the power of the divines. The controlled kind. Not the madness that came with palm wine, not the blood-laced rage that robbed me of my will. This was different.
I could feel every root before I stepped on it, every breeze before it touched me.
It had taken me the whole day, but I'd finally done it—I had aligned with my Fallen Essence.
Base alignment.
Tela hadn't exaggerated.
It was the greatest challenge I had ever faced.
Alignment wasn't some divine moment of clarity. It wasn't peace. It wasn't grace. No, alignment meant corruption. It meant giving myself to the darkness that I'd been trying to suffocate since that night. It meant allowing myself to feel it all again.
The rage.
The lust for violence.
The joy.
Yes, joy.
That was the part that broke me.
The sheer, terrifying joy my Fallen self felt as it tore through Morduks. Or worse, when it ripped through the people I loved. One scream after another. One flesh after the next. The memories weren't just visions. They came with feeling. Emotion. Hunger. Satisfaction.
And to align… I had to accept all of that as my own.
Not blame the palm wine.
Not pretend it was something separate.
It was me.
That rage was mine.
That hunger was mine.
Those screams, they were mine to carry.
So I did. I let it in. Not fully, but enough. Just enough to gain base alingment.
I wasn't ready to do it again. Not yet.
The mental toll was heavy, like dragging chains through my own mind. I could barely handle it once. Doing it again could break something in me.
So I had to make what energy I'd gained count.
I had destroyed all the new shrines in the southwest zone. They were the source of the Voro increase, and now that they were gone, the numbers should reduce, slightly. But there was still more work. Now, I was moving through the southeast, already killing small clusters of Voros as I advanced.
Until something hit me.
One moment I was moving, the next I was flying through trees, crashing into a thick trunk with a sound that split the air. My back hit the bark first, and then the world tilted. The sheer force cleared a clean path through the underbrush as I tumbled across dirt and root.
I lay still for a moment, trying to understand what just happened.
For something to stop me mid-movement…
I rose slowly, brushing bark from my skin. My thigh stung, still healing, but that wasn't what I was focused on. No, I was looking ahead.
They were approaching. I could feel them before I saw them.
Two figures.
Not quite human.
Not quite Fallen either… or not fully, at least.
Their features were wrong. Twisted in subtle ways.Their skin held the shade of ash left under a dying flame.Their eyes, layered pupils like Prince Lu's, but not cracked. Not as commanding. Not as terrifying by sight alone.
Their spikes didn't match mine. I remembered how I looked after drinking palm wine, mine were heavier, sharper, more pronounced. Spikes spread like jagged thorns across my forearms. Theirs were different. Smaller. Sleeker. Two blade-like protrusions jutting from their wrists like the fangs of a beast.
They walked side by side—calm. Confident. Like they had been expecting me.
I didn't let them close the distance. I met them halfway and stopped several paces ahead.
"Who are you?" I said, my voice low but steady.
One of them tilted his head slightly. Then looked to his partner, a smirk forming.
"So this is the one born with the Fallen Essence," he said, voice calm and sharp like metal drawn from a sheath. "He doesn't look Fallen to me."
The other nodded slowly, eyes narrowing with curiosity. "Strange… he's not transformed. But he's using the power. You see that? We couldn't manage that. Not without turning."
They studied me. Not with fear. more like intrigue.
"Is that your birthright?" he asked. "The gift of being born Fallen? You don't even look like one of us."
I didn't answer. I was still watching them. Every twitch. Every word. Their scent was different. Their movement too. These weren't possessed humans.
"You know who I am. I don't know who you are. Since you're clearly here for me, it's only fair I get to knowthe ones after me. Or at least address you with the respect you deserve."
The amused one raised a brow, and was about to speak, but the other held up a hand to stop him.
"He asked politely," he said. "So we'll answer. Besides, it's better that our captive knows the names of his captors."
"We're Freshbloods of Prince Xari," he said proudly.
Fresh bloods? I wondered. Did fresh mean they were new to this… like me?
I asked, and the one who'd been answering my questions smiled. "Good catch on the details. You're partially correct. Fresh means we're at the bottom of the hierarchy."
I nodded. "So did your prince—Xari—send you to birth these Voros here? Why?"
He shook his head, almost amused. "Prince Xari wouldn't waste his time on these pathetic Divines. No… our orders came from someone else."
I narrowed my eyes. So he wasn't going to say who.
"Then tell me this," I said, voice low. "Would I be wrong to assume it was just the two of you… who caused all this?"
He smirked. "Why? Surprised? You shouldn't be. This is what we're made for. We may not be born Fallen like you… but trust me," he tilted his head slightly, eyes gleaming, "we're just as deadly."
"I see," I said, stepping forward. I had gotten all the answers I believed they could give me, so the only thing left was to get straight to business. "Well then... I'm yours for the taking."
That caught them off guard.
They exchanged glances, clearly not expecting me to surrender, but they didn't question it. Instead, they moved. Fast.
Together they charged. Their speed was decent, maybe a quarter of mine back when I first aligned. Quick enough to test me, but nowhere near enough to match.
As they got close, I pivoted just in time, grabbing the one on the left and slamming him hard into the ground. The impact cracked the earth. He recovered quickly, striking my chest with a powerful blow that launched me back through the woods.
Even if my raw strength dwarfed theirs, even if they couldn't keep up physically, their coordination made them dangerous.
They came again. No pause. We clashed through trees and dirt, striking and countering, shoving and evading. If normal men watched us, they'd struggle to follow, it was constant motion, like shadows in war, never stopping in one place.
They each tried to stab me with their wrist spikes. I had no intention of letting that happen. I didn't know what effect their spikes carried, but if they were anything like Major Deji's dagger, which poisoned, I couldn't afford to find out.
No Bleeding Mercy. No spikes. Just bare fists and instinct.
I fought with everything around me, snapping branches, shattering trunks, grabbing and hurling what I could. A broken tree. A handful of rock. Anything. But I could feel it—the Fallen energy in me was fading. I'd been using it since the Southwest zone. They had a limit too. I could tell. Their movements had started to slow, their strikes slightly less crisp. And yet, their bodies kept changing. They were transforming more with each passing moment.
Whatever the reason was, I knew one thing: My time was running out. If I was going to survive this, I had to break their formation. Split their rhythm. Make them blind to what I'd do next.
So I did something reckless.
I charged forward, not away. Straight between them.
They reacted like I hoped, momentarily staggered, unsure which of them I was targeting.
I slammed my shoulder into the one on the right, throwing him into a thick tree. Bark shattered. Before the other could react, I twisted and grabbed him mid-step, he was just a little too slow, and in that blink, I wrapped my arm around his neck and snapped it clean with a sharp, brutal jerk.
The sound cracked through the trees. His body went limp.
One down.
The other was already recovering, roaring as he watched his comrade fall. The calm precision was gone. replaced by pure rage. Fallen rage. Whatever composure or trained discipline he had vanished in an instant.
Exactly as I intended.
He sprinted back in. Fast. Reckless. His spikes gleamed, wild and desperate, ready to pierce.
But I met him with something worse.
I ripped the arm clean from the corpse at my feet, the bone cracked, the flesh tore, and before the charging one could close the distance, I spun with the severed limb and drove its wrist spike straight into his chest.
He froze mid-stride. Eyes wide.
It sank in deep.
Then his body twitched. Convulsed.
Whatever that spike carried, it was working.
I stepped back and watched.
His body began to twitch, violently. The color drained from his skin. The spikes receded. The glow in his eyes faded. Bit by bit, whatever energy had fueled him was being sucked out, until all that remained was a broken, half-human, barely able to stand.
So that was the effect.
The spike didn't just wound, it drained. It pulled the energy from your core and left you dry. Vulnerable.
I walked up to him, calm now. He looked at me, barely conscious. No words. Just fear.
I placed my hand on his jaw.
And broke his neck clean.
Silence.
Both lay at my feet. Still.
I didn't feel victorious. Just... steady. Resolved. They were threats. Now they weren't.
But their existence confirmed something troubling. There were more like me. And some were far more experienced.
I tried to continue my task, but the truth hit me, I was out of Fallen energy.
I paused and assessed the situation. The Southwest zone had been cleared. The voro numbers were down, their birthing grounds destroyed. The two who had been creating the shrines, assuming they were the only ones, were now dead.
By that analysis, I had done my part. I had enough energy left for one last act. Not another battle. Just a retreat.
I could return to the center and Rest.
Aligning again wasn't an option. Not now. Aside from how mentally taxing and time-consuming it was, I didn't want to rely on another pill either. Who knew when next I'd see Tela Osupa? I had to manage what I had left, preserve what little advantage I still carried. Maybe, when we meet again, he'll have more for me.
For now, I'd leave the rest to Major Deji and the others. They were capable.
With that plan in mind, I turned and ran. Every last drop of Fallen energy in me went into that retreat.