Unlike the flourishing thick forests of Northern Kazdel, the rest of the country shared the unique land identifies one would attribute to a savannah, earthen tones decorating the ground as far as the eye could see. What little plant life that hadn't been trodden upon by fleeing civilians, arm-carrying troops, or even eaten away by desperate starving stragglers, consisted of only bare trees needing a rain cloud. A week without even the smallest hint of water showed through the image of dry earth, loose soil being picked up by the morning wind and carried off in small clouds to batter some poor fool's face.
The sun only highlighted the abuse the land had taken, with the ruined town contributing to create a post-apocalyptic scene. If one were to glance left or right, all they would be greeted with would be rustic abandoned buildings. The general architecture wasn't anything grand, as the area used to be a backwater civilian town, with the buildings either being one-story or two-story. The composition of the one-story houses was mainly of wood, whereas the double story held a mix of stone to comprise the first floor and then wood to make the second.
Originally the town was called Reix, a location that was only suitable for raising grazing farm animals or makeshift retirement lounges for the old. It bore no political or financial significance, but that mattered little to the faction of marauders supporting Theresis. What more could that specific unit be called?
The ruffians had broken down the doors of harmless civilians, forcefully took supplies for their "cause", raped any unsuspecting women, and basically ransacked the town. The previous residents had fled the best they could but it seemed a few had fought back against the intruding Sarkaz warriors. The small spark of defiance seemed to ignite the cruelty of the warriors, as they slaughtered any helpless they could get their hands on. In their eyes, a Sarkaz not willing to give away their meager supplies and actively fighting back meant they were apart of the opposing faction, no ifs or buts.
Now, days after the raid, the town was empty and broken, doors to houses caved in, carts overturned on the road with the occasional Sarkaz body staring up into the brightening sky with muddled eyes, face's contorted from their death throes. The rays of the sun merely uncovered the blatant cruelty one's own countrymen can inflict upon each other.
This bleak scene was reflected in the astral eyes of a translucent being sitting on the dilapidated roof of a two-story building. For hours he had stared up into the sky contemplating his past and wondering what his next move should be. He had traveled across Kazdel for roughly two years, trying to pad his nest egg by wandering behind the never-ending trail of death the clashing civil war factions left behind. If one were to equate his job in a more flowery tone, he reasoned he could list his job as a "Treasure Hunter" on a work resume. But the reality in Kazdel was far from the cotton candy optimism one would see in the eyes of a rich feline. No, he knew, along with the rest of the world, that he was basically a dirty grave robber, pilfering what hadn't already been scavenged and selling any notable goods on the black market. A less than proud profession, but considering his work allowed him to venture into the battlefield AFTER the fighting was over meant his chances of death were slightly lower than average for a local Sarkaz male. He didn't need to fight tooth and nail for a pointless war, and if he scavenged enough he could earn more than the average mook mercenary. Frankly, what was the point of being a mercenary if he died before he got paid or even used the money?
Looking out towards the rising sun one last time, he figured it was time to return to his body and get a move on out of the town, as most of the goods had already been pillaged. Like a ghost, he levitated from his seated position on the wooden roof and phased through it to enter the room housing his temporary vessel. His Art ability was ever helpful in surviving the hellhole that was Terra, but it came with many annoying steps to properly function and held some less than desirable side-effects, One effect essentially being almost permanent insomnia, or the inability to fall into unconsciousness. Ninety-nine percent of the time, when he needed to "rest" his current vessel his "mind" would be ejected from the body. Luckily there were no real adverse side-effects, as the ejection felt more akin to a real-time lucid dream with his body attaining the full benefits of sleep. The moment he re-entered his body both his psyche and flesh would feel refreshed. It was odd but it was his ability, an ability that had taken close to over twenty years to fully understand.
Frankly, he used the term "Art" extremely loosely considering the populace who used said magic system, were; one native of the planet Terra, and two, living flesh....he sorta wasn't. At one point he certainly recalled being human on a planet on Earth, even understanding that the world "Terra" was typically depicted in various fiction-based media. His recollection of life on Earth was spotty at best, only memories tied to heavy emotions being the most vivid, but he certainly knew he died on a hospital bed after contracting a new mutated strain of some fancy virus. Beyond the despair-filled days of understanding his death was looming ever closer, he spent his time wandering the internet and playing various games. After finally biting the dust in his hospital room, everything became hazy and his memories became more akin to a PowerPoint slide show.
Parsing through the fragments slides merely gave him a sense of....floating? There were many scenes of flying through the air in some storm surrounded by small crystal fragments, although anything pertaining to feelings of touch, smell, and sound wasn't present in the memory. The last scene he remembered of floating in the sky, was a panoramic shot of a town with people running. Afterward, he awoke in some furry child's body, with a small chunk of crystal sticking out of his chest. Hysteria, acceptance, and experimentation ensued until he realized that the child's body wasn't his per se and his original body was actually he chunk of crystal sticking out of his "vessel's" chest. To put his life crisis in a signaller sentence, he was something akin to a sentient super cancer giving crystal that held the capability to hijack bodies...oh joy. In hindsight, he supposed he possessed more of an innate "racial" ability as opposed to a personnel Art....
Mentally sighing he figured it was time to stop parsing through memory lane and actually get a move on. A glance at the room that housed his body showed it to be something akin to a master bedroom with a large bed, most likely intended for a husband and spouse. The night dresser showed a singular picture of a devil couple, who to his knowledge were no longer alive. During his entry into the town, only once the fires had petered out, one corpse he passed shared the same masculine features the husband in the picture showcased. If the wife was lucky she would have used the man's sacrifice to escape....or become a plaything to be discarded later. Shaking his astral head, he ignored the rest of the sparsely decorated bedroom and gazed at his current vessel, a standard, if slightly taller than average, specimen of the devil species.
Compared to the average height of pure humans, devil males tended to be hulking displays of testosterone, with his current vessel being little different. Clad in earthen camouflage from head to toe, his vessel easily passed eight-foot, and held muscles upon muscles. The closest approximation he assumed he could make would be to a human wrestler roided with every performance-enhancing drug available on the market. Strength-wise, the base body could easily lift a fully grown human male and toss them like garbage across the room. Unfortunately, by the time he "awoke" in the vessel, the man was already nearing the late stages of Oripathy, causing the movements of his body to become stiffer. If any other Terra-ian were in his position they would likely be fearing their impending death. Him? He frankly didn't care as his "racial" talent already granted him pseudo-immortality, and it allowed him to aid in moving even the more...troublesome bodies.
Lining himself horizontally over his vessel, he slowly lowered his astral being into the disease-ridden body. His mind wandered as the fusion began, recalling the history of the current vessel. The body wasn't extravagant along any means, merely another Sarkaz mercenary who acquired a very specific affliction of Oripathy, that immediately contaminated his brain allowing his spirit to usurp control over the Sarkaz that was once known as Kazar. What memories of his host body he could parse through showed Kazar to be extremely patriotic to the cause of the true King of Kazdel, willing to fight until the bitter end if need be. A very commendable fellow, and no doubt he was missed by those close to him when he suddenly dropped off the face of the Terra. But that was the least of the new "Kazar's" problems. Reminiscing could be done later, it was time to get up.
Situated in his body, eyelids erupted open to allow his vision to filter through the visored helmet he wore. Every inch of his body was covered, in order to hide the body's original identity from fellow Sarkaz who remembered the old Kazar. Others in his situation would cover themselves to hide the later stages of biohazardous crystal that would sprout from their body. However, considering he was the disease crystal in question, or at least the portion infecting this vessel, he could control whether or not he wanted the disease to progress throughout the body.
He could technically control the vessel even if the life signs ceased due to Oriptahy, but the body would rot eventually and any finer movement would degrade in time. The only reason he allowed some portion of crystal to form in his vessel, beyond the controlling node in the brain, was to use it as fuel for the innate Arts each one of his vessels possibly carried, such as the current one which was standard Strength Augmentation. Kazar still preferred not to utilize the Arts of his Vessel if need be due to the fact he was technically burning himself to fuel the Arts. It was more a phantom pain than anything else, but the idea of purposely igniting himself for more power still weighed on his already morally grey psyche.
Slowly, he raised himself off the rough staw filled bed, flexing his neck to iron out any kinks. Everything seemed bodily in place at the moment, heartbeat check, nervous system check, limb dexterity check. His parasitic self was ready for another day of bland grave robbing across the hellhole that was Kazdel, but today he knew there was a guest downstairs waiting for him. He chuckled, a throaty sound made from barely used vocal cords, at the idea of someone wanting to hunt him down, considering he hadn't been in the spotlight of any battles.
Alas, it seemed he was "too" good at being a grave robber. It wasn't as if there weren't others like him taking advantage of the turmoil to make a quick credit, yet the issue most likely stemmed from his performance of consistently selling pilfered goods at high volume. Everyone understood the necessity of making a living during the hell that was the Sarkez civil war, but actively pilfering the belongings of deceased members of your own kind still left a bad stigma. His performance merely made him akin to a "nail that stuck its head too far out and needed to be hammered down."
Earlier in the night, as he was stargazing in his astral form, he had noticed a lone figure creeping through the night like a burglar looking for their next heist. Momentarily he figured the person was a grave robber like him, coming to sniff out any valuables left behind by marauders. Yet, instead of wandering the desolate town, they made a beeline straight toward the building he was housed in.
Intrigued, he had floated down and watched the hooded individual scope out the lower floor. Once satisfied they began setting up a booby trap along the base of the stairs, the only normal exit from the second floor where he slept. It seemed a lone bounty hunter or some poor person he offended had come to seek his head. A part of him wondered how long he had his tail but a larger majority of him didn't care enough to truly figure out when it happened.
Kazar reasoned someone finally took offense and put a bounty on him. He would have to check the station to make sure, but likely it was a pitiful amount as most of the higher bounties were being placed on any devils that were running amok on the battlefields. The only reason someone would bother with a pitiful bounty of a grave robber during these troubling times would be the truly desperate or newbies starting out who needed a quick credit to buy better supplies. Kazar didn't mind being hunted, he didn't even care about dying at the hands of his hunter since death was only a temporary thing for him. Still, living in the hell that was Terra had instilled some twisted sense of pride in him. If someone wanted to take his life, then he would make it horrifically hard for them and possibly even get the last laugh by turning them into his new vessel. He wasn't crazy, no. He was merely sane in a world that was crazy.....he needed to see a shrink. Ideally one could argue his...acceptance of being a miniature mind-controlling plague was fueled by the necessity to adapt in the cruel world that was Terra, but he knew he wasn't fully sane ever since he spent weeks wailing about his illness back on Earth. Just because you accept your incoming death doesn't mean you enjoy it.
Thus, with a small curse, he hefted his duffel bag of stolen goods over his shoulder and proceeded to make as much noise as he could he lumbered across the bedroom to untangle the small tripwire he fastened along the base of the bedroom door. It was time to see what the newbie hunter could dish out with ample time for planning. Utilizing his vessel's innate Strength Augmentation, he excessively pounded his boot-clad feet along the wooden floor to announce his presence to those below. If the hunter downstairs had enough decency to wait for him to get enough beauty sleep, it was common courtesy to play the game they wanted to enjoy. Like any fighter entering a ring it was time for him to put on a show.....it seemed the numerous wrestling matches the hospital showed on TV left a mark on him.
Did, he need to make his presence known? No
Could he escape through the window and avoid the people downstairs? Yes
Why was he planning to go headfirst into trouble....well even he didn't truly know. Kazar felt his decision-making was slightly being affected by his vessel's base personality, who always went into a fight headfirst, but he also knew he wasn't exactly sane any longer. Constant cycles of pain and death had numbed him to the concept of danger. He just wanted to enjoy life but his surroundings irked him to the point of throwing caution to the wind sometimes, especially when people actively came looking for him to cause trouble. Simmering anger burned in his chest at the injustice of the world, and he was frankly tired of running... he did enough of that during his earlier vessels. If he was going to be hunted down for nothing, he would meet death with his head held high..
In a perfect world, he would pound away on the ground, lumbering as the behemoth he was and announce downstairs the error of his enemy's way. Some bickering would ensue, then he would come out triumphant. Unfortunately, reality seemed to hate him as with the sound of cracking and splintering wood his right foot went through the floor, followed by his thigh and then finally the entirety of his lower half as the hole enlarged. In a sense, he attained his "Dramatic" entry, ass first for all his enemies to gander at....
"Fuck my life."
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She was tired of waiting for the idiot upstairs to wake up, even the lone bottle of pig swell that wasn't broken barely lifted her mood.
For a week she had spent her previous time hunting down some grave robber who robbed the wrong grave. Personally, she didn't care much for the profession, hell she partook in a bit of grave robbing to earn some extra change from time to time, a growing girl needed to eat.
Apparently, her mark pilfered the corpse of some semi-wealthy Sarkez family, the distraught wife of the dead guy going in hysterics when she found out the grave robber in question was selling her husband's "anniversary" locket. Frankly, it surprised her to find people still holding onto such emotions of love in the shit hole that was Kazdel. It made her sick seeing those people, oblivious to their surroundings....it had nothing to do with the fact, no one had ever bothered to truly show a glimpse of positive emotion toward her.
Taking a rough gulp of the cheap booze, to get her mind on track, she wiped the wet drops clinging to her lips as she focused on her target.
The grave robber in question seemed to be a well-built Sarkez male, who came out of nowhere and started getting into the dark night robbery scene. What made him stand out was the fact he was a fairly well-built man who didn't partake in the standard mercenary business and was satisfied with picking up scraps along the battlefield. She would scoff at the cowardice of the man if it wasn't for the killing he was making from selling his stolen goods. Unlike the standard malnutrition stragglers who tried to pick the battlefield clean, the man seemed to be physically strong and paranoid enough to set up traps in the vicinity of wherever he was. In her opinion the man essentially became the Toad at the bottom of a well, getting fat off scraps with only tadpoles to contest against him. Begrudgingly she had to acknowledge the man for finding his own chunk of success in the blasted war that ravaged the land. She was a pragmatist at heart and the man showed that in spades.
It still annoyed her that he was getting fat off scraps while she busted her ass trying to get in the mercenary business. She spent years living in the war-torn country, trying to survive and it was only now with her newly matured appearance that outposts were taking her seriously enough to allow her to take requests....even if the first request was off a rich widow who wanted revenge. Rich being the relative word here, considering the woman only put a measly 8,000 lmd bounty on the grave robber. Seriously lady, did you care about your husband or not?
If it wasn't for the fact she needed to complete the job to pad her "resume", and get some change for some new weapons she wouldn't have bothered chasing down the night owl to some random countryside town that was just ravaged. Was the man part-night Liberi for Terra sake? The fucker, messed up her already shitty sleep schedule.
"Sigh"
Glancing around the torn-up bar that was likely the town's only place to get booze, she figured at least she was able to finally track the man down. Personally, she would have loved to go upstairs and kill the man in his sleep, but she wasn't stupid. One didn't sleep in Kazdel without either being a part of a group or setting up traps around the vicinity for any skulking intruders. Earlier, she spent half her time checking the ground floor for any tripwires or traps that would alert her prey upstairs. There weren't any but she didn't feel like testing her luck by going upstairs. It would be safer to lay a trap by the stairs and let the man kill himself with her makeshift pole trap. The moment the man would trip the wire, it would send a volley of sharpened poles she hide across the floor nearby. Basically, it was a crude catapult system, with the poles sharp enough to pierce standard leather armor. As far as she knew, her target didn't bother wearing metal plating and traveled light, so the poles should be enough to cause harm.
Idly toying with the bottle in her hand, she knew some sharpened poles wouldn't be enough to kill a Sarkez unless it was a headshot. At most, it would be a debilitating inconvenience, something which was easily rectified by the fast-acting paralytic poison applied to both the poles and her primary knives.
She wished she held the funds to buy some of the more explosive weaponry she'd seen some other mercenary's use but alas, she was dirt poor at the moment with most of her savings going toward the poison. Too much commitment had been spent on the man she tracked, and she needed the pay off quickly or she would be forced to scrounge up some goods on the battlefield or steal it off another.
*Bang*
Glancing toward the wooden ceiling she smiled.
It seemed her next meal ticket had awoken, and he was full of energy. Getting up from the uncomfortable stool, that hadn't been smashed to pieces, she figured she should take shelter behind the ruined bar. If everything went accordingly to plan the man would trigger the trap once he stepped on the last stair step, activating the catapults and tagging him with paralytic venom. She would wait for the poison to affect his movements and go in for the kill. In all likely hood, she couldn't drag the whole corpse across the countryside to a local mercenary outpost by herself, so she would be forced to carry only the head and some other identifiers to prove it was the grave robber in question.
Waltzing over to the bar, her calm mood was interrupted by the sounds of demolished wood originating above her head. Pupils dilated as she quickly cataloged her surroundings, choosing to dive behind the bar for some semblance of cover. Once the flimsy piece of furniture was ready to act as an impromptu barrier against her attacker, she unsheathed her knife from the waist with practiced ease. It was a standard combat knife painted in two gray tones, her partner that had been with her ever since she pillaged her first mercenary corpse. The blade was old, but she made sure it was still sharp enough to gut any adversaries in her way.
It seemed the grave robber wasn't satisfied with her carefully laid out plan and came to meet her head-on. Normally she would be hesitant to get into a straight-up 1v1 fight with only a knife, but her sheath had previously been coated with the earlier used paralytic poison, giving her knife a healthy coating of the stuff. All she needed to win was to stab the man a few times, dance away from his blows, and wait for the poison to spread through his circulatory system.
Smiling she cautiously raised herself to take in the view of the grave robber, prepped to battle. The scene she saw beyond the old bar table made her smile freeze beneath her bandanna.
The man had certainly broken through the roof, but instead of fully breaking through, only the man's lower half dangled from the wooden planks. Her eyes were graced with the view of the man's cargo pant-clad ass, staring her down at her. She could feel a small twitch begin to formulate on her cheek as a muffled voice broke the silence that had permeated the awkward scene.
"*Cough* Um....to whoever downstairs..I don't suppose we can talk civilly? The door to the room is not booby-trapped so feel free to come upstairs and talk to me...face to face as opposed to the current...situation. *Cough* Maybe we can come to an agreement that doesn't involve my death? "
She felt the corners of her mouth twitch as she tried to contain her mirth at the scene before her. Certainly, it was a first for her to be spoken to in such a...unique way. Honestly, she figured she should feel offended by being literally talked down to by an ass, but it truly was too funny. Still, she assumed she could humor the man before killing him, maybe he truly did have something to bargain with. Glancing at the pole trap she knew it would take time to dismantle the contraption to get at least one pole, and those were the only weapons nearby that could reach the man's lower half poking out of the ceiling.
True, she could use her throwing knives to stab the stationary man but she would prefer not to have to clean her cherished knives rigorously after shanking a man straight up his colon.
Was she capable of doing it? Absolutely, she didn't give a fuck, dead was dead. Money was money.
But, if needless things could be avoided she would at least try....it really depended on what the man could offer her. Besides the way the man's lower half was squirming already lifted her sour mood, so she figured she could milk the man for all he's worth and mayyyyyybe let him live...maybe.
Although, humorous scene or not, she wasn't stupid enough to listen to the man word for word and wasn't willing to check if the upstairs portion of the building truly wasn't booby-trapped. The flimsy ceiling seemed thin enough to have a conversation if they shouted loud enough so negotiations would have to occur on her grounds.
" My, I'm not too sure mister. You truly messed up and caught the eye of some really powerful people. Don't you know? There's a huge bounty on your head after all the grave-robbing you and battlefield "liberating" you did. Don't you know that's a big no-no? There a whole 68,000 LMD bounty on your head."
She made sure to lace her voice in as much sugary sarcasm as she could, even if the man could truly buy his way out of the predicament she would continue to see him squirm. The inflated bounty she named was merely icing on the cake for her. The paranoid man caused her to waste her time tracking him for a week, she needed the...extra coin to cover her "traveling" costs.
Yet to her dismay, instead of the awkward voice from earlier, a firmer tone of voice echoed through the ceiling. The contents made her frown at the realization she wasn't dealing with some no name, but a fat toad that he truly was.
".....Come now we are both professionals. We both know that type of bounty would only be reserved for some low-tier mercenary, not some two-bit grave robber. Unless I actively robbed some wealthy Sarkez tomb, I doubt they would bother putting anything over 10k LMD on my head. People have better uses for their money during this time, food being the main contender, and war being the other.
Although considering my ...circumstances at the moment, I'm willing to pay you 20k LMD to let me leave this building alive. You get paid double what you typically would receive for some no-name grave robber's head, and I get to leave this building without missing any body parts. It's a win for both of us."
Whistling a small tune she made her way to the pole catapult near the stairs and brushed away the debris hiding the contraption. As she fiddled with the thing, to free a pole, she spoke up toward the ceiling.
" Twenty thousand? Really is that the best you can muster oh glorious head grave robber. We both know you bit off more you chew with your antics. All you had to do was sell stuff occasionally, and no one would bother you, but nooooo you became too "famous" around these parts for stripping the dead of all their belongings. I doubt you have the money on you person right now anyway, so wouldn't it be easier for me just to kill you right now and take your head to the outpost to get a guaranteed bounty?"
Yanking a pole free from her trap she got up and twirled it like a faux baton, eyeing the glistening poisoned tip and lining it up with her target's rear end. If he didn't start making the conversation worth her wild, he would be hemorrhaging vast amounts of blood through his rear very soon. Perhaps picking up on her feelings through her tone, a hurried voice echoed from the ceiling.
"Alright! Forty thousand LMD to let me live, and you can be sure I can pay off my recent "success" in selling my goods. I won't lie and say I can pay you off now considering I don't carry that much on my person, but like any real scavenger I have a few nest eggs scattered across Kazdel that I can use to pay you off."
"Tsk"
She assumed, his pleas held some semblance of sense. If one lived long enough in Kazdel, one knew that carrying around their life savings was tantamount to suicide. It created a big target for both pickpockets and murderers who wanted a quick coin. Even she had two locations where she stashed away any hidden valuables.
Truly, it was a shame but it seemed the man would die here today. She wasn't stupid enough to risk traveling with a person she just threatened to kill, nor was she willing to listen to the directions of a dying man. Common sense dictated it was better to kill him and collect the guaranteed bounty...although the upcoming killing part was certainly going to be unique. She'll just tell the client she killed the man in his sleep. There was no need for rumors to spread about the way she killed the grave robber.
"*Sigh*, sorry my smart-minded friend but it seems there are too many "ifs" with you bargain. It was wonderful talking to you but, it's time to bide farewell."
With a mighty heft, she aimed the pole straight at the man's anus and prepared her strike. It would take a few blows but she was confident she could target all the arteries and make the man bleed out before she dragged the corpse from the ceilings.
"Wait you don't need to-"
She trusted the pole, pent up emotions of a whole week's annoyance behind the blow, as her strike hit home. Still, she couldn't stop the way the ends of her lips twisted upward at the way the man let out a bellow of pain.
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Kazar wasn't a stranger to death ever since he landed in Terra. His first host body was a boy that was attempting to flee a catastrophe that targeted his stationary town. As his family fled south, they were unfortunately caught by the storm and pelted with Originium shrapnel carried by the storm.
He himself awoke in the boy's body, a piece of shrapnel sticking through the boy's back. It was his first time in Terra, and he was in hysterics trying to understand his situation. Apparently, the family had attempted to seek shelter in an abandoned shed at the outskirts of town, the relatives using their bodies to shield the youngest in an attempt to save a few. As Kazar shited throw the dead bodies he was greeted with devastation, as far as the eyes could see, with large midnight black crystals dotting the land.
At the time he was unaware, but later he realized his true body was the crystal sticking out of the boy's back. The storm had lodged the small shrapnel piece into the boy's spinal column, allowing "his" conscience to hijack the dying boy's mind. The body was stiff, likely having died a few minutes prior to his awakening, but the moment he came to life the body resumed the standard signs of life.
Kazar had spent the time sifting through the rubble to find someone who could explain what was happening. The last memory he held was of breathing in gasps in his hospital room during the middle of the night, wishing for the pain to finally cease.....and it had...at least momentarily. The next time he awoke he was in some random boy's body, back aflame with active pain signals as he tried to understand what was happening.
That was his first vessel on Terra. A boy whose name he never found out, as within a week Kazar had died once again. Nothing was left intact after the storm, with no salvageable food being available for miles. He tried his hardest to seek aid along the road, but the elements of Terra proved to rough on his vessel's body and he died on the road, weak from starvation. It was only on his death throes did a merchant vessel finally pass him on the road, with the man stopping the cart to gaze at his dying form. Perhaps it was the man's own personality or it was a decision based on the fact his vessel couldn't be saved but instead of aiding his vessel the coachman had merely started patting him down for valuable.
As Kazar despaired at the prospect of dying once again, the man flipped his body over and involuntarily came in contact with the Originium shard sticking out of his back. He could feel the man accidentally cut himself on the shard's jagged surface, and hear the man curse out. The coachman seemed to understand he had come into contact with the diseased crystal and flew into a rage, stomping on his vessel's body and leaving him for dead. Kazar's second vessel was the coachmen, the disease having spread through the man's nervous system in quick succession. As the disease "killed" his vessel's mind, it allowed his own mind to slip into the man's body. Thus that was "Kazar's" life on Terra. Sometimes involuntarily jumping bodies after one would die, or voluntarily infecting those who killed him, to upsurp their body. It had been over two decades for him and he had died in a plethora of ways....although death my foreign lodged object via the anus was a first even for him.
He let out a violent bellow of pain as he realized the woman downstairs had opted to merely kill him instead of letting him live. His eyes ignited with both pain and anger toward the audacity of the woman for attempting to kill him in such an underhanded way.
Willing his vessel's Art to the forefront of his mind, he activated his Strength Augmentation. It was a rather common Art's, his version being along with the weaker of the spectrum but it would be enough for him to escape his confinement. With a roar he slammed both palms along his sides, intent on dragging his body out of the hole. Something he should have done from the beginning, but opted not to, in order to avoid the phantom pain of burning the Originium in his vessel.
Yet, it seemed fate was against him, as with a similar haunting sound of splintering wood the floor collapsed around him and he was sent hurtling downward toward the ground floor. Thinking fast, he prepped his legs to brace for the impact below. Once he was one solid ground he would engage his attacker and show her-
*SPlech*
"GAH *COUGH*"
It seemed no matter how he played his cards right, he would die today. His legs were properly braced but they weren't the first things to hit the floor. No, the first object to make contact with the ground was the poke shaft currently embedded in his anus. The angle of the fall had involuntarily lined the pole up with the ground, and his weight, coupled with gravity, enabled the sharpened pole to travel further through his body. With a sickening sound, he watched as the bloody pole exited his chest cavity after wrecking all his internal organs.
His vessel was done for and Kazar knew it.
Coughing up blood that welled in his mouth, the sound of clapping made him focus on his surroundings.
"*clap**clap* I must say I came prepared to fight a troublesome fight, but you did all the work for me. Truly, this is a first for me. I feel flattered to have my enemy willing throw themselves on my weapon."
A woman made herself known, walking into view a few feet ahead of him. Frankly, she was short even by woman standards, which made him guess she wasn't even fully grown yet. She was covered in much of the same garb he wore, a beige hooded coat to avoid detection at night, a hood covering her head, and only allowing a few strands of grayish-silver hair to peak out. Half her face was covered by a ratty black bandanna from the nose down, and the only identifying feature of her face he could see was a pair of bright red gold-tinged pupils. The way they gazed at him was full of mirth with a hint of cruelty. The rest of her attire was standard for the wasteland they lived in with grey cargo pants, and military-style boots, possibly pilfered due to the way the woman seemed to walk in them. They certainly weren't in her size.
"*CoUgh* You couldn't *cough* couldn't accept the deal huh?"
He grit his teeth as more blood threatened to spill from his mouth to fill the interior of his mask. The feeling of looming death was barely paid attention to, as he felt for the hidden dagger in his right sleeve. Death was no danger for him, and merely a momentary event filled with pain. Within his sleeve was a specially designed dagger made from the crystals in his body. Whenever he attained full control of a vessel's body, he was capable of controlling how his Oripathy was externally exhibited and whether or not crystals grew from his body. It became a habit to create a dagger from freshly grown crystal he could force his vessel to grow. The make-shift blade was a crude piece of work, more akin to a one-time use obsidian dagger, the edges sharp enough to pierce flesh but the entire thing brittle enough to break with a sudden twist of the wrist.
All Kazar needed to do was stab his attack and twist the blade hard enough to break it, and lodge the piece of crystal in their body. The bodily made Originium was highly contentious, capable of infecting another quite easily. Infection would only be easier if the blade was lodged in his enemy's blood. Kazar never used the blade for normal skirmishes he found himself in, only using the blade when he was being murdered. In the end for the sin of killing him, his attacker would suffer from the silent killer of his strain of Oripathy. Eventually, she would sleep one day and no longer awaken, allowing him to assume control.
Fingering the blade, he barely paid attention to the woman gloat about how she was so "thankful" toward him for giving her an easy mark. With his vessel's Art, he could easily attempt one last lunge and embed the knife in her forearm. Her retaliation didn't matter as once the blade entered her bloodstream he would have "won" the war.
As he began to subtly shift his weight for his final lunge, the woman's words finally registered in his ears.
" Now, typically, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to kill someone like you without even showing my face, always has been. It makes me feel like some random street thug who is trying to hide from the world who they really are. Most of the time I don't get a choice in the matter due to the..limitations I face with certain kinds of opponents. But, considering you have a poisoned pole sticking through your entire body I guess its time to make a new habit."
With a swift motion, the woman pulls down her bandanna and pulls back her hood. Kazar's attempts to lunge at the woman for a final suicidal leap stops before it even begins. Reflected in his pupils is the image of a young teen?
Her silver hair was unkempt from the hood, but the bright red horns were impossible to miss. Bygone images of a past flashed through his eyes, as artwork of a certain Arknight's character, began to overlap with the girl's face.
One thing Kazar learned early on in his tenure in the world of Terra, was the realization that artwork can only go so far to depict the way reality is truly seen through one's eyes. Arknights, unlike other competitors, held artwork that was more biologically sound despite the fantasy story they depicted. Still, there will always be a difference between what is drawn on paper and what is seen in reality. Despite the extra dose of realism, her face showed, despite the younger appearance she now held versus her older self in the main series storyline. Her identifiers were enough to reveal to him, that he was staring at W, the psychotic, bomb-happy devil of Rhode Island. A person who was willing to play for both teams when needed if it meant completely her goal. Someone extremely important to the storyline....someone he couldn't infect and take over their body.
Kazar stopped readying his hidden dagger, as the revelation hit him in full force. The "kid" in front of him was too important to the storyline to risk involuntarily controlling her body. Yet, he was already dying.....
"Sigh"
With a light sigh, Kazar ignored the rest of what W said, willing his conscience to leave his body in astral form, and letting his body slump down like a puppet without strings. The actions seemed to surprise W as she stopped talking for a moment before taking out her knife.
" Hey, what's wrong? Don't tell me you already bit the dust. I know having a pole sticking out of your chest is fatal but I assumed you had enough tenacity to last a while. Come now don't start faking, it's distasteful."
Kazar merely ignore the way W poked and prodded his body in an attempt to see if he truly was dead or faking. Although he couldn't infect his killer this time, he instinctually knew there were others infected with his specific strain of Oripathy. When his heart stopped beating and his blood grew cold, his "mind" would dissipate momentarily before awakening in the body of someone infected with his strain.
He never made it a habit to purposely infect others beyond the hidden dagger he used, but true to the way regular Oripathy spread, if his infected body wasn't properly disposed of it held the capability to spread crystals upon death. Without his mind present to stop the progression of Originium crystals, they opted into their default programming of being highly infectious and spreading around the body upon death. Thus, throughout his time in Terra it seemed at one point someone wasn't careful in handling his deceased body and became infected with his strain of Oripathy. One became two and two became four. Eventually, without his aid, his strain of Oripathy spread via the normal way the disease spread.
A portion of Kazar felt ashamed for accidentally infecting others, but frankly, it wasn't his fault. He didn't have control of the disease once his conscience left the body and it was the fault of others. Still, in a twisted sort of fashion Kazar was effectively immortal as long as someone was infected or a shard crystal holding him existed.
Shaking his head, he watched as his vessel breathed it's last breath. Slowly his astral body began to dissipate as he looked at the younger W's face, her eyes showed disappointment but also held a tinge of acceptance that he had died. He figured she would get enough from his bounty to last for a while, and eventually turn into the W he knew in Arknights Lore. He could only hope his new body was located closer to Kazdel to pick up the nest eggs he stashed around the country.
With a final glimpse of W, he let go.
