I slowly melded back together and my ability to move returned before my ability to see did. My body felt different now, like every cell in my body was starving. I knew exactly what I was craving for as well… It was metal. So that was what I ate, likely some kind of microorganism that consumed metal. That was actually really dangerous, the amount of destruction that could cause even in my own world was tremendous. Not just tremendous, I could collapse the entirety of human civilization… I could collapse the entirety of human civilization! But…

“Why haven’t you unleashed this disease in our realm? It would destroy us with great ease.”

“The barrier between worlds would not allow something so destructive to pass through.”

That makes sense. Actually, it doesn’t make sense. How did I get through the barrier then?

“So what happens if I try to go back to the other side?”

“The disease in your body will be purged before you return.”

Fuck. The disease had definitely merged with me by now. Would I be purged? I should never have let my other body get taken here, I might’ve been able to cheat the rules had I done so. Whatever, I’d deal with it when I got to it.

“I’m going to go do a few experiments, take the kid and get as far away as possible.

“...”

He dashed off with the kid and I enacted my carefully concocted and extremely well crafted plan. I shot into the air above the mansion and exhaled poison like I was scared of having air in my lungs. With a bit of luck my body should have figured out how to recreate all the poisons I just consumed. Without luck I would just have to rip my throat open and spray blood on them. It was always better to not take a risk so I quickly enveloped the mansion in a metal casing and electrified it. I wasn’t too sure on what exactly was going on between my metal manipulating abilities and the metal eating disease but at least I could still play with metal.

I quickly crumpled up the casing and sent some cold fire inside to finish up whatever was left. Judging by the fact that they had not torn through my cage yet the poison had probably worked. I warmed them up and squeezed them out of a tube into my mouth… this… was not blood. This was the same sludge I had dranken earlier. How did that get there? Perhaps a small amount of my saliva was sprayed with the poison? No matter the case I had suffered a minor loss due to my carelessness, which really meant I had to find a willing participant to help me discover what exactly had happened. I followed the urging of my body and was led back to my drug supplier. This actually came in quite handy.

“So, assuming that there is a disease that consumes metal. There must be other diseases that consume the different elements right?”

“They exist, but I will disclose no further information even at the cost of my life.”

“Respectable. I’ll just find them on my own, don’t be too worried. We only have Zoreal left now right?”

“Correct.”

“So, are we just going to barge through the front doors or what's the plan?”

“We have alerted the king to the situation and he has agreed to cooperate with us for the duration of our mission.”

“Oh, great. I recall Zoreal having some soldiers with him, how should we deal with them?”

“The original plan was to kill him with the disease and root out his followers after.”

“Ok then, I can probably deal with that. I need someone to test some stuff with really quickly, you have any suggestions? Doesn’t have to be a conspirator, it can just be some corrupt scumbag.”

“We were advised not to interfere with any of the existing politics outside the scope of our responsibility.”

“That was a really complex way of saying you want to protect evil scumbags, just so you know my image of you has dropped tremendously. Like a soggy piece of dirt? You’re below it.”

“We are only allowed to prevent the influence of the other realm. To do anything more would cause the existing powers to hunt us down.”

“You goofy ass clown. Who’s gonna know who told me what? Worst case scenario I’ll just dispose of everyone and replace them, they can’t be that good if they are protecting corrupt nobles.”

“...”

“I know.”

Huh, the kid could speak.

“Please, do tell.”

“It is the royal treasurer, I’ve seen what he does to those he dislikes. My- my…”

“I see, so that’s how you ended up with me. Well, it must have been fate. You met the one person who could get you your revenge. You can leave now if you want, me and the kid can handle the rest on our own.”

“I must see my mission to the end.”

“I know you just want to watch, there’s no shame in admitting it. Alright kid, which way?”

“He should be in his home, it’s close to the royal palace.”

I picked the kid up and restrained my body's urge to consume him then flew off towards the massive castle illuminated in the distance.

…

“Which one?”

“That one.”

“Anyone I should spare?”

“Yes. There is bound to be innocent people inside”

“Ok. Would you like to join me or would you prefer to not see?”

“Bring me.”

“Great choice.”

I dove down and created a massive dome that slammed down and instantly encapsulated the entirety of the area of our evil fiend’s land. Now that I was inside I realized how confusing it must have been. It was complete darkness cut through by only the light from the mansion. Guards were already in the process of transforming and sprinting towards me. I was quite large already but they managed to outweigh me, fortunately I was much stronger for my size than others. Not that it really mattered in this situation. I sprayed a small cloud of poison onto them and watched gleefully as they began melting into rust colored sludge. I willed the sludge to stop spreading and it quickly hardened before dissipating into dust.

By doing this I was rewarded with small bits of their unmelted bodies. I speared a small piece with a metal skewer and watched unhappily as it instantly turned into sludge. At least this explained why my metal wasn’t getting eaten away by the sludge. I picked up the meat using air instead and ferried it all back into my mouth. Was that really all there was to defend him?

“Are you sure he’s in here?”

“He spends most of his time beneath the house.”

“Torture chamber?”

“...”

I carefully disassembled the mansion and separated all the little mice crawling inside into cages. This time I put in some extra effort to make sure they didn’t immediately melt away into sludge. As I got beneath the mansion I braced my eyes for some extremely atrocious shit. I peeled back the flooring and… fuck. This was… man what the fuck!

Kill them slowly, this image is now forever burned into our memories.

I yanked all of the savages I had just discovered away from their victims and placed them in a special cage that was all for them. I had been waiting to find people that could inspire this much pure hatred in me for a very long time. I could get to them after though, I had to figure out how to… could I even recover them? This was so fucked!

“What should we do? Can we even help them anymore at this point?”

“We can’t, their minds have been destroyed.”

“Fuck…”

I thought there couldn’t be anything worse than what had happened to my family but damn was I fucking wrong. I had imagined the possibility of this kind of shit but that had not prepared me for seeing it. From forcing beasts onto children to skinning and toying with them everything I could imagine was found here. It left the worst feeling in my body I had ever felt, it made me feel like even if I made them suffer in every way possible for the rest of eternity it still wouldn’t be enough. But fuck it, I would just make them suffer for the rest of eternity anyways. I might feel a little better afterwards.

I wouldn’t give up on these kids either, if they were still alive they still had a chance. I could figure out a way to help them. It would be nice to have some healing abilities right now. Did any of the poisons I consumed perhaps have healing effects? It’d be better not to risk it. I needed to stop the bleeding somehow, between cauterizing their wounds and simply freezing them I had no idea which would produce better results. Both could end up killing them…

“Hey kid, how do we fix their bodies? Or at least keep them from dying?”

“There should be an ointment somewhere that can alleviate their conditions.”

Why didn’t I think of that? They were keeping them alive with these ridiculous injuries somehow. I quickly scanned through all the stuff I had disassembled and found some barrels filled with a dark paste. I broke them open and used metal arms to quickly slather the paste on all the children then used what was left for the adults. Now I could get to the revenge fantasy part. I just had to figure out how to pull them into my soul realm.

I think it requires an attack on your soul for them to be pulled into your soul realm. Which means it could also work the other way around.

How are we going to attack their souls though? Our soul has been locked up.

The girl's father removed some restrictions, it might be enough for us to use some of our powers. The one we really need is the dream manipulation ability, that is the closest thing we have to a direct soul attack.

Good point. I went over to one of the servants and knocked them out then tried to enter their dreams. The same warping feeling enveloped me and I was pulled into the foggy embrace of their inner consciousness. I grabbed them before they could run away and started brainstorming ways to get them from here to the soul realm. Usually I was only transported there when someone tried to attack my soul. All the stuff I had done before couldn’t really be counted as attacking someone and no one had been able to attack me either. I crushed the servant in my claws with just enough force to shatter their bones and send them into immense levels of pain but not kill them immediately.

They weren’t even capable of screaming anymore as I was pretty sure something had punctured their lungs. While pleased with the amount of suffering I was able to inflict on them this still hadn’t brought them to the soul realm. Just how much control did I have in here though? Could reality truly be whatever I pleased? I hadn’t bothered to check whether or not I had access to more powers than I really had. Could I slow time? Could I change the limits of the body? Could I change the principles of reality?

With my subject in hand I willed his body to recover into perfect condition. Within moments his crumpled body uncrumpled itself and returned to its previous health. Could I impose pure pain onto him perhaps?

“ACK-!”

His sudden scream was immediately stifled by the seizure and collapse of his body. So I could do that, how interesting. In the next moment all of his skin peeled itself off and a massive pile of salt fell on him. His writhing increased in madness and the weight in my chest lifted slightly. After that I popped his eyeballs and shattered his eardrums then completely immobilized him. Oh, I knew what would fuck with him! The ground beneath him collapsed and he fell into a pit of my specially designed worms. These boys had been designed to be thin enough to climb into veins and blood vessels.

I not only had the power to kill him but also the power to keep him alive endlessly. Most feared death but I knew what to really fear, being unable to die despite craving death. After crawling inside his body and filling every crevice they could they began to lay eggs that would soon hatch into their hard shelled variants. I began to wonder though, could you really shut down your mind and lock your consciousness away? It would be quite unpleasant if they could cheat their punishments. After the beetles burst out of him I pulled him back together and checked for signs of awareness.

“KILL ME! LET ME DIE! I BEG! I BEG!”

Guess not. I should finish him off though, I had been trying to slow down time but I wasn’t too sure if that worked. I popped his head and-

“I guess you figured it out somehow.”

“What the fuck? So now I’m here?”

“What did you do right before coming here? Quick, remember!”

“I just killed him.”

“You mean that guy right?”

I looked where he was pointing and found my little friend curled up into a ball on the floor.

“Holy shit! We did it!”

“Good job. What’s next?”

“I plan to leave him in here. According to what I’ve learned we probably have more power in our realms than I thought we did. Hold on. Why weren’t you in the dream realm with me?”

“I was, I was just stuck in your head.”

“Fuck, the other guy was able to do it.”

“Well, you imagined him into existence.”

“Makes sense I guess. Try creating a prison with me, we should be able to in our own soul.”

Through our combined effort and willpower we both slowly managed to erect a tower from the ground. It wasn’t perfect, but at the very least it existed. Meter by meter it climbed up towards the endless void, the only question was how tall we wanted to make it. More was always better…

“When do you think it will stop?”

“Probably never.”

“How much room do you think we’ll need?”

“Probably infinite.”

“Should we just stop now then? We can probably make changes later.”

“Probably.”

“Do you like men?”

“Probably… not.”

“I never thought you would be the one to annoy me. The turns have truly tabled.”

“Probably.”

“So this is what it feels like to talk to me. Damn I’m insufferable, how has no one beat my ass yet?”

“Probably because they aren’t strong enough to.”

“How come you haven’t?”

“...You have brought up a good point.”

“Anyways, let’s toss him in the prison and figure out how to get out.”

“...”

I had my little pet ghosts drag him inside the tower and entered behind them. I opened up a small crevice in the side of the tower for them to shove him inside and sealed everything but his head. Now for the moment I’d really been waiting for. I smothered his face until he passed out and entered his dream realm. He was once again curled into a ball on the floor. To give him a minimal level of comfort I created a bed made of worms to massage and caress him. If I left him like this would he just keep suffering? Or did the dream end when I left? What if I specifically willed the dream to not stop? I left the dream and waited a few seconds before going back in.

IT WORKED! FUCK YES!

Things were slightly different from how I left them though, there were alot more worms than I had expected. I had programmed them to slowly recreate but it shouldn’t have been this fast. Perhaps a time dilation factor? I created a stopwatch and let it run then left and counted to ten. I reentered and checked the watch… forty-eight minutes and twenty seconds. A total of two thousand nine hundred seconds, which translated to a dilation factor of two hundred ninety times. Why two hundred and ninety though? Two hundred… ninety… Two hundred… the only explanation was that it was somehow connected to the strength of my soul, which had probably gone up after killing all the bad guys.

This meant… I had fifty-eight clones just waiting for me! And over thirty thousand soldiers that could be summoned! Fuck! I had to remove all these bullshit seals as soon as possible. With that kind of power I could raze not only my world to the ground, but also this one!

“That would be unwise, our power will stagnate without any new forms of energy being produced.”

“I thought you couldn’t come in here.”

“I can now.”

“Are we really sticking with the enslave both planets and farm people plan? That’s like the plot of a ton of anime and we are the antagonist who always loses in them. Although to be fair, it would be pretty fun if we do it properly.”

“That’s not our real concern, we have the entire universe to conquer, how are we going to manage all of it?”

“Dude, what the fuck is going on in your head? We haven’t even figured out how to unbind our soul and you are already thinking about how we are going to enslave aliens?”

“You have to dream big if you want to go far.”

“You think we can establish peace once we conquer the universe?”

“No, impossible. There is a way but we both know it would defeat the purpose.”

“I mean, there’s a chance that not every lifeform is as stupid as humans.”

“I guess we’ll find out eventually.”

I hopped out of the dream realm and pulled myself out of the soul realm as well. It was much easier than expected, similar to exiting the dream realm. Barely anything had changed since I pulled my subject into the soul realm, in fact, the people around had barely started their screams. I dragged another one into the soul ream and locked them into the tower before checking on our original prisoner. I had left an advanced stopwatch with him to accurately measure the time distortion between reality and the soul realm. Currently it read… two years, one hundred sixteen days, twenty hours, ten minutes exactly. Which translated to roughly… seventy-three million, one hundred sixty-seven thousand seconds. Divide that by three and there is a dilation factor of twenty-four million, three hundred eighty-nine times. What the fuck?

[Writers Notes - When I first began daydreaming and fantasizing my favorite thing to do was imagine torture methods. Not for specific people or anything, just methods. That eventually transitioned into creating creatures, then into weapons and power systems, which eventually led to entire stories in my head that I would fantasize about. The main problem was that although I could create the beginning of stories and the power systems with all the characters I was never really able to create more of the story while trying to remember everything else. So I just had tons of unfinished stories, note that not all of them started at the beginning, some were created already halfway into the story. Eventually I got tired of not being able to finish the stories and live them out so I decided, fuck it, I’ll just write a book.

And that leads us to today. Although this book is the original book(First book I ever wrote) I did try another one about a kid who gets left by his father and gains a mechanical system. I liked it simply because of the cool power system but I realized it would be better utilized as a game as the plot and system were more gamelike in nature. So instead I stuck with this one because it felt like the story that was genuinely calling out to me. I also realized that I could achieve my goal of making content and entertainment for people through writing books.

Honestly, kind of the guidance of fate that I suddenly realized all of that in the same time period because writing was the only thing I was able to do without money for the set up and gear. This has been In Sanity’s origin story.]