Second Genesis

The screen of darkness slowly encroached, shadows peeling out from it from time to time. Their forms weren’t clear, but the number was steadily increasing.

For whatever reason, though, they didn’t seem eager to attack. Were they waiting for something? Or was there another problem?

Grey’s gaze darted around. It flicked down to his status screen and he cursed when he saw how low his Perception was. If he knew they were going to be swallowed up by a fog that cut off all their senses, he would have put a little bit more into PER.

Under his previous assumptions, the reason why Mental Fortitude was stuck at Level 3 was probably because his PER was too low as well, and without Mental Fortitude, dealing with this fog might prove tricky.

To make matters worse, Amunet couldn’t sense anything in the fog at all. The moment it swallowed them up, he would be out there fighting on his own.

The darkness swept forward, and soon, if the Dark Kin didn’t get to them first, it was going to take them.

"I can sense them through their blood." Amunet suddenly said.

Grey looked over at her and she met his eyes, nodding heavily.

Exhaling slowly, Grey nodded. At least that was one problem handled. Hopefully. With a swift motion, he unsheathed his curved rusted saw blade. His other hand hesitated, but in the end, it still pulled out a pair of pink panties.

"Pretend as though you never saw this."

Amunet didn’t know what to expect when Grey said this, but the moment she saw the lingerie she was caught between the anxiety flooding her veins and wanting to burst into a fit of laughter.

The latter almost won out as Grey slipped the pink frilly pair on, pulling at his crotch as it uncomfortably cupped his balls.

"Kill me now." Grey muttered.

Grey felt prickles at his mind and it was like he could suddenly "see" clearer than he ever had before. His PER jumped up by a full 10 points, or in other words, the equivalent of a full level. But for some reason, Grey almost felt like it was worth far more than that.

In that moment, the shadowy forms of the Dark Kin became more than just that. He could make out vague outlines of their features and even feel the pulsing electrical signals of their Neural Frames.

And then came the garbled mess of thoughts that followed right after.

~"Blood... Blood..."~

~"Wait for Lord Valdris..."~

~"Wait for Lord Valdris..."~

~"The witch’s corpse... it must be somewhere... I want to eat it... her blood... her blood would be so good..."~

Grey was so shocked by the invasion into his mind that he almost ripped the pink panties off.

Wasn’t it only supposed to work within three meters? There were some Dark Kin approaching that, but even the closest was still about double that distance away. He shouldn’t be hearing their thoughts so clearly.

The other restriction was that they had to be Linear Neural Frame Types. Were they all truly Linear?

Well, he couldn’t hear anything Amunet was thinking, so maybe. Linear was one of the two most common types.

’Wait, why aren’t any of their thoughts about us? Can they not...’

Grey’s eyes sharpened and before he could explain anything to Amunet, he lunged forward, slashing his curved blade down at the closest shadow.

It cut right through them, severing their existence completely.

The thoughts coming from that shadow fell into silence, but the other Dark Kin didn’t react.

"They can’t sense us. Their perception is blocked by the Fog of Chaos too. Or at the very least, they’re limited in what they can feel—." Grey was trying to explain when a stray thought in all the thirst for blood caught his attention.

~"Echon... where have you gone, Echon... we were meant to wait for Lord Valdris... do not tell me you have gone off on your own..."~

After the first stray thought, a second, and a third came, all about this Echon.

It didn’t take long for Grey to put two and two together. Echon had to be the one he just killed.

They couldn’t even tell he had died, all they knew was that he had vanished.

But this wasn’t good. They seemed to be barely holding themselves back and "waiting for Lord Valdris". If Grey started killing them one by one, they would either figure out that someone was killing them, or the FOMO from missing out on a potential blood feast would overrule their fear of the vampire pimp.

But as the number of the Dark Kin increased, the situation only became more and more untenable.

"What is it? You stopped talking?" Amunet hissed. She too realized that something was going on, but she couldn’t quite piece it together, not without literally being able to read the thoughts of their enemies like Grey could.

"Do you have any method of killing a large number of them at the exact same time?" Grey quickly asked.

Amunet looked at the corpse hanging before them and the lack of response the others gave and immediately understood. She was about to shake her head no but then the shadows around her face practically lit up.

"Yes. But I need 20 or 30 seconds."

"Quickly, go. I can’t buy that amount of time, but let’s hope the vampire pimp drags his feet."

Amunet didn’t need to be told twice.

Grey stood in front of her, clutching his curved rusted blade in both hands as anxiety ran through the back of his spine.

There was something about this endless rolling darkness that left him uneasy. The words between Esmeralda and Valdris left a bitter taste in the air, and as the sick thoughts of the Dark Kin continued to bombard against his mind, Grey got a sinking feeling that the secret of the Fog of Chaos was worse than anyone knew.

He couldn’t understand how any living being would willfully choose to be a part of it like this. It robbed them of even their senses, and all of their thoughts were consumed by little more than hunger.

Even if he killed them one by one, Grey was almost certain it wouldn’t be the realization that they were dying that woke them up, but instead the fear of their companions partaking in blood they could not.

That was when Grey shivered from head to toe.

The thoughts. They had all ground to a halt.

A bloody energy was rising like a tide from Amunet as she neared completion. But... it was like all the Dark Kin had vanished.

No, they hadn’t vanished.

They smelled blood in the air.