The forest thinned as Luceris traveled east, the towering trees giving way to craggy hills and winding streams.
The scent of pine and wet earth filled the cold air, and distant birdsong broke the heavy silence.
He moved like a wraith, his steps soundless, his silver cloak blending into the mist.
Ever watchful. Ever alone.
It was during this quiet journey that he heard it — the rhythmic clatter of hooves and creaking wagons.
Curious, Luceris veered from his path and ascended a slope, crouching low behind an outcrop of stone.
Below, a small caravan snaked its way along a muddy trail.
Three wagons, each packed with crates and barrels.
About a dozen guards, their weapons dull and worn.
Merchants in simple clothes, glancing nervously at the treeline.
They were tense, scared.
Luceris' sharp eyes noted how tightly the guards gripped their swords, how the merchants whispered anxiously.
He frowned.
Why should he care?
This world was not kind to those who hesitated.
---
Before he could turn away, a shrill scream split the stillness.
Bandits burst from the undergrowth, filthy and desperate, armed with rusted blades.
Their leader, a hulking man with a scar running from brow to chin, barked orders.
The guards scrambled to form a defense, but it was clear they were outmatched.
Luceris narrowed his molten silver eyes.
He could walk away.
It wasn't his fight.
But deep inside him, a cold ember flared — not compassion, but disdain.
A refusal to watch cowards prey on the weak.
Ash rippled from his cloak, swirling like smoke in a rising storm.
He moved.
---
The first bandit never even saw him.
A thin filament of ash coiled around his neck, slicing cleanly through flesh and bone.
Luceris glided forward, weaving between the chaos, ash lashing out with brutal precision.
Bandits fell one by one, their deaths silent and unseen.
To the merchants, it must have seemed like the mist itself had turned against their attackers.
Panic spread.
The remaining bandits screamed and fled, only to be swallowed by the ashen mist.
It was over within minutes.
---
The battlefield stank of blood and fear.
Luceris stood in the center, his silver hair untouched by the gore around him, his ash shifting lazily like a living thing.
The surviving guards lowered their weapons in awe — but awe quickly twisted into terror.
One of them pointed a trembling hand at Luceris.
"Stay back, monster!"
Luceris' face remained blank.
He had saved them.
Yet the fear in their eyes was more real, more visceral, than any thanks could have been.
---
One of the merchants, a middle-aged man with a ragged beard, stepped forward, voice shaking.
"What... what are you?"
Luceris said nothing.
He didn't owe them an explanation.
He didn't owe them anything.
He turned to leave.
But as he did, a ripple ran through the air.
The corpses of the bandits began to shimmer faintly, their bodies releasing streams of dense, smoky energy.
Magicules.
They rose like ethereal threads, converging on him.
Luceris felt the pull of his skill — Ashen Soul — working instinctively.
[Predation successful. Magicules absorbed.]
The moment the last wisp of magicules vanished into his body, the merchants recoiled in horror.
A woman clutched a child tightly against her chest.
"Demon..." she whispered, voice filled with raw terror. "He's a demon..."
The guards backed away, swords raised once again.
No thanks.
No gratitude.
Only fear.
Luceris watched them, his silver eyes distant, unreadable.
---
It was all the same.
This world, the last world — it didn't matter.
Mercy was weakness.
Mercy was betrayal waiting to happen.
Without another word, Luceris turned and vanished into the forest, his ash swallowing his presence entirely.
Behind him, the merchants would carry tales of the silver-haired demon who summoned death and consumed souls.
The price of mercy was clear.
Isolation.
Hatred.
Loneliness.
Lucires should no longer care. He should live for himself.
Yet, as he drifted deeper into the forest's cold embrace, Luceris felt something unfamiliar gnawing at him.
A hollow weight inside his chest.
He pressed a hand against his heart, as if he could crush the feeling away.
There was no regret.
No sadness.
But an emptiness.
As if the part of him that had once believed in something — anything — had finally crumbled into ash.
Luceris frowned, but said nothing, walking on without pause.
The mist swallowed him whole.