Dark Proclivities
After defeating the colossal Hybrid, the Sergi extended an invitation to Al and Elissa bringing them into his reclusive community.
Unseen by the locals, Dark acolytes and Hybrids were the stuff of demons in the eyes of the people. Their modest community had coalesced around the most intact building in the ruins a worn hotel, standing only partially ruined by the ravages of time. Leading Al and Elissa to adjacent rooms, Sergi hoped to converse about the struggle of their people once morning came.
Al settled into a meditative posture on the worn floor of his room. Initiating his breath work, he activated his A.R.C, transmuting his breath into Heat Will, a scarce presence that barely coalesced into a thin veil woven into his skin.
On the other hand, his Stubborn Will filled the entirety of his body, with the exception of his Mind and his five vital organs. As he scrutinized the progress of his cultivation, a gentle knock on his door disrupted his concentration.
"Elissa?" He pondered. A small shock followed by excitement send his heart into palpitations. "That's unusual," Al thought, acknowledging the odd sensation. He rose and answered the door, only to find a woman with a loose dress, her hair neatly coiled in a bun, clutching a bundle of linen.
"Apologies for the interruption, but I was informed that your room lacked fresh linens," she mentioned. Al gestured towards the well-made, unused bed. "I won't need them; you can take them back," he replied. Before he could shut the door, the woman obstructed his path and barged into the room.
"I'm sorry, but I need to retrieve the old sheets. I'll remake the bed quickly," she stated firmly. Realizing he had little choice in the matter, Al allowed her to proceed while keeping the door ajar.
As she began rearranging the sheets, her loose dress slowly rode up, revealing her upper thigh. Al shifted his gaze awkwardly, his mind racing as he tried to decipher the perplexing situation. "What on earth is happening?" he wondered silently, struggling to make sense of it all.
After the shifting noises ended, Al turned his head to find the woman laying across a disheveled bed, her cleavage on display. Her eyes bore into Al's, an unmistakable desire emanating from her, as she raised a finger, beckoning him closer.
"What's wrong if I indulge with her for a night." A whirlwind of thoughts raced through Al's mind, mingling with a primal urge. He couldn't help but wonder how her warmth might feel against his skin. In that charged moment, nothing else seemed to matter.
In another chamber of the hotel, a cloaked figure sat in shadows, seated within a giant hexagram with circles on the six points. In each corner rested a femur bone, while in the center, a skull lay cradled in his hands.
Somehow, he could perceive the events transpiring in Al's room through the woman's eyes. As Al closed the door and advanced towards her, a malevolent smile crept across the figure's face, a dark aura swirling around him, seeping into his nostrils.
Al moved towards the bed, his thoughts evaporated, leaving only his base desires and instincts. Just as Al was inches away from the bed, a hand burst through the wall that separated the adjoining room. Two eyes pierced through the hole, fixing their gaze on Al and the woman. Al stood in dumbfounded amazement when the wall exploded, revealing Elissa on the other side.
"What are you doing? I can hear everything from the other side. You're being seduced, you idiot, someone or something has targeted you!" Elissa's voice echoed through the room. She swiftly pulled her whip and ensnared the trembling woman with her whip.
"Who sent you?" Elissa demanded, the woman cowering in fear on Al's bed pleaded. "Please don't hurt me," tears streaming down her face. "I wasn't sent by anyone," she implored.
Al looked at the terrified woman and Elissa, a faint attempt at levity escaping his lips, "Maybe she just found me attractive and wanted to try me out?"
Elissa fought back a wave of nausea, turning to Al and shaking her head, her voice laced with a rhetorical disbelief. "You can't be so naive..."
Without hesitation, Elissa wielded her whip, hurling the woman to the ground and coldly threatening her. "If you don't tell me who you're working for, I'm going to take those eyes of yours!"
Al furrowed his brow, thinking Elissa's actions were excessive. The woman trembled in fear, her words choked by terror.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway, growing louder. Suddenly, Sergi and four other men burst into the room. "I heard crashing and screaming, is everything okay?" Sergi's voice echoed, only to find his cousin bound and quivering, ensnared by Elissa's whip.
Seeing Sergi and the men show up, Elissa released the woman, who fled towards Sergi's group.
"We won't wait for morning to deal with these 'demons'. Take me to your highest elder," Elissa commanded, her tone unwavering. Sergi knowing how strong Elissa and Al were began to fear them and quickly led everyone into the hallway.
Back in the shadows, of the ritual room the hooded figure watched as Elissa dismantled his carefully laid plans. With a long, bony nail, he tapped the skull multiple times, each strike widening a fracture in its surface.
The skull responded with a resonant echo, and in tandem, the woman in Al's room let out a piercing scream. Her eye elongated, like a grotesque deformation, akin to a slug. Her body contorted, ripping her clothes as her abdomen split open, oozing a sickly green substance.
Sergi stood in bewilderment as he watched his relative vanish as her clothes fell before, screams of agony tearing through the air. The other men were equally incredulous, their eyes wide in disbelief, but soon they too succumbed to the horrifying transformation, their screams alternating from cries of pain to pleasure.
Al, witnessing the gruesome spectacle, wasted no time. He seized Sergi and forcibly pulled him away. "Get out of here, or you might be next," he urged, his mind becoming calm readying for the fight to come. Sergi needed no further persuasion and fled in terror.
Meanwhile, Elissa, seemingly indifferent to the already transformed woman, wielded her whip with might, unleashing it upon one of the men, exploding him into a gory, lifeless mess and sparing him prolonged suffering. With a mere tap of her finger, her Reflexive Will, manifested through her whip, lashing out at another man. In an instant, she dispatched two of them.
Above her head, the tip of a longsword hurtled through the air, impaling the grotesque snail-like head of the woman, now transformed into a flying beetle oozing acidic liquid. "So that's what it does," Al mused as he examined the longsword Elissa had entrusted to him. He then employed his spell Perfect-Revert to restore the sword's tip to its original position.
Elissa sparing no time ended the last two men, who had just completed their ghastly transformations. She turned to Al, who was staring contemplatively at the hybrid corpse of the woman who now had turned to a gray mist his ring absorbed.
"What was that?" Elissa inquired, a hint of frustration in her voice. Al admitted, "I don't know. I didn't see or sense a Dark acolyte." She rolled her eyes in response. "That's not what I was asking. Do you know what creates a Hybrid?"
Al reflected on the explanation provided by the Supreme Immortal King Godfrey when Mark had died. "A Dark acolyte communicates with the soul of a person. If that person hasn't awakened their Will, their soul will either accept or reject the contract, unbeknownst to the individual."
Elissa's gaze remained stern, as if anticipating further revelations. "Have you not realized that Dark acolytes are akin to Cultivators, their Wills rooted in the material plane? Light acolytes, on the other hand, are more like Cultivators with Wills anchored in the energy plane. The desire for materiality both attracts Dark acolytes and is influenced by them."
Her words struck Al with sudden clarity, making him feel foolish for not deducing the nature of Dark acolytes on his own.
"Considering our circumstances, someone approaching you in such a manner is a clear sign of an enemy trap." Elissa added, suddenly the candles lining the hallway extinguished, as if an unseen breath had blown them out.
A woman, her skin a sickly green hue, her eyes bulging, emerged from the far end of the corridor, addressing them. "Enemies? You speak as though you are in the right. You're the ones who invaded our home and started butchering our kin."
Al turned to face the approaching figure, standing shoulder to shoulder with Elissa. "We were led here by a man at his wits' end, hoping that we could free his community from your grasp." Elissa countered the woman's words.
The woman's eyes remained devoid of emotion as she let out a chilling cackle. "One of a hundred who chooses to go right when the rest want to go left. For that man, you will kill the ninety-nine?"
With a sudden crouch, the green-skinned woman propelled herself forward like a frog. Her speed eclipsed any of their reactions; even Elissa couldn't respond in time. The woman was upon Al in an instant, delivering a double sideways kick that caved in his chest, sending him hurtling to the end of the hallway with bone-shattering force, crashing through to the other side before plummeting to the ground below. Meanwhile, Elissa ducked evading the woman's back-fist strike.
Swiftly, Elissa shot up, delivering a lightning-quick knee strike that cracked one of the woman's ribs, sending her tumbling into the room designated to Al. "Everyone has the right to choose, no matter how insignificant they may seem," Elissa calmly said.