155 Driven by Madness

He disregarded the giant hole in his stomach and chased them without any other thought than slaughter and destruction, his all-red eyes blazing with a furious and erratic light in a way that it had never done before.

Considering the direction they had run to, he was able to confirm for a 2nd time that all of his problems had spawned from the very Forest that he had been born in, but he didn't care. All he wanted to do was kill.

He quickly caught up to them and it was like an Ogre jumping into a crowd of Goblins. Absolutely no contest. He slashed bodies in half, ripped out arms and legs, tore off heads like he was plucking off flowerheads and latched onto necks with his teeth to drain out the blood of his victims in seconds, but his most favourite attack by far was to impale his victims in the same location that he had been impaled in as he watched their quivering faces filled with fear fall slack as they entered the embrace of death.

He had killed roughly 40% of them (which left the amount of Fae remaining with very few numbers since they were much less Fae than Devils) when 3 different coloured lightning bolts struck his body at once, causing him extensive damage. Purple and White were obviously expected, but the new Red one was something that he had not experienced before. But he knew who it belonged to. Even if he wasn't already well acquainted with the owner he still would have been able to guess who it was immediately.

Who else could it be other than the son of Sindia and Balik, Sinbad?

The Red Lightning coursed through his body chaotically, borrowing the energy of the other 2 lightning bolts to actually cause damage to his body and exhibit the effects of its own innate nature. Which, to his utter dismay, was to syphon his blood! It even showed signs of interacting with his Blood Essence!

Ghost had no doubt that if Sinbad was stronger than him, then he really would have been able to syphon his Blood Essence just like that damned tree! He had to kill him!

He tried to rush towards the boy to eliminate the threat, but another combined lightning attack that was even stronger than before slammed into him and sent him flying. Sent him flying! When was the last time that he had ever been sent flying if he wasn't fighting Asura, Babunda or the Phoenix of Envy? Never!

But it was as he was growling with pain and frustration that he finally recognized the rapidly declining state of his body.

His flesh had sunken, his skin was paler than normal, there were burns all over his body including his organs and there was a giant hole in his stomach that wasn't healing. He was in significant danger. In fact, he reckoned that if he took 2 or 3 more of those strikes, he would be placed in a position of no return.

So, with one last glare that promised endless suffering, he fled without hesitation. He wasn't a fool and with his head clearer than it was when he had started the massacre, he could finally resume making the correct decisions.

There was no point in trying to eradicate a threat to his life if doing so without preparation in on itself was a threat to his life. The only option left was to flee. Of course, whilst slashing any Devil or Fae that got too close. Lightning bolts tried to strike but he was able to dodge them without much problems since his mind was 100% set on fleeing. In the end, he was able to escape without suffering any more damage.

However, his glee at killing so many of his enemies that he had been hunting for so long quickly turned sour when he investigated the extent of the damage. Just like he had feared, although he had 'healed', he had healed completely wrongly. The open flesh from the hole in his stomach had been covered by powerful muscles and perfect skin like normal… but the hole was still there.

It was similar to the stump that an inferior being would gain if they were to survive getting their hands cutted off. Most Blood Fiends, if provided with adequate blood, would be able to regenerate the loss of biomass after they entered the final stage of the Body Refinement Realm (Realm 1). He, on the other hand, didn't even need blood to regenerate anymore. It was just automatic. And in the times where he obtained extreme wounds created by special attacks that left its essence in his body, all he needed to do, if using his own energy to purge the blight didn't work, was drink some potent blood. Using another powerful Blood Fiend for that always worked.

But not this time. He had practically drained almost all of his Fiend Lords and even gained a small amount of power from it, but his wounds and missing biomass did not regenerate... They healed, but they did not regenerate. This meant that the disordered state of his body that was heavily dampening his energy output, was permanent. All the twisted blood vessels and magic circuits, the misshapen organs and shrunken flesh, all if it would stay the way it was…

It could be imagined how infuriated he had been.

Only much, much later when many moons had passed and madness was once more beginning to encroach upon his mind that he did something completely drastic. Driven by the insane desire to rid himself from the unsightly imperfection that his body had been reduced to, he used his own claws to gouge out every last 'wound' on his body, then, without hesitance, once more indulged in the blood of his Fiend Lords.

His deranged hope was that if he could rid himself of the imperfect flesh, his perfect true and perfect flesh would regenerate after drinking some blood. If it worked, good. If it didn't and he regrew the imperfect flesh, then he would find some place to fight to the death.

Luckily, it worked.

It took a lot more blood than the wounds that he had suffered should have, but by the end of the process, he was once more perfect. For someone who didn't have the ability to endlessly regenerate like a Blood Fiend, they would have been forced to accept the fate that Ghost had been subjected to… permanently. How terrifying.

But he wasn't like them. He was Ghost, the perfect being, the progenitor of all Blood Fiends, and from that day forward, the NIGHTMARE OF THE FOREST OF BLOODY ORIGIN!

Yes. The exact moment that he finally healed all the damages in his body, he ignored the Fiend Lords that had made sacrifices for him and went out to hunt.

The rage that had been festering in his soul wanted nothing else.