Daren's Bloodlust

Inside of Daren's soul, there were cages that number over 60. These cages were cube-shaped and had purple-colored metal bars on each side except for the floor and the flat ceiling.

The cages were large as they measured 20 meters on each side. Inside these cages were human men. There was even the purple furred tiger that Daren killed when he was in the Googoon Lagoon Forest.

The cages were placed in a circular formation and at the center of it all was a red couch. On the red couch sat Daren. He was wearing a burgundy blazer, burgundy dress pants, white sneakers, and a white shirt with its collar open.

Daren looked at the cages surrounding him. The thieves that he had killed and absorbed the knowledge of were all kicking and punching the bars of their mini prison. The bars of metal did not take any damage as these men did not have any superhuman strength to bend or dent the steel with.

"Ahhh. So this is where his pain is coming from," said Daren. Every time a prisoner hit the metal bars, the force of the pouches would be felt by Daren's brain. Since the prisoners were all hitting the bars simultaneously, the pain going to his brain would be quite significant every time.

Imagine being kicked by a horde of people at the same time. This would definitely cause some mind-shattering amount of pain. The damage should be enough to kill most people but Daren's soul was holding on.

Daren had been pondering about why this happened as soon as the system had gone to sleep.

"You must be wondering about what went wrong," said Alex as he walked towards Daren. Alex's blue hair was slightly moving in the air as if the force of gravity barely affected it.

The same was the case for Daren's pitch-black hair. The hair just seemed to float upwards in the soul realm.

"You have answers?" asked Daren.

"Yeah." As Alex approached him, a red couch similar to Daren's showed up in front of him. Alex took a seat right across from Daren as he started to explain.

"As you don't know of a way to enter your soul realm without something dragging you in, you have not been able to see exactly how we live here. By we, I mean all of the souls you have devoured since coming to this world.

The system puts any souls that are aggressive and noncooperative inside these prison cells around you. I was very cooperative from the start as I had no hope of living again anyway.

That's why I roam freely around this empty world. Unlike me and the tiger, everyone has been trying to get out of the cages since they got her." explained Alex. He stopped for a couple of seconds so Daren could keep up and so he could catch his breath, not that he actually needed to breathe. Before he could continue, Daren's next words caught him off guard.

"So basically these caves were formed by the system to suppress the souls that I absorb. I was wondering where the actual consciousness of the souls except yours went. I only had their memories so the rest had to go somewhere else. With the system focusing on awakening Celina's younger sister, it can't hold the cages together so it puts the burden on me." said Daren.

Alex's eyes started to twitch at how Daren only needed half the story to figure that out by he realized it wasn't too complicated for a decently smart person to figure out. Alex calmed down and was about to confirm it when Daren continued.

"That means I have to hold on for three straight days until the system comes back online. Ah, I really don't want to deal with this right now but I have no choice. Just got to keep pouring my willpower into these cages and I should be fine."

"You really sure you can hold on for that long. You couldn't even stay standing for a couple of minutes until you lost all control of your body." Alex is a little worried as Daren is his only chance at closure.

"Heh. I only lost control as I had to shift all my energy and focus somewhere else. Holding these guys off for 3 days is light work." says Daren as he gave a creepy chuckle.

Alex was clearly skeptical as he was sure that he saw Daren struggle immensely just to keep the pain in check for a couple of minutes. There was no way he could continue this for 3 whole days.

"I can see you have your doubts but you do need to worry because my willpower is only a fraction of a more powerful ability that I could use," Daren said as he puffed up his chest and held his head up high.

It looked a bit strange as he didn't really need to puff up his already muscular and wide chest. His pecs were very hard and packed with a lean amount of muscle.

Daren then remembered how toned and well-built his body was in his previous life. Alex's body was not skinny by any means and had a decent amount of muscle on it since Daren trained it regularly but it could not compare to his old body.

"What is this more powerful ability? Show me so I can be assured and not hold any false hopes" asked Alex.

"Hehe. You better be ready as I can't control it that well," said Daren as he opened his somewhat narrow eyes wide open and then clenched his fists tightly.

BOOOM!

The entire soul realm started to shake vigorously. The multicolored neon sky started to fade as red, mist-like clouds started to cover them up. Before this, the clouds were golden due to the use of Daren's willpower. These clouds were very sparse as Daren's willpower was struggling to cope with the pressure. Because of this, the golden clouds only covered the sky in small patches but now, the entire infinite sky was fully blanketed by the crimson red clouds.

The crimson clouds emitted an eerie feeling all over the soul realm until red beams of concentrated light shone upon every being within the realm except for Daren, Alex, and the tiger.

The thieves were brought to their knees as they could no longer exert any energy due to the immense weight that forced them onto the ground. Some of the thieves even fainted and started to foam in their mouths. The thieves that were awake looked in fear towards Daren.

This pressure and fear were all due to the eerie light that made them want to give up any hopes of survival. The light was practically suffocating them and making them wish they could die at this very moment.

Even though Alex could not feel the pressure as badly as the thieves due to the fact that the light did not touch him, he could still feel a pressure exerting from Daren that made him feel somewhat scared of the man. Alex could also feel his neck being suffocated as well.

After seeing small beads of sweat roll down his face, Daren could not hold back from revealing the origin of his very obvious ability.

"This is my bloodlust. It was formed this one lifetime where I gained the life of a child on a planet that hosted gladiator events. This child was being trained to kill by his father who was a stadium owner.

The father wanted his son to be able to fight hundreds of opponents at the same time and win by very small margins. He thought that since it was his own son, he did not need to pay him any money to work at the arena and he could also make tons of money from exciting fights like that.

That's why I got trained by this man just enough that I was barely able to hold onto my life in every fight. He never gave me enough training to wipe the floor with them but he also made sure that I would not die too easily either. " Daren's story almost brought tears to Alex.

Even though Alex was a well-learned scholar who understood most things about his world, he was still very weak at heart and it pained him to learn of stories this cruel.

"Why would a parent do such a thing to their own child?" asked Alex as he wiped his tears. He had only been able to feel the great fortune of loving parents in his life and had no experience with shit parents.

"Beats me. I only really had living parents in that one life and my original life, My original parents probably loved me as much as your parents did. Using that, I just figured that some humans are uncontrollably greedy while others could control it." replied Daren.

"You are right I guess. My mother-like aunt did not spare even a single member of our family for the greed she had towards the throne. I'm starting to understand humans a little more after seeing what you have been doing. That being said, how many people have you killed to have so much bloodlust?" Alex had a depressing expression on his face the entire time he has been talking to Daren. This indicated to him that Alex was actually growing emotionally, something he could not do the 17 years he had been sheltered by his overprotective mother.

"Hmm. In that boy's life, I lived a solid 253 years. I spent the first 39 years just killing and would say that my kill count reached well over 15,000. I then took up a job in my nation's special forces after leaving my family. In the military, I was sent to countless battlefields where I and my comrades had to deal with hundreds of enemies all at once.

It wasn't that hard though since we all could handle a couple hundred in a melee or gunfight.

Overall, I racked up over 117,000 kills in that life alone. Then in my other lives, I went through many different jobs but I kept on honing my skills by going on missions that I would assign to myself. My final total should be well over 3,000,000 in all my life. This does not include the people I indirectly killed."

Alex's jaw dropped when he heard the absurd number. That was 3 million people! This one-man had killed 3 million with his own hands and somehow was not fazed by it.

Alex turned around to check on the thieves but he was once again shocked seeing that the cages were empty. All that remained were some white bits of smoke.

"What happened?" asked Alex as he was flustered and would probably faint any second because the bloodlust was too strong for him.

Seeing Alex's state, Daren took back his bloodlust and allowed him to relax a little. The red clouds and mist left along with the light. The multi-colored sky was once again visible as you could see the clear, rainbow assortment of neon colors floating about.

"The pressure of my bloodlust was too strong for their already weak souls to handle so their consciousness was permanently destroyed," explained Daren as he got up from the couch and started stretching. "I have to have a good talk with the system when it wakes up. It could have at least given me some sort of warning about this. Now then, how can I leave this place?"

Before Alex could answer, Daren disappeared from the soul realm.

"I was about to tell him just to have a strong intent of leaving but I guess he already had it. Hey William, now that he's gone, get out of that cage so we can play fetch," said Alex as he looked over at the tiger's cage.

The majestic, purple, and blue-furred tiger's cage disappeared as he let out a roar.

"That was quite the interesting scene. I never thought I would ever see bloodlust like this. There is no way that the ruler of my forest could even exert such pressure. Good thing he killed me in a less humiliating way." said the tiger as it took long strides towards Alex.

Alex ribbed the tiger's soft mane as he formed a tennis ball-like object in his hand. The ball was midnight purple and black, unlike traditional tennis balls.

"Seeing how high and mighty he acts, I assume he likes to show off his skills and thinks that using bloodlust against creatures like you was worthless," said Alex.

"Heh. Seeing him break through so many levels of {FORCE} makes me want to serve him but I think I can't do that anymore. I am not only dead but I start to shiver when I think about that immense bloodlust. " said the tiger, who after spending so much time with Alex that he had been named William.

"I hope he doesn't have to come down here any time soon," said Alex.

William nodded his tiger head in agreement.