The Bloodbound Veil

“Our master... has looked into your eyes, Inquisitor,” whispered the black-hooded executioner before his own head was severed in the middle of a pool of thick blood. Silas hung in the middle of the abandoned slaughterhouse, filled with the stench of blood. Iron hooks pierced both his shoulders with brutal force and spilled fresh blood onto the floor. The Bleeding Hollow cultists stood in a circle while chanting ancient spells in a foreign language. One of them held a sharp knife and slowly sliced the flesh of Silas’s ribs. The excruciating pain pierced Silas’s nerves until he nearly lost consciousness completely. The screech of iron chains could be heard creaking every time his body moved weakly. The air inside the room felt extremely cold and suffocating. A thin mist of ectoplasm began creeping upward from the filthy floor. The smell of iron and burning flesh mixed together, creating a nauseating stench. Silas clenched his hands as tightly as he could to endure the pain tormenting him. His eyes were tightly shut as the sharp knife scraped across his rib skin once again. The cultists continued chanting their spell without caring about the suffering of their victim. They believed that Silas’s blood was the key to awakening an ancient entity. The cultists’ faces were covered by shabby black cloth robes soaked with sweat. The candle flames in the corner of the room flickered weakly as if running out of clean oxygen. Silas felt his consciousness beginning to drift far away beyond the boundaries of the darkness of night. He knew that if he surrendered now then his life would end in that cursed place. Yet his body had already lost a great deal of blood and his strength was almost completely gone. The iron hooks in his shoulders felt increasingly heavy and slowly tore through his muscle tissue. Every second felt like an hour moving incredibly slowly amid such suffering. Fresh blood continued dripping endlessly into the red pool beneath his feet. There was no other sound in that place besides the hiss of the incantation and the dripping of blood. At the brink of death, something inside Silas’s body responded to the torture. The intense pain triggered the ancient entity dwelling within his soul to go berserk. Paranormal energy exploded from Silas’s body and shattered the iron restraints in an instant. The room shook violently as a wave of black energy swept across every corner of the walls. The cultists were hurled into the air before they could even flee from the explosion of power. The wave of energy emitted a blinding purple light. The sound of a tremendous explosion echoed throughout the old building that had long been abandoned by the townspeople. Small debris fell from the ceiling due to the tremendous vibration that erupted instantly. Silas opened his eyes, which now emitted a terrifying bright red glow. The entity within him thrashed about, demanding freedom from the physical prison of the human body. The thick iron chains binding both his shoulders shattered into countless small fragments. He fell lightly to the floor in an upright position without any sense of weakness. The air around Silas suddenly froze, forming tiny ice crystals atop the pool of blood. The cultists who had previously stood upright now groaned in pain on the filthy floor. They tried to rise, but their strength seemed to be sucked away by Silas’s newfound power. A strange humming sound rang in the ears of everyone present. Silas took a deep breath to fill his lungs with air mixed with dense energy. His previously deathly pale skin was now covered with brightly glowing black lines. He no longer felt any pain from the wounds caused by the iron hooks in both his shoulders. The torn wounds began closing on their own, followed by the sound of bones grinding. The horrifying physical transformation occurred within seconds before the cultists’ eyes. They no longer looked at Silas as prey but as a terrifying monster. Silas rose horrifically as the bones in his body forcibly snapped back into place. The sound of breaking bones rang out one after another as the horrifying regeneration took place amid the ectoplasmic mist. Without wasting any time, he launched a lightning-fast m******e against the cultists without the slightest mercy. His dagger and bare hands moved swiftly, tearing through the defenses of everyone in the room. Blood splattered in every direction, staining the filthy floor of the abandoned slaughterhouse. Silas’s movements were so fast that his shadow seemed to flicker among the crowd of cultists. One of the cultists tried to escape through the front door, but his neck was caught. Silas lifted the man’s body with one hand and slammed him onto the stone floor. The man’s ribs broke instantly, producing an extremely loud cracking sound. Another cultist tried to attack from behind using a wooden club covered in sharp spikes. Silas blocked the attack with his bare arm without feeling the slightest pain. The skin of his arm hardened and resisted the blow of the spiked wood until it snapped into two pieces. He quickly turned around and drove his fist into his opponent’s chest. The ether-powered blow pierced through the cultist’s chest cavity with ease. The victim died instantly without managing to utter a final scream from his throat. Corpses sprawled across the floor of the room, which had now become a sea of fresh blood. The stench of blood grew even stronger, stabbing at the nose and mixing with the smell of scorched ether. Silas walked past the corpses with an empty gaze. There was no remorse or fear in Silas’s mind as he carried out the m******e. His soul had been completely controlled by the ancient entity that had awakened within his body. Every step he took left bloody footprints across the cement floor. Within seconds, every member of the cult lay dead and drenched in blood before him. Only a black-hooded executioner remained, standing motionless near the exit. The executioner managed to utter a strange curse before his own head severed itself without anyone touching him. Silas stood alone in the middle of the thick pool of blood while regulating his heavy breathing. He stared at the corpse before him with an empty gaze that concealed a great mystery. The sound of blood dripping from the ceiling became the only sound remaining in the room. Thin black smoke still slowly billowed from both of Silas’s shoulders, which had just healed. He raised his right hand and looked at his palm, which was covered in thick bloodstains. Black energy still swirled faintly around his fingers as if it had not yet fully subsided. The executioner who had been standing near the door now lay lifeless with his head separated from his body. Fresh blood spurted from the executioner’s neck, forming a new pool near the exit. Silas slowly stepped toward the corpse of the executioner wearing the torn black robe. He knelt beside the corpse to search for clues or important documents. Inside the executioner’s robe pocket, he found an iron emblem shaped like a closed eye. The emblem felt extremely cold when touched with the tip of his still-hot finger. He placed the mysterious emblem into the pocket of his worn coat without thinking twice. The roar of the night wind began to be heard through gaps in the damaged slaughterhouse walls. Cold air from outside entered, carrying the smell of rain and the thick fog characteristic of the city of Aethelgard. Silas knew he had to leave the scene immediately before the city guards arrived. But before he could step away, a strange voice began humming loudly again. “You will not be able to escape this fate, Inquisitor,” a mysterious whisper echoed inside his head.