Sovereign of the Karmic System

For the next few minutes, Daniel retraced his steps quietly, until he found himself at a crossing just a couple of corridors away from his cabin. This crossing merged four different corridors, and from the way Daniel had arrived, he needed to walk into the corridor to his right in order to reach his cabin.

The moment Daniel reached the crossing, and was about to turn right, he felt the presence of something observe him in silence, coming from the depths of the corridor in front of him.

For a moment, he stood immobile. He was afraid that any motion would get him killed.. Unfortunately, that was not a wise move, as he felt the entity that was observing him prepare to dash at him, and kill him a second and final time.

Suddenly, a door in between this entity and Daniel opened, and from it, a middle aged man came out with his body covered by a bathrobe. He had clearly just came out of the shower, and had no idea of what was happening.

Without being able to see the entity clearly, the man was tackled back into his room, where from that moment on, disgusting sounds of flesh being ripped, and bones being crashed could be heard.

Naturally, Daniel did not stay to see how the man was doing. He almost instantly dashed into the right corridor, and towards his room. He was so terrified that, the moment he reached his cabin, he realized that he had completely cut off the past ten seconds from his mind. He couldn’t remember anything after the man had been attacked, and had reached his cabin almost subconsciously.

Instead of entering his room, he kept going towards Jerigh’s, which was right next to his. He soon found out that his room was closed, but also that the door of Der’s room wasn’t.

He momentarily ignored Jerigh’s room, and dashed into Der’s, where he found no trace of him inside. He quickly checked the bathroom, the closet, the wardrobe.. But he found nothing. There was no trace of a battle or blood either, so he walked back out of the abandoned room, and towards Jerigh’s.

*Knock Knock*

Daniel tried to knock with the lowest amount of strength possible, but the sound he caused still forced him to be on edge. He knew nothing about the capabilities of the being he had seen a glimpse of a few minutes earlier, and if its hearing was developed enough to hear the knocking, he would be screwed.

"come on.. come on.. open damn it.." whispered Daniel to himself while feeling his hands and legs shaking, and the adrenaline run through his body.

*Click*

-----

Jerigh had been woken up from the middle of his cultivation, and was now on alert. He knew that this ship was full of powerful individuals, and therefore, the crew would never bother someone that stayed in his room for the entire travel, as that meant that they would be probably cultivating. So, it was extremely odd that somebody would interrupt his cultivation, no matter what had happened.. But since that had actually happened, it meat that something serious was going on.

He quietly approached the door, and after unlocking it, he opened it a chink while keeping one of his hands tightly wrapped on the grip of the knife which he had picked up when approaching the door.

The moment the door opened, he felt a powerful force push towards him, and a hand cover his mouth. He was ready to start stabbing, but then, he stopped immediately when he noticed that it was Daniel.

Daniel quickly closed the door, and put a finger on his own mouth, signaling him to be quiet and to not speak. It was only after Jerigh nodded, that he took his hand off of his mouth, and walked in the middle of the room.

Jerigh instinctively became as quiet as a feather falling on the ground, and walked towards the drawer next to his bed. He took a pen and paper, and started to write something on it. Then, he walked towards Daniel, and put the sheet of paper in front of him.

Daniel did not immediately noticed the piece of paper. He was closing his eyes, and focusing on the window that had appeared in his mind. What he was looking at, was the list of the members of his group.

In about a minute, he scrolled through thousands of names, and finally, he took a deep breath of relief after seeing that ’Der’hor Rulin’ was still present in the list. Only then did he open his eyes, and noticed the note that Jerigh had placed in front of him. It was written in the asum language.

____________________________

Truh divorja?

____________________________

There were times where Jerigh would simply spoke to Daniel in the asum language, as he knew that he could speak it perfectly. This time, he had simply asked ’What happened?’, to which Daniel responded by sending a wisp of sound essence directly into Jerigh’s ear.

"There is something outside that has been killing the passengers. It’s powerful enough to kill me in an instant. It hasn’t entered the rooms yet, and seems to be slaughtering everyone that goes out." Said Daniel all at once.

Clear doubt appeared on Jerigh’s face. He knew how powerful Daniel was more than anybody else. With his perfect comprehension of multiple essences, numerous martial arts, and incredible battle prowess, he shouldn’t have a problem to escape from a cultivator at the seventh stage of cultivation. From what he remembered, there shouldn’t have been somebody powerful enough to kill him in an instant on board.

Once again, Jerigh wrote something else on the paper, and just a second later, placed it in front of him.

____________________________

Truh divorja?

Der?

____________________________

"Not in his room.. But still alive." Responded Daniel with another wisp of sound essence.

____________________________

Truh divorja?

Der?

Luja ve ty roaj tre kaa?

____________________________

The moment Daniel read the last phrase, he shook his head lightly, and said "No, we’ll look for him together.." At the same time, in his mind, Daniel was repeating over and over how lucky he would be if none of his friends would die from this.

He then approached the room once again, and after creating a blade made out of metal essence, he let it slip underneath the door. For a full minute, he waited for that entity to pass in front of his room, but it never happened. It was only after he detached a small bead of metal from the rest of the blade, and threw it in the depths of the corridor, that he started to hear noises.

These noises became louder and closer, until finally, the shine of the light spheres stopped reflecting on Daniel’s blade, and he saw clearly what that entity actually was.

What appeared on the reflection was a horrific creature. It walked on four bigger legs, which carried a human-like chest from which a few more bloody legs closed and opened constantly, as if trying to pull anything that was in front of it inside. The place where a human head was supposed to be, now had four meaty petals, in between which a few small tentacles and a single straight spike came out. Instead of arms, this monster had two spikes from which what looked like lumps of flesh dangled with its motion.

Two details made Daniel truly horrified. The first one, was that these four legs and two arms had flesh around them which resembled that of a human’s arms and legs, and in the middle of them, a few toes and fingers could be seen hanging from it.

The second thing, was that there was more than one monster, as a similar, yet different one, had just followed the first one in the direction where he had thrown the small metallic bead.

It didn’t take long for Daniel to realize one thing.. these monsters were once humans. "What the hell.." He muttered with his lips, but without producing the slightest bit of sound. Wanting to observe them once again, he created a second metallic bead, and threw it the opposite direction from the first.

The two monsters followed the sound, and once again, they walked through the corridor where Daniel and Jerigh were hiding. When the two arrived in front of their door, Daniel created a small illusion which showed a person standing in the middle of the corridor.

The reason why Daniel had done this, was to understand what these monsters were attracted by.

Unexpectedly, the beings ignored the illusion completely, and kept walking towards the direction where the sound had come from. It was only after Daniel added sound essence to the illusion, that these monsters tried to attack it with lightning speed.

What Daniel had understood from this little test, was that these monsters were not attracted by sight, or changes in the mana in their surroundings, but to sound.

Once again, just as the two monsters passed by, Daniel tried to form, and throw a third bead at the end of the corridor expecting the two monsters to follow it, but as they passed next to Jerigh’s room, they suddenly stopped. One of them bent its torso towards the door, and started to feel it up with the four meaty petals, and the tentacles.

A shiver ran down Daniel’s spine.

He quickly gave up control over the constructed knife, and let it disappear, then, he walked towards the bathroom, and waved his hand so that Jerigh could follow him in, and then closed door.

*Crack* *RATTLE* *CRUNCHH*

It was clear from the sound that came from outside the bathroom, that these monsters had smashed the door, and had entered the cabin. Daniel did all he could to prevent them from entering the bathroom. He formed a spatial and sound blockades around him and Jerigh, so that no noise or smell could ever manage to reach them.

After searching the cabin for a few minutes, the two monsters stepped out of it and left from one of the corridors.

While one of the monsters was trying to break into the door, which was part of the ship’s formation, and had the resistance necessary to defend against the power of a late seventh stage cultivator, Daniel had noticed a few more details about these monsters.

The four walking legs on which they moved, were nothing but the person’s legs, which had split into two from the bone, and had ripped the flesh of the leg apart as they separated. The same was for the arms.

He had also noticed a few pieces of fabric on the second monster’s body, which resembled part of the bathrobe that the man that had been attack in front of him was wearing.

Finally, these monsters were not only attracted by sound, but also by immortal essence. He had come to this realization after sending the third bead, which was the only one he had formed when the monsters were close to him. The small wisp of immortal essence that he had let out from underneath the door, then controlled and transformed into metal essence, had attracted them towards the door, which they then destroyed in order to find its source.

As the two monsters left, Daniel sent a wisp of sound essence into Jerigh ears.

"Don’t use immortal essence.. And for crying out loud.. Do not make a sound.."

He then opened the door of the bathroom, and walked out of the cabin as quietly as possible.