This town felt disgusting, and I am not talking about the smell of trash, piss, and blood covering more than half of the city, but the mana pulsating from the city itself felt distorted, a type of death mana that distorted its natural purprose, death was an inevitable force of nature; it brings an end to everything. And while it might seem like a bad thing, sometimes facing death after a life of endless pain might just be the best thing in your life, the death of someone evil dough to karma, the sacrifice of a singular life for the prosperity of the majority.
But this? This feels forced, imposed on; there was nothing natural about it. My now deeper connection to mana made me realize that natural death mana had a warm, hidden feeling behind it, this? This had none of it.
My senses were brought back to the city, to its citizens. My senses spread all over the city, making me see everything happening all at once: weapon smuggling, kidnapping, murder, rape, drug abuse, you name a crime, and somewhere it was happening, it felt sickening.
I could see it, the way the mana signature emanating from this city was wickening the souls of its citizens, slowly turning them evil, and also causing them to fall into some kind of abstinence to the mana signature, get too far from the city, and you feel like you are under drug abstinence.
I remained still, my eyes closed, while my mind processed everything happening across the city, and among these, I saw the most wicked soul I had ever seen in my whole life; nothing of it remained pure. If Peter's soul was the pure representation of goodness, then his was the representation of evil, pulsating as if alive, with each second it remained among the living, more and more madness was spread.
'I guess I know my first target.'
The previous moment I was standing above the city, the next, I was gone.
.
.
.
[3rd POV]
" Oracle, how many are being kept inside the bus?" A stern voice asked through the earpiece that was hidden under his mask.
" Between 19 and 21, I am unsure about the actual numbers because of the gunshots." A feminine voice said back.
" I have already dealt with the distraction on the side of the city, Father." A kid's voice said through his own earpiece.
" We dealt with it, Damian, don't remove merit from others." The voice of a young adult said.
" Yeah, and we knew the location of the real hostages only because I was able to hack one of their intercoms." A voice a bit older than the kid's said.
" Focus on the objective." The stern voice said, and silence followed for a few more seconds.
" I have him under my scope. Give your signal, and his arm gets blasted." A rough voice said.
" Do not shoot, we do not know how many people are inside aside from him." The stern voice said.
He only received a grunt as an answer.
About a minute later, all the voices had reached the area where the bus had been hidden, an old warehouse near the docks, but just as the owner of the stern voice was about to speak, the rough voice spoke.
" Bats, we might have a situation."
" What?"
" God might have just killed-."
.
.
.
I stood there, in front of the being that pulsated with madness. His eyes were filled with surprise when he saw me, but for some reason, the smile on his face remained unchanged. I ignored such a fact, trying to understand that madness will only make you as mad.
His face was completely white, no makeup, blood covered his mouth in the shape of a smile, he had green hair, and was wearing a purple smoking, on his hand was a gun, the gun was pointing directly at a child's head, the child was shaking, crying, but doing his best not move.
" You are not the hero I was expecting, but I will make do with what I have, move from there, and the bomb will ex-"
" What bomb?"
A red hue enveloped the warehouse for a second, reality shifting under my will, and where once stood a warehouse filled with a bomb containing an unknown toxin, now stood a normal, old warehouse.
" BOSS, THE BOMBS ARE GONE." One of the henchemns that had another of the children under his arm shouted.
" You are one of those; there is no pleasure when magic people come here and show off. Regardless, I still have hostages, and you do not."
It took a blink, a single blink, a forced, shared blink, and every single one of the children found themself behind me.
"... I could still shoot you." He said, but it sounded more like a question than an actual statement.
" You have no bullet in there."
He did indeed shoot, and the only thing that came out was a piece of paper with the words BANG written on it.
" Bummer, well, I guess I am going back to Arkham then." He said while pushing both of his wrists towards me.
" No."
For a second, his smile faltered, and that was all I was asking for.
His body exploded, torn into a blood mist, but given my control over blood, I could make him feel what it would feel like to turn into one and live. I repeated the process a hundred times in the span of 10 seconds, shattering whatever remained of his already mad mind, and then sealed the deal with a last spell.
Activating my authority over mana, I ordered it to erase its soul. I had no affinity for death mana, but for some reason with seemed quite happy to listen. I saw the man's mana signature just turn off, like a light. Once it existed, the next second, it didn't.
' Thank you.'
'You are welcome.' The death mana itself, said, smiling? It felt like a smile to me.
... Guess I will need to have a chat with death later, but for now.
The metal object that had been thrown at me stopped right on its track and fell to the ground.
And there, standing in front of me, stood the biggest question mark of my life.
'... How the fuck is this guy still alive?'
---
Thanks for the support from everyone. The list is getting quite long, so sorry if I can't keep up with it.
AN: Hey guys, no jokes here today, some of you might have seen the appearance of a new book on my Patreon. It is currently being written on Royal Road, no fan fiction though, all came from me. If you want to try reading it, it's called: "Understanding is a form of power."
Also, this is just a side note, I decided to finally change my tag to something that didn't come out of the mind of a 15/16 year old kid. See ya.
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