That night, Melissa slipped out alone. The wind was a gentle caress, and the moon shone brightly, casting its luminous glow across the dark, like a solitary lantern in the abyss.
Her blonde hair danced softly in the evening breeze, and her diamond-blue eyes gazed up at the sky, which was scattered with countless stars.
"Oh... what a beautiful night," she murmured softly. "This body is not mine! But..." she looked down at her hands.
"I can feel all of her memories and emotions!" She lifted her head, her gaze drifting back to the stars.
"If I die, perhaps I will simply transfer again, but what about Mother and Maya!?" A knot of worry tightened in her chest.
"What would they do if they knew the Melissa they cherished was no longer the girl they knew?" She offered a bitter smile.
Suddenly, a cheerful voice chimed from behind her. "Big Sis? Why are you staring off into space?" Maya sat down beside her.
"Just a little bored, Maya! Why are you out here?" Melissa asked, feigning surprise.
"Mmm... huh? That's not fair. I asked you first!" Maya pouted playfully. Melissa gave a small, genuine smile.
"Why are you two still outside?! It's late, you know!" their mother chided, appearing in the doorway.
"The sky is clear, Mom," Maya explained.
"Yes, that's right," Melissa added.
"Enough with the excuses! Come inside
now." The two girls exchanged a knowing glance, then followed their mother inside.
Meanwhile, in a hidden locale...
"Listen to me! This village will be the site of our next raid!!" declared a man fiercely. He had shaggy brown hair, wore thick, fur-trimmed clothing, and gripped a formidable battle axe.
The leader marched onward with his troop—a horde of savage and merciless men. The wind howled, seeming to carry the ill tidings of their approach.
The leader, Kael, descended the slope and encountered a lone villager.
"Slash!" Kael cut the man down swiftly, dismissing the need for speech. The other bandits immediately began looting the belongings of the fallen villager.
This brutal scene was witnessed by another local. The villager screamed and fled, yelling, "The Blood Fangs! They're here!" as if he had seen fiends crawl from the depths of hell.
Kael turned, and in a swift, practiced motion, hurled his massive axe. It spun through the air and struck the fleeing villager squarely in the head.
"Kael! Do not kill indiscriminately!" snapped an elderly man standing beside him. This man's dark hair was streaked white with age, pulled back in a tight knot, and his build was stout and powerful.
"We are bandits! We are The Blood Fangs!" Kael asserted fiercely.
The older man fixed him with a sharp gaze. "We only need their treasures, Kael! Not senseless butchery!"
"You are too naive, Uncle! Everyone, move out!" Kael roared, clenching his fist, urging his men forward toward the village.
The bandits moved with a palpable aura of strong, murderous intent hanging over them.
In the village, Melissa's mother suddenly awoke, startled by an inexplicable sense of dread. She looked out the window, then glanced at Maya sleeping peacefully beside her.
"Oh, Goddess, what is this? Why is my heart so uneasy?" she whispered to herself. She rose and quietly opened her bedroom door, walking toward her eldest daughter's room.
"Melissa! Are you asleep?" the mother asked, knocking softly, hoping her daughter would hear her.
"Oh, what is it, Mom?" Melissa replied from inside the room, her voice laced with confusion and question. Melissa was bewildered by her mother's late-night call.
"I feel a deep anxiety, Melissa! It feels as though some terrible thing is about to befall us!" the mother explained. Her face was etched with worry, and her eyes were glistening with unshed tears.
Melissa froze, seeing her mother on the verge of crying. Gathering her courage, she embraced her tightly and softly murmured, "We will be safe, Mom." She sought to soothe her mother's fears.
"Melissa... yes, let us hope so." Her mother offered a gentle smile. They held the embrace for a moment longer, then released each other, exchanged smiles, and returned to their respective
Closer to the village...
"Kael, what did you mean by killing that child just now!" the Uncle chided, his voice thick with anger.
Kael offered a wicked smile and fixed his gaze upon his uncle. "Because it was destined by the Creator..." he stated coldly.
"You...!" the Uncle snarled. "I won't hesitate to stop you by force, Kael!" he asserted, his eyes burning with a fierce look. "Killing them gains us nothing, Kael," he added.
"You stop me? Hahaha... I am far too strong for you, Uncle!" Kael boasted loudly. "And you are too weak to ever defeat me," Kael declared, his gaze a direct challenge.
The Uncle clenched his fists, then turned his back and walked away from the group.
"From this moment forward, I am no longer a part of this demonic troupe, Kael!" the Uncle stated definitively as he walked into the darkness.
"Do as you wish... you foolish Uncle!" Kael retorted, dismissively.
Kael and his gang advanced upon the village. "Burn every house, kill them all, and seize their wealth!" Kael roared, his eyes blazing with avarice.
"Heeelp!" A child was dragged from a home by a bandit and mercilessly struck down. Doors were violently kicked open; residents were slaughtered without compromise.
The bandits' booming laughter formed a stark, sickening contrast to the pitiful screams that echoed through the night. Blood and corpses littered the ground beneath the light of dozens of burning homes.
"Please... spare my child!" pleaded a mother, but to Kael, her voice was merely the pathetic yelp of a dying dog. "Slash!" He struck the woman down. Her child shrieked in horror.
Several villagers clung to each other in terror, but Kael only laughed. Their cries and screams were a beautiful symphony to his ears.
"Hahahaha.... scream! Weep, you wretches!" he yelled triumphantly. The rest of the bandits joined their master in the horrific chorus of laughter.
Then, they turned their attention to the house at the far end of the lane—a simple, humble family dwelling. A bandit kicked the door with brute force, splintering it open.
The moment he stepped inside, a kitchen knife plunged swiftly and accurately into his neck. A woman had struck him—it was Melissa. The bandit staggered backward, clutching his wound, before collapsing as his lifeblood drained away.
Melissa's body trembled; this was her first kill. Her mother stared in shock. "Child... you killed him!?"
"I did it to survive, Mother!" Melissa asserted, though the true justification belonged to Nathan's soul.
"Look at that... the pretty girl has the nerve to kill one of my men," Kael sneered, suddenly appearing at the doorway, his bloody axe held loosely in his hand. "You know the consequences, don't you?" He smiled wickedly.
"You fiend...!" Melissa glared at him, pure hatred in her eyes.
"Hahaha... even so, you cannot stop me!" Kael boasted confidently. Melissa knew she couldn't win, but she wouldn't let her new family be harmed.
"Mother... Maya, my sweet sister! Please, you must leave! I will come to you later!" Melissa implored, looking at her terrified mother and sister.
"What are you saying, Melissa! If we die, we die together! If we survive, we survive together!" her mother firmly countered.
"Enough with the drama! Kill them!" Kael commanded with a look of disgust.
Melissa gasped. Her mother and Maya hugged each other tightly.
The bandits began to close in. Melissa placed herself in front of her family. She had a plan, however insane it was. She looked back at her family, offered a final, tender smile, and kicked the nearest thug, sending him stumbling back.
The other bandits surrounded her, and Melissa moved forward into the fray.
"Melissa... no!" her mother screamed. Using her maximized bodily potential and a kitchen knife in her right hand, Melissa attacked. She managed to slam one man to the ground, spin, and kick a second bandit in the neck.
Maya shrieked as a thug broke past the fight and rushed toward them. Melissa was momentarily distracted and turned—and felt a sharp blade plunge into her back.
"Melissa!" Her mother's cry was hysterical.
The bandits laughed in triumph.
But the bandit who had delivered the killing blow suddenly froze. His eyes flared a vivid emerald green. He whirled around and attacked his own comrades, instantly decapitating two of his fellow thugs.
Melissa's mother watched in horrified confusion, clutching Maya.
That bandit was quickly cut down by another of Kael's men. But the new killer immediately looked down, shuddered, spun, and attacked the others.
The cycle continued—each killer inheriting Nathan's soul, using the host body's maximized potential to kill another bandit, only to be killed themselves.
It continued until only Kael remained.
Kael stared, wide-eyed, watching his men kill each other without cause. Finally, the last reanimated bandit approached Kael.
"You... must die!"
Kael and the bandit now possessed by Nathan fought fiercely. Nathan spun, and with a single, precise strike, beheaded Kael.
Nathan, now in the final bandit's body, turned and looked at Melissa's lifeless body lying on the floor, then turned his gaze toward his former mother. The face of the bandit he inhabited was obscured by a crude mask. He walked slowly toward Melissa's mother.
"Forgive me... I could not stay with you any longer!"
Melissa's mother felt a strange familiarity in the bandit's stance.
"Were... were you the one inside Melissa all this time?" the mother asked, her voice laced with wonder.
"Yes..." The bandit nodded, then turned and left the two of them.
"Mother, what did he mean?" Maya asked, confused.
The mother looked down. "Your sister saved us, but in a way that is hard for me to understand." She watched the bandit disappear into the night. "She is still alive... though not as Melissa."
Nathan, now inhabiting his new body, slumped weakly near a massive tree. He tore the crude mask from his face and tossed it aside.
Then, the elderly, white-haired man who had left Kael's group earlier—the one called Uncle—appeared. He was walking toward the road when he saw Carl.
"Carl? Why did you come back?" he asked, his voice laced with surprise and confusion. He peered at Nathan-as-Carl with a bewildered expression.
"Where is Kael? Where are the others?" the Uncle demanded, his curiosity overriding his caution.
Suddenly, Nathan's head, now housing the mind of Carl, swam in a dizzying current. Dozens of raw memories and savage emotions flooded his brain—Carl's life as a brutal bandit.
"He is dead! They all died! Suddenly, they just started killing each other without reason!" Nathan-as-Carl stated honestly, omitting his own role. He slammed his fist against the tree beside him. "Perhaps this is the gods' retribution for their savage deeds."
"What do you mean by killing each other?" the Uncle asked, his eyes narrowing as he sensed the bizarre incongruity of the story.
"When one of our mates struck down that girl, he suddenly went mad and killed the others... then he was killed, but every time a man was killed, the new killer instantly went mad and attacked the rest," Nathan-as-Carl explained, trying to make the cycle sound convincing.
"It was like an endless cycle," he concluded.
The elderly man pondered the story deeply.
"Perhaps it was some kind of curse or powerful sorcery...!" The Uncle sighed heavily. "It seems this is a final warning to us! That we have strayed too far. Come on, Carl... let us leave this wretched path.
Carl followed the Uncle slowly, his eyes darting around the environment while his mind wrestled to sort through the fractured memories of his new body.
They soon arrived at a bustling location teeming with people deep in conversation.
"Master Falex!" A female receptionist greeted the Uncle warmly. "Who is the gentleman accompanying you?" she inquired, glancing curiously at Carl.
Carl spotted a basin of water nearby and instinctively moved toward it, needing to scrub the grime and blood from his face.
He peered at his reflection in the water's surface: a man with pale, almost ghostly white skin, dark red hair, and fierce orange eyes set in a perpetually sharp gaze.
"Mmm... quite handsome," Carl thought to himself, observing the striking features of his new form.
Around them, whispers immediately began to circulate.
"Who is he?"
"I've never seen him here before."
"He's actually quite striking."
"That red hair?"
Both men and women exchanged hushed comments, forming swift, silent opinions based solely on the striking figure Carl now presented.
"Sir, what is your name?" A woman, dressed in a daring and revealing gown, approached him, her voice dripping with seduction.
"Am I disturbing you, Master?" she purred, batting her eyelashes suggestively.
"You know what you are doing, yet you still bother me," Carl replied, his voice chillingly flat.
"Don't be so cold! I was only saying hello," she insisted, using a tone of forced childishness that Nathan, currently inhabiting Carl, found utterly repulsive.
Just then, a different woman entered the room. Spotting Falex, she approached him immediately. "Father!!" she exclaimed. "You're here?"
She had shoulder-length brown hair, wore spectacles, a formal blue blouse, and long black trousers.
"Karaya!" Falex looked genuinely surprised.
Carl's sharp orange eyes fixed instantly on the newcomer. The girl returned his gaze, their eyes locking in a challenging stare. It was a silent, intense clash, like two apex predators sizing each other up.