Elias did not try to recall the fights or the struggles during the kill, only their faces, that was what was important, every injury or pain he had endured during all of his hunts—and there had been several intense life or death situations despite all his preparations—had inevitably faded, his healing taking away the scars, leaving only the memories of the pain behind, but even those fade away in time.
It was the reason all his trophies were kept in his mind; it was the one place that time or nothing could change, even the Passenger.
He had learned not to place too much value on his flesh, only his mind. His memories would last for eternity; his flesh, on the other hand, was far more malleable.
Carefully placing the head of Josef in the box that had been set aside for it, Elias knew that he was nearly done with the cleanup; he was still sticking to schedule despite how some of the events during the fight had not gone according to plan.
Well, it could not really be called a fight when he had waited at the side as Josef died in agony, but it had been troubling to find the right method to lure Josef to this place while making it seem like it was all his idea. It was a good thing that Elias knew of the vices of this man and knew that Josef would have cleaned his tracks properly for him; however, Elias would make sure this was the case when he left here.
Josef had thought he would be killing a child, and so he was not prepared for what he would find. Elias's face was the last thing he saw, and when he looked inside his eyes, Elias knew Josef had seen the face of the Passenger.
Another bonus point to him for his stringent preparation before and during this hunt that had seen him through, despite the surprises he had encountered.
Moving the torso from the slab that he laid it upon was difficult, a Fury Forge's body was heavier than a normal human, weighing almost four hundred and fifty pounds, yet it was a good thing that he was basically on a construction site, and he only had to push the torso to the side where a open square box was already prepared and waiting for its grisly content.
With every part of the body placed away in their various containers, Elias began moving around to douse the candles, he did this slowly, almost like he was performing a ritual, and when the last of the candles were put out, he was left in darkness for a while, and slowly as if it was emerging from a dream, faint green glow like tiny stars, began to arise all around him.
Now and then, the light would ripple as if a wave was passing through the light, but on extremely close observation, the source of the light was revealed; they were eyes, tiny eyes, and every time it rippled, it was because those eyes were blinking.
With thousands of tiny green eyes that were all undoubtedly staring at him, the atmosphere inside this space turned chilling, and this was not a figure of speech; the air was rapidly becoming colder. Elias's act of dousing all of the candles seemed to have opened a doorway to a frigid abyss.
Every time Elias breathed, the air grew colder and harder to draw into his lungs, as if the air in this space were being rapidly consumed by the rising cold.
'They have grown more than expected,' Elias mused to himself, 'It would seem that the lifeblood of a Fury-Forge was more potent than I expected.'
There was a reason why he could fight against a Siphon when he was still a mortal, and it was because the Passenger was not the only foreign entity in his body; he also had a unique poison, but unlike the Passenger, this burden was one that he willfully accepted.
In the darkness, Elias took out a stone blade that he kept aside for this particular instance. The blade was wickedly sharp, with the tip of the blade spread out like an axe head. He ran two fingers down the side of the blade, feeling the heat within the stone despite how cold the air had become.
With one smooth motion, he reversed the blade and turned it on himself, the tip resting against his chest. He hesitated for a brief moment, and then he plunged the blade deep into his chest. It easily tore through his skin and muscles before hitting his bone, and then it cut through it.
Elias gasped in pain and withdrew the blade. From all around him, the green eyes began to stir in agitation,
"It's time to return home, little kids," Elias gasped through the pain.
A wave of ripples passed through the green eyes as a hissing sound began to emerge all around Elias that grew until it was almost deafening, and the space seemed to shrink as the green light that was on the far walls suddenly surrounded Elias; their movements were so quick that it almost seemed like teleportation.
When they were now this close, their appearances became more distinct. What surrounded Elias resembled spiders with tiny wings; however, instead of legs, they had tentacles, eight waving tentacles that softly undulated around their bodies like worms, dispersing an intense chill, enough to freeze any prey caught within them.
Each was as small as an ant, but their two eyes were blindingly bright, and yet this light could not obscure their bodies, because its wavelength was strange; it was bright yet could be easily seen through.
These creatures were Elias's secret weapon.
He did not shrink back as they surrounded him. Instead, he opened his wound wider with the edge of the stone blade.
Elias frowned as cold sweat ran down his brow before they froze into crystals, his body shaking as he slowly extended the wound on his chest with the stone blade, cutting down to his stomach until his guts threatened to spill like forbidden secrets.
A soft cry of pain emerged from his mouth, even though he had been fighting the urge to scream, he was still human, and all his nerve endings were screaming in agony.
Just because he could rapidly heal did not mean that he did not feel pain; in fact, it was the opposite, the pain was magnified, it was as if in repayment for him never having the wound for long, he got to experience all the pain that a wound of this magnitude would take to heal over time in a short instant, however, Elias knew that this theory was nonsense, there was a credible reason the pain he felt was so intense, far more than usual.
Every time he was healed, his body was refreshed to its optimal state, and everything about him became brand new, from his skin, hair, and even his teeth, Elias was literally as tender as a newly born infant, and all of these changes meant his nerve endings never had a chance to deaden and grow accustomed to pain, even a soft breeze hurt his skin when it was regrown.
It was also why he suspected his features were so perfect. Despite being a mortal, Elias's face and body were almost perfect for a man of his age, and he knew that if he wanted to exchange his beauty for wealth or safety, it would be easy; he already had many offers from men and women, who wanted him to be their mortal plaything.
Also, another factor made the pain he experienced greater than usual: the Passenger's gift. It made it so that Elias could not deaden his senses by any means; he could not pass out from pain, no matter how great it was, he could not take alcohol or any sort of pain-relieving medication or potions, his body saw all of those aids as foreign entities, and they cleansed it.
Over time, he had learned various methods to handle the pain, and the primary method he used was his mind, by creating shelters in his mind where he could flee when it became too much for him to endure.
Without this method, with all the injuries he had suffered, Elias would have gone mad a long time ago from the pain.