World Seed

Author’s Corner: Hey guys! I know that a lot of things don’t make sense right now, but they will! There is a method to my madness, or at least that’s what I always tell myself.

Monte and I, along with the two people that had been in the group with the killer, ran to the basement in fear of finding another group of people dead. Magnetic locks don’t mean much when I crush the doors in front of us with my magic. At this point, property damage was a secondary concern, and it didn’t take us too long to get down there.

Thankfully, we arrived to see three officers talking calmly with a balding man in a white lab coat. When we crashed through the door, they immediately turned towards us with weapons drawn. Upon seeing Monte, they hesitated a moment, but slowly dropped their guns. “What’s going on?”

Before anyone else had a chance to speak, Monte asked a question of his own. “How long have the four of you been together down here?”

“About ten minutes? We’ve been trying to convince this guy to head up to the briefing room, but he keeps going on that this is the safest room in the building right now.”

I lifted an eyebrow at that, and looked to the coroner, who decided to explain. “You see, I don’t really care all that much for AI’s without personalities. When the call came in that the AI had turned, I decided we should stay here. This room is probably the only one in the entire building that isn’t monitored by it.”

Monte let off a light sigh after hearing that. “Never thought your paranoia would come in handy. But still, the AI can monitor all of the surrounding rooms. Whether or not you’re in here, he can still keep track of you. Why else would you even be allowed a room with no monitoring?”

The coroner raised a finger and opened his mouth as if to rebuke that statement, paused, tried again, then simply said. “I’ll grab my things.”

With that taken care of, the acting chief turned towards me. “So, now that we know this person can hide from your affinity scan, any other ways to track him?”

“Well… there’s one thing I can try, but no clue if it’ll work.” I turned around and focused, activating the X-Ray vision part of my Cybernetic eye. Let’s look for anyone alone. With Celeste’s help, I adjusted the zoom and penetration depth of my eye, slowly searching the building. Or at least, I was going to. “Seriously? Who lines their walls with lead?”

The coroner coughed nervously. “Well… I thought it seemed like a good idea.”

Stepping out of the room, I repeated the search attempt. Even if this druid had far more skill than he should have at his level, there was no reason he would be able to turn invisible. And sure enough, I saw someone by themselves on the second floor of the station, splashing blood and gore around while waving their hands and dancing oddly. “Second floor… looks like an office. He’s laying the scene for the woman we saw him as, I think.”

I made a promise to myself to never try to learn the Blood Affinity. In these few hours, I had seen more gore than I wanted to in my entire life. I may even give up horror movies after this. “That should be Jean’s office, then.” Monte spoke up from behind me, after which there was another startled voice.

“What, Jean?” I think the voice came from Officer Johnson, and I felt a burst of wind, presumably as he ran past me. I couldn’t see, given the fact that my X-Ray sight was still locked on the killer, and my other eye was closed to help me see better.

“Johnson!” Monte called out, and I felt another rush as someone else passed by me. “Come on, Hulett, we’re going after him.” Monte got on the radio after that. “All units, target sighted on the second floor. He’s in Jean’s office right now, let’s box him in. Lethal force is authorized and recommended. We don’t know how many tricks he has, so don’t let him use them.”

I had really just wanted to stay here and constantly watch the killer’s position so that I could keep them informed and we wouldn’t lose sight of him again… But at the same time, I wasn’t sure if the police would be able to fight him. At the very least, he had his Blood Affinity and a plasma pistol. So, I just cancelled my X-Ray vision mode and ran along with them. In the meantime, I made sure that all of my combat aspects were activated.

Scales covered my skin, my bones hardened, and I set up a breath weapon with the lightning element. With this, I should be able to counter most anything he had to throw at me. Though, I had noticed something strange about him when I saw him. His face lacked any of the normal facial characteristics. His eyes were blank, his mouth without lips, and his nose completely absent. They simply seemed to be gaps in the flesh. When his mouth was closed, it seemed as if it wasn’t there at all. He had no hair on his head, and only small holes in the side of it where his ears should have been. This man was meant to be a shapeshifter, but why would he take on such an appearance?

I was liking this situation less and less as time went on. I had the feeling that I’d be getting the answers to all of my questions soon, and when I did I wouldn’t like them. Thankfully, we knew where he was, and we were going there with our weapons at the ready. Though, I was still not pulling out my plasma weapons, because I would likely be commanded to hand them over.

After just a minute or so, we were already on the second floor of the station, and they had me do another sweep for the killer. What I found was that the scene of the death had already been set, and he was actually running towards us, before he suddenly jumped up, his body elongating as he dived into an air vent. Nobody said he could do that. That’s cheating. Still, I reported what I saw and kept an eye on him as he passed near us. He must have been warned by the AI, because he immediately looked in our direction and crawled off as fast as he could.

Using my Metal Manipulation, I targeted the vent he was in, and attempted to collapse it around him. However, my magic acted too slowly at this range, and he was able to slip his body through with only a few scrapes. With that, he scurried off into an intersection, and rushed down to the lower level. Once again, I reported his location and we gave chase. Only officers Johnson and Matthews stayed behind, instead moving towards Jean’s office.

“Tsk tsk, isn’t that cheating? Using your special eyes like that.” The AI’s voice sounded out again right after I stopped watching the killer so that I could chase as well. “At this rate our game won’t be very fun at all. In the case, how about we raise the stakes?”

Soon, just as we were getting out of the stairwell on the first floor, there was another scream in the distance. Immediately, I looked with my X-Ray vision, and found the collapsed bodies of the two officers we had just left behind. However, the killer was nowhere in sight. Looking around, I wasn’t able to find him anywhere. I had lost sight of him for twenty seconds at most, and in that time he had doubled back and killed both of the officers before vanishing?

Well, we were certainly getting our exercise chasing this guy. Moving back up, we again went to Jean’s office, this time actually entering. The two officers had horrified expressions on their faces, as if they had seen something horrible as they died. However there were no wounds to be found anywhere on them. It sent chills down my back to realize how they must have died instantly to some method they couldn’t defend themselves against.

“John, look closely at their auras… something’s wrong.” Celeste spoke up, noticing something I hadn’t yet. There really was something wrong with their auras. Something that had been wrong with all of the dead people, which I hadn’t thought much of because I considered they had been dead for a while already. Their auras had already withered, as if their souls had left their bodies. Normally, this didn’t happen until twenty four hours after the death of a creature, but these men had died only a moment ago.

“Hulett, tell me you have eyes on him.” The acting police chief glanced my way, and I did another sweep of the building. However, I could not find him anywhere. Then, my attention turned back to these two bodies in front of me.

Celeste, is it possible? I asked the AI, not wanting to voice my thoughts yet.

“What..?” She spoke up, and I could hear her confused tone, before she made a sound of realization. “Yes. It’s the most likely answer. But you’ll need to do it quick, before he notices.”

I nodded my head slightly, and then turned to Monte. “Let’s go out to the hall. I can’t think straight in here…” He raised an eyebrow at me, but nodded nonetheless. Just as everyone was pulling out, I closed my eyes and reached into my grove. Focusing behind me, I summoned my large water slime into the room, completely filling it. This caused several of the officers to immediately draw their weapons and open fire, but their bullets did nothing to the slime. “Don’t worry, it’s with me.”

I looked back to the room, watching and waiting. Monte came up next to me and whispered in a harsh voice. “What the hell is going on?”

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.“The killer can instantly kill, erase bodies, and even shapeshift. He had no time to run away after killing those two before I searched for him.” As I spoke, I watched the blood vanishing from within the room, absorbed into Yo’s body, while the three bodies began withering. “There’s only one place he could be hiding.”

Monte looked like he was about to speak, but suddenly the body of Officer Johnson twitched, before lunging out of the water slime with more speed than he should have possessed. As I took a good look, I saw that his feet had become flippers to make him exit faster. Now, normally this is the point where the villain would take his time to monologue while the cops had their guns pointed at him.

Unfortunately, I was beyond annoyed, and didn’t wait for that. Opening my mouth, I released the blast of lightning mana that I had prepared beforehand. The blast of energy struck him directly in the chest, just as he was recovering from the damage of the slime. The surrounding cops were still frozen in place, since the person that had just charged out had appeared to be one of their colleagues, who they had known to have just died.

After being struck by the blast, ‘Officer Johnson’ was thrown back, crashing against the wall. Unsure of whether or not he’d be getting up, I decided not to take that chance. I quickly worked a pair of elements that would surely finish him off. First, Metal Manipulation on the wall to make a long strip of steel wrap around his torso, and finally Void Manipulation to surround his entire body in void mana while removing the wind mana.

I could see him coughing soundlessly, trying to get a breath. Before his last breath faded, he looked to me and said something. However, being locked in a vacuum meant that his voice carried no sound. Still, Celeste managed to interpret it by reading his lips. ‘We are Legion.’

The moment he died, I began to feel a sharp pain in my head, while a blue window appeared in front of me.