The Dawn of the New World Chapter 1563

It wasn't real and he knew that but the emotions those screams brought up were not manufactured. It was the personal experience of one of many souls that had been 'sewn' into his own and he was just recalling them again.

'Stop it!' he hissed at the apparition, 'Just because I'm running low on soul power doesn't mean you can run amock!'

That said, he truly did lack the soul power needed to control such memories and emotions from coming to the surface. Usually he would be able to keep them buried deep inside his subconsciousness but now that the 'jailer' was not as powerful, any real-life event might jog something he normally would not want to see.

And had no effect since the apparition continued to wail despite his warning, developing more and more wounds on its ethereal form.

[Someone please, it hurts! Please help, anyone!] it pleaded and cried looking right at him as if it was his fault, [Why won't you help?!]

'This isn't real! It's not-' he tried to tell himself but suddenly its stomach ripped open and half of its organs fell out.

[HEEEEEEELP! AAAH! YOU MONSTERS! DAMN YOU TO HELL!]

He looked down at his hands which were covered in warm blood.

"A-Ar -o- ok-"

Ryuk's voice broke Hao Xuan out of the hold of the memories.

"Huh?? What?" he looked around in a cold sweat, "What did you say?"

"Are you okay? It looked like you were in pain."

Hao Xuan looked at his hands which were now clean but he could still feel the wetness of the blood at his fingertips.

'Motherfucker...'

*sigh*

"Show me where they are."

**

Hao Xuan arrived just in time to catch the end of the 'scrabble'.

It was between a rather rough-looking canine demihuman in his forties with an eyepatch over his left eye, who swung his blade to cleanly disarm his opponent who happened to be a young human girl in her early twenties.

The sword flew out of her bloodied hand and landed in the direction Hao Xuan was watching from.

Ryuk's barely discernable figure popped out of the building below, 'Should you not intervene? It looks like the battle is over.'

'I will...in a moment.'

'Why not now?'

Hao Xuan's brow furrowed as he looked left and right in suspicion.

'I don't know, something feels...off.'

'How do you mean?'

'That guy hasn't reacted to my presence at all,' Hao Xuan gestured towards the demihuman, 'Judging from his appearance he's probably a mercenary good at tracking and hunting others and yet, I am barely 30 meters downwind from him and he has not noticed me even though I'm not trying too hard to keep myself hidden.'

'Maybe you are just better? Or he is bad at his job?'

'He's still a part beast so his senses are much sharper. It could be any number of other nothings but I have this weird feeling about all this.'

While Hao Xuan and Ryuk were conversing the hunter approached the girl and threw a swift kick to her abdomen making her keel over on the spot, vomiting.

"YOU-" she genuinely looked shocked as she tried to say something but he stopped her.

"Stupid bitch! Why run when you can't hide? Why fight when you don't know how to? Huh??"

He reached down and pulled her up by the hair. She tried to struggle as snot and digestive juices covered half her face.

"I outa gut you right here and now but the master wants you back in one piece. Did you really think you could run away?"

She ground her teeth while glaring at him hatefully. It took her a few seconds to gather enough strength to speak up.

"I n-never intended to run away! Just let me deliver this medicine to my father and-"

The hunter punched her in the same spot with the back of his sword, even cracking a couple of ribs in the process.

Her eyes widened more from the shock of getting hit again rather than the pain as she stared at him utterly stupefied.

He grinned from ear to ear, "You must think you have a choice in the matter, huh? Your body belongs to the master and you will spend the rest of your days repaying him for the benevolence-"

But the words got stuck in his throat as he noticed a figure moving towards him from the left.

The hunter reacted quickly and tried to distance himself by throwing the girl at the incoming figure while swinging the blade with a downward slash.

Hao Xuan caught the girl in the air before sidestepping the sword and throwing a simple roundhouse kick to the hunter's side.

Once again the hunter was quick to respond. He tried to block the kick with his sword before intending to strike for a second time but the sword bent like paper and folded alongside him.

Time slowed to a crawl for a few seconds as the hunter and Hao Xuan looked into each other's eyes.