“Date: 17 years Before the Fall

  A round of starvation testing, the focus of which was to see whether an affinities preference towards helping children would increase their long-term likelihood of forming metabolically efficient spells. Functionally, they took two thousand girls and two thousand boys under the age of ten, put them in a series of isolated groups, then gave them no food.

  No more details will be listed.

  At the end of the testing, a singular subject remained, though it was the exact opposite of what they expected. Rather than focus on eating less to avoid suffering, the final participant appeared to eat more, her body metabolizing faster and aging her up rapidly. It was assumed that she’d formed a spell that would strengthen her to increase her chances of survival, and the mind simply blocked off any outwards pain. She appeared to draw no joy from her acts, ruling out a gluttony, so more testing was done.

  Due to her supposed aversion to devouring others, she was given copious food then haphazardly transported to another site for further testing- though she never reached the second location. The entire transport disappeared without a trace.

  Later, people in the city around the testing sites began disappearing, though no conclusion was drawn at the time, as there were reasonable explanations for most. The city began suffering from a series of unexplainable accidents, thousands more dying every year than usual. The escaped test subject was eventually captured, and questioned.

  She expressed utmost regret for her actions, not because she’d eaten so many, but because she couldn’t do it again. She stated that she loved each and every person she ate, and she wanted to carry them with her forever, but she wished they would last longer before collapsing from blood loss. Brain scans indicated that she felt genuine grief that she couldn’t speak with her victims anymore, and when a controlled test was done to give her a friend, it quickly blossomed into romantic allure from her, skipping over a platonic connection entirely. She was allowed to enter the room alone with the ‘Friend’ in question for experimental reasons, and she did exactly as expected, forcing herself on him, then devouring him in a process similar to that of cannibalistic mating rituals in nature. Based on the brain scans, it was determined that she felt immense satisfaction from such actions, though regret the next day when she was not presented with a new ‘Playmate.’

  She was killed a few days later by one of the family members of one of her victims, the ‘Killer’ (Hero) being executed shortly afterwards for interfering with the advancement of technology.”

  Dei’s stomach churned from… so many aspects of this. He remembered how Aloran expressed absolute shame that he and many other Gods hadn’t done more to prevent needless acts of cruelty at the time.

  The demon, whoever they were, clearly arose from the cesspit of pain that was Avium at this time. They weren’t a random occurrence, but… a monumentally deserved karmic punishment.

  The planet of Avium had degraded to utterly horrific, morally despicable experimentation, and deserved to burn in its entirety. Those conducting their “Research?” they should’ve been tortured to death. Those allowing for it to happen? They deserved to die as well. To have four thousand children killed just… because? Just to see what would happen? Someone should’ve stepped in, but they didn’t. The experiments only stopped when someone was personally wronged, and lashed out due to selfish reasons, not compassion.

  This was why Kindness said he was the Kindness Champion at a mere Mid-Rare grade, because this universe has never known mercy. He didn’t know from which point in the “Supreme universe” or whatever it was called that this version of Avium splintered, but it had to have been utterly horrific.

  The demon… it was not unjustified at the time. True, the world must’ve grown with a common ally, but the demon had every right to slaughter the masses and burn it all down. If they ever managed to permanently create a solution or push it back, Dei had to step in. He had to change things so they wouldn’t return to the way they were before.

  He moved on to the next piece.

  “Date: 229 years Since the Fall

  A wandering troupe headed by a female director was recorded regularly picking up talents, with many others leaving the troupe in different places to choose as their retirement. There were always around 100-150 people in the troupe at any given moment, but none of the original members remained for long. After the first decade, there was a one hundred percent turnover rate, with none of the original cast left. It was widely believed that the director was a terrible woman behind closed doors, which led to many of the actors choosing to retire, though those that were interviewed after the fact disagreed. Every time, they would say something along the lines of ‘It just felt like it was my time to choose a new direction in my life.’

  Despite that, people continued to quit as rapidly as the director could gain, leading to infamy and even many signing up to see if they could ‘Stick it out’ and break the record, none succeeding. Much less, the turnover rate increased, and only seven years passed before another full rotation occurred, all providing the same excuse. Those of the original cast, the ones who’d retired, also slowly began dying in fully explainable accidents.

  It took five more years before another full rotation, the rate only becoming worse. Few of the retired original troupe members were alive by this point, the remaining few unworried despite many concerns being raised to them, more dying.

  Finally, three years later, and a fourth full turnover, the director got unlucky in that the country she was touring in became suspicious, launching a full investigation. At risk of their own reputation, they immediately started to kill the retirees, causing international backlash- until the results of their actions came to light.

  Blood clones. Intelligent, never-before-seen, unimaginably complex blood clones, with the trapped and corrupted souls of the original participants inside. They’d all lost their free will, all connected with the director. When they died, they would not get an afterlife, but be assimilated into her.

  Five satiated Smilers, a Reaper, two Gem Dweller Shamans-”

  ‘Ayy!’ he thought, then immediately felt bad at how inappropriate it was.

  “-and an Ekgroger were called upon for their specialty in disassembling souls to safely separate the victims, but it was determined they were a lost cause. Still, they discovered that the director truly loved every single one of her victims, and never wanted to let them go. She appeared to interpret drinking of their vital energies as a form of love, and absorbing their souls provided a perpetual satisfied feeling within her as she never stopped draining their continuously regenerating energies. It is unknown how she kept the souls conscious and willing after so long, though many theorize it was a facet of the corrupting influence that overtook her mind.

  There was talk of convincing Grim to torture the director in Death, but that was thrown out as it would be antithetical to his path, and it was dubbed he would likely kill whoever asked such a thing. Despite many calling for her to be sent to the front lines of the war to buy back her freedom, the country which discovered her, Akigagaria, stated it would not risk revenge and had her executed. King Tagera, the ruler at the time, was assassinated half a year later by furious opposing kingdoms.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Communications with Grim led to people finding out that the souls were truly unsaveable, which made him decide to have them all cleansed- much to the fury of many of the family members left behind.

  She is known today as the Laughless Butcher for her origins as a performer.”

  His brow scrunched. This was good information, but again, the establishments were… entirely wrong.

  They wanted to give her an out? To potentially let her roam free, if only she fought hard enough? Through Aloran’s memories, Dei knew that Slaughterers were already beating back the tide enough to give people hope, and true, one shouldn’t put all their eggs in one basket, but she wasn’t needed as a soldier before that point, why even risk letting such a monster go afterwards? He didn’t risk the term “Satiated Smilers” either, and… what, exactly, would satiate a Smiler, a monster dedicated to replicating itself by corrupting other souls?

  His heart sank as an unintentional secondary discovery presented itself, but he moved on to the third, just to be sure.

  “Date: 651 years Since the Fall

  The third daughter of king Entegri Jashen, Emi Jashen was married away to the Laiari family as a political marriage. After bearing three children both of them took on other lovers they had an actual interest in, as is common in the Quixtati Empire, and Emi was judged for choosing a commoner as her romantic partner- until he died two months later under mysterious circumstances, and people questioned it (Not with suspicion, but curiosity as to why she would even do such a thing).

  She quickly chose another partner, then three months later, he was dead. This pattern repeated for twelve years, and slowly, the rate accelerated from two to three months, to around half that. Many chalked it up to a kink, and disregarded her tendency-”

  ‘Oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.’

  “-until, by accident, a servant walked in on her eating her previous partner, and ran away. Supposedly Emi attempted to convince the woman to stop, but the woman in question chose to report her to her father, the king, anyway. After executing the servant for involving herself in noble business, king Entegri questioned two things: one, why Emi would do that, and two, why she didn’t just kill the servant to preserve her secret, as he expressed annoyance at the concessions he would have to make towards the Laiari family.

  After a long discussion, it was found that Emi held the same corrupting influence as the Laughing Performer, though she held a much tighter control over it, learning from the Laughing Performer’s mistakes. She studied the ins and outs of it, finding that blood was the key, and that her hunger could be staved off by slowly bleeding her partners and healing them. Second, she found that by imposing the limitation of only killing and eating people she had real romantic feelings for, she would be more fully satisfied. She did not kill the servant, as she was apparently not very fond of said maid, and didn’t want to include her in her history of kills.

  When the truth was discovered, the tune of both the Jashen and Laiari families reversed, the Laiari fighting to keep Emi as a part of them because the power amplification of Twisted Love was well known. It’d taken fifty Elites to bring the Laughing Butcher down, and Emi held real potential with how well she controlled her urges.

  Nowadays, there is much propaganda in the Quixtati Empire directing men to volunteer to be Emi’s next partner, it being considered a most altruistic act. The primary God of the Quixtati, Lotan, openly stated that any who are consumed by Emi will be granted a valued position in the afterlife. Emi consumes a new man every single day by this point, though that is a small price to pay for the immense power she holds, rivaling the entire rest of the Quixtati military. While she has expressed disinterest in taking the throne, every royal since Entegri appeals to her appetite.”

  ‘She’s still alive?!’ he screamed in his head not because he thought she would die of old age, but because they just… let her!

  She ate a person! Every day!

  He let his head slump into his hands, accidentally finding that Avium had, in fact, not gotten better morally in the face of the demon, they’d just refocused their sickening efforts into earning personal power, so that the day the demon came knocking, they could save their own skins.

  He could feel the questioning gazes of the others in the cave with him, but he wasn’t in the mood to speak right now.

  He didn’t need to though, as Perumah was already in his head.

  “This is, ultimately, good news,” she said psychically to him

  He sighed, knowing that she was talking about the revelations about the Twisted Love affinity itself.

  It was exactly as the name said, right on the tin. It was the Love affinity, twisted into a sick facsimile of what it should be. If Perumah earned this, she could actually feel love, but instead of kissing or cuddling to express affection, it would involve eating people if they didn’t succeed in suppressing and changing its focus using his Warforged affinity.

  If the plan worked, he’d probably get a wife.

  If it didn’t his closest friend would die in front of him.

  He had faith in her, she could do it, but even the mostly-good news was overshadowed by how he just knew… he knew the surface world was a fucked up, ugly place. Shamans were emotionless, but they held themselves to a calculated mercilessness. They were willing to put children down if they carried a sickness that might infect the herd, but would put each other down if they made mistakes.

  Every Shaman held incredible responsibility. They either had to be more than perfect, such as in Tir’s case when he did everything physically possible and it still wasn’t good enough, or they were total failures and they were killed on the spot if the situation allowed for it. A fucked up System that held no compassion, only the calculated responsibility of what was required to allow for the Gem Dweller Race to persist as efficiently as possible.

  Despite that, despite the cruelty, he was fully confident the Shamans would’ve put Emi down like a rabid dog, ten times out of ten. No leeway.

  The Gem Dweller bureaucracy was inhuman, and somehow the best this world could muster up.

  “Even if you do not hold the title… you will always be this universe's Champion of Kindness.” That was what Kindness told him, and he believed it wholeheartedly

  “You don’t have to wait until after the war to fix things,” Perumah told him.

  He shook his head, “What do I know about politics? How am I going to fix things? All I can do is… kill. That’s all I’m good for. If it can’t be solved by punching it, I’ll just make the situation worse.”

  Perumah disassembled herself and reconstituted her body next to him, nudging him with her shoulder. “That’s not true. You don’t always know how to do things, but you have friends and allies that do, and you always try your best. Do you remember how you first found Clever?”

  “When he was stealing the anchor and almost got squashed by that obsidian guardian?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s see… I got a ping from Call for Help.”

  “Correct, and Kindness has always been discerning. It is trying to protect you, while also allowing you to do good in the world. Why not lean into its grasp? Let Kindness guide you into fixing everything? It’s a divine entity, it will know more about it all than you, so you do not have ti worry of moral or political conundrums. I could never do such a thing because I… need to control every aspect of my life, but you have no such urge. Go to a kingdom, trust that Kindness will point you to the perfect situation for tearing down corruption, and try your best. If Kindness does not think you can do it, it has already shown that it will try and stop you, even if it means dooming another. Kindness likes you, it wants you to keep living and keep doing good. I am unsure as to whether it is truly a conscious entity or if it’s just the remnant of one, but it has tried to protect you since you first came to Avium, and that is something I would be willing to trust in.”

  Dei looked off thoughtfully into the middle distance, considering her words. When he was reborn, he held three skills: Pandora’s Box, Call for Help, and Growing Pains.

  Pandora’s Box and Growing Pains both became vital to his path, integrated fully into his powerset, while Call for Help fell to the wayside.

  Perhaps it was soon time to make full use of the boons Leven gave him?