Josef had been a good father and husband, a valuable member of his community, and as a Guardsman and a doctor as well, he was well respected, but all of these were just the shiny oil floating over the dirty sludge beaneath, few knew of his other... activities, and the cries of his many victims that covered him like a shroud, but the Passenger, it knew, and Elias only had to verify that information to decide that he would be killing this man.
The Passenger spoke to Elias in different voices; most of the time, it was in the voices of the victims of his prey. So for the six years that he knew Josef, he had the voices of hundreds of his victims, screaming at him, "KILL... KILL... KILL HIM!"
Investigating the secrets of this man was difficult, since he was careful about keeping his other activities out of the limelight, but what he had found after deep investigations had shot Josef up to the top of his list.
The things he had done… even a hunter of men like Elias shivered. This man needed to die.
Elias had been killing for six years, but Josef had been doing it for decades, and his kill count was horrific when his targets of choice were placed into the pictures—children.
Josef, the loving father and husband, a famed pillar of his community, had killed hundreds of children, and as a newly arisen Fury Forge, the chance that this number would rise to a rather horrible number was only going to multiply.
A few things pissed Elias off, but killing children was one of them, mostly because of their screams. There was something about having hundreds of demented children screaming inside your head that could quickly erase your patience.
Josef did not have great talent, and reaching Fury-Forge so quickly came at the cost of countless innocent lives.
All of Elias's prey followed this pattern; he would kill to feed the hunger inside of him, but he would not simply kill anyone. He was a murderer, but he had a specific taste in his prey. As far as he could see, he was cleaning off the trash of society while giving himself peace of mind, and avoiding the fate of decaying alive and dying in pain. Win-win.
Elias spent a few seconds looking at the head he held in his hands, far longer than it was necessary, almost as if he was admiring it.
It was in the eye you see, Elias loved to see that look in the eyes of people like Josef as they died, ruthless predators who had lived a life where they had fed on the fear of others, and when the realization that they were before a greater monster, at that precise moment, there was this look…
Elias always shuddered at the priceless memory. These memories stayed with him, all one hundred and fifteen of his successful hunts.
Yes, Elias was an excellent hunter.
Also, what Elias would never admit to himself was that he believed that at the end of their lives, his prey was able to look into his soul and see the Passenger alongside all of their victims. Why else would they freeze at the end? The look of terror that would never leave their eyes, even in death, was nothing natural.
There were countless Siphons that Elias could have hunted. Wisps were everywhere, and they had the voices of their victims hanging around them. They were also much weaker than a Fury Forge, but Elias did not hunt just anybody; he had his rules about those he killed, and he considered this to be extremely necessary. It was a code to him that he would hate to ever break.
The terror he kept inside his head was so monstrous that he believed that only the truly wicked should get to experience it. So he only went for those whose kills were at least ten victims. Elias could withstand the cries of the victims when they were fewer than this number; any greater, and it began to hurt his mental state.
Although most of his kills were Wisps, Josef was the first Fury-Forge he had killed, and Elias felt it was a kill that was well deserved; three months of preparation were not wasted.
There were many moments when he reconsidered his actions, doubts filling his mind that he could ever succeed, but Josef had been on his list for so long; if Elias failed to awaken his Lumina, the last thing he would want to do in his life would be to kill Josef. He had truly been patient despite the risk.
Elias knew if he failed to touch the Lumia and perish not long after, he would never rest in peace if Josef kept walking around. He had several names on his list, and more were being added every time, but Josef had always been among his top three.
If there were no chance of dying soon, then he would never consider killing a Fury Forge. If not for the familiarity he had with his target and the sheer arrogance of his prey, then Elias would never have succeeded, ten out of ten times.
He looked at the head for one last time, memorizing every feature; this memory was his trophy.
Elias did not have to keep any physical remnants to remind him of his kill; he simply kept the last look they had on their face in his perfect memory inside a specific space that was meant for his prey.
One hundred and fifteen faces were inside this mental space of his, and he wondered if he gained his Lumina, how many faces he might be able to accumulate before he died to the countless perils of this world.
A thousand, perhaps ten thousand faces... that might be too much, but a monster could dream.
His trophies were important to Elias because they were one of the few things that held him back from becoming a mass murderer. He could look at the faces of his prey, and the cries of the Passenger would lessen, allowing him to endure through the moments he was not killing.
Gaining his Lumina did not mean that he would be able to live to an old age; it simply gave him more time to struggle through this horror-filled reality, and even in his most optimistic estimate, he did not survive past two decades.
This world was harsh, and not everyone could be like Josef, sheltered and protected and given all the opportunities to grow; most of the Siphons fought for every chance to grow, and the majority had silently fallen along the way.
Even though Elias was also opportuned to live in a place where, if he wanted, he could relax and live out his life in peace as a mortal, the Passenger in his head would never allow him such a peaceful fate, and so Elias knew that even becoming a Siphon would always lead him to paths that few would dare to walk on.
His large green eyes, filled with innocence and a sense of purity, blinked; Elias smiled, and the candlelight briefly touched his face, and they were... beautiful, and his hair was red as blood.