Space shattered into glass-like fragments that hung in the air, only shifting when a figure passed through the field of glass. Seth stepped through the portal, fresh blood still dripping from the fingers of his skeletal hand as his hollow eyes took in the scenery with abject apathy.

He saw a mixture of people, some dressed in fanciful white robes while others were dressed in black. The Blessed and their servants.

The specifics of the 'blessings' might have changed, and the details surrounding the mystical bullshit they called a religion. But the foundation was the same. It was still the same cult, run by the same cult leader, just with a new coat of paint on it.

They couldn't even be bothered to change up the style of robes from the previous cult. In fact, Seth bet that they were the exact same ones. Some little kid might be running around in the robe he used to wear when he was young.

Of course, if that was the case then it would be one of the black robes. His family had never raised themselves high enough in the cult to earn the blessings, which at that time was much less evident than now. At least now the blessings actually did something, even if it was just stealing credit from the system.

The Blessed fled, screaming and shouting about blood drinking demons, while they left their hapless black robed servants, the ones who were working to be blessed, to die at the hands of this demon.

Seth regarded the servants with apathy, some of whom were soiling themselves in fear while one had even completely passed out in a true feat of survival instinct. He couldn't help but sigh, a deep and mournful sigh.

He didn't regret killing Tiff, truly part of him wondered if it would have been simply better to kill her previously since his 'taming' efforts had been all for nought. But the fact that not only did he not regret it, but he felt nothing towards it, didn't sit right with Seth.

For the rest of the world, it had only been a handful of months since the world changed, and for him it had been more than double that time due to his visit to the time-warping space in-between.

But was that really all it took? Not even a full year and he was already a cold, unfeeling murderer? He had only killed two people, Tiff and the Heart-Eater. He justified the Heart-Eater by saying he was a monster, and indeed he was monstrous and far gone, but he was still a person nonetheless.

They deserved to die, they were horrible people and there was nothing more he could do with them. One there was no chance for and the other spat in the face of their chance. Even then, shouldn't he still feel something?

With Heart-Eater he was overcome with rage, yet even when he was carrying out the act he felt no different than when he was killing a monster. It had helped his justification, but now that he had done the same with Tiff, and that same blank feeling persisted, he couldn't help but wonder if he was part monster himself.

Was this just how the world was now? People killing and feeling nothing? Or was he simply so used to death that it didn't matter whose hand was bloodied?

Letting out another sigh, a completely pointless action since this body had no functioning lungs, Seth finally felt something as he grew used to the environment around him, but it wasn't what he was hoping.

A profound feeling of disgust washed over him, not from his previous actions - he was still utterly numb to those - but instead to the feeling of the air against his... whatever he had instead of skin.

The air around him was infused with a strange energy, one that his body became more and more aware of the more time he spent here. It filled the air, making it feel thick and sludge-like, as if he was swimming through the muddy depths of a marsh, and yet it was warm at the same time. As if someone had relieved themselves in that marsh mere moments ago.

Hence the disgust.

Every movement, from the shifting of his feet to the smallest twitches of his fingers, felt like he was fighting and pushing through this foreign force. It almost felt as if the world itself was rejecting him, or more specifically this small pocket of the world that the Lightbringer had claimed.

Yet, as much as he was disgusted by the very air around him, there was a sense of familiarity about the energy behind it all. The feeling that it gave him, beyond the rejection and the marsh, he had definitely felt that somewhere before... but where?

The sound of plastic skittering across stone pulled him from his thoughts. Glancing down at his feet, Seth found an inhaler laying right next to his wooden left leg. A few feet away from him, there was still one of the servants, their entire body trembling with utter fear as they hyperventilated.

They looked down at the inhaler, letting out a wheezing whimper of despair, before looking up and accidentally locking eyes with the demon.

Seth slowly bent down, plucking the inhaler from the ground, making sure to use his non-blood stained hand, and examined it curiously. Looted from a pharmacy or medical building, no doubt.

It was such a banal little object, its bright blue plastic casing standing out starkly against the sword and sorcery world they had found themselves in.

It was so small, yet it could easily represent the culmination of all of human society and technology. From the medical sciences to the production used to turn dinosaur bones into plastic.

And yet... it would no doubt become absolutely worthless in a few years. Its users would ejther evolve past its use, or simply die due to the cruelty of nature.

Such was survival of the fittest.

This little object in his hand was like a relic of a bygone era. A fact that Seth couldn't help but chuckle at.

'A relic of a dead era indeed... A cruel world has no use for the likes of you... adapt or die...'

He turned the inhaler over in his hand, examining it mindlessly, before tossing it back to the servant in the black roads. He juggled with it nervously, struggling to catch it before finally clasping it between trembling hands.

The servant quickly took a few deep breaths from the device, before looking at it in confusion. His eyes drifting from the inhaler, back to the patchwork demon in front of him.

That was probably a mistake, as what he saw chilled him to the bone. The demon was smiling at him. A cruel, sadistic smile whilst his patchwork body of lifeless plastic and bone was covered in blood and draped in the clothing of its latest victims.

Perhaps it was trying to imitate humans, to blend in and spread sin from within. Or perhaps it was simply saying to him

"Enjoy that breath, for it will be your last."

The servant trembled, expecting the demon to lunge at him. But the expectant death never came, instead two figures, an old man and another demon made of sand, quickly approached and exchanged a few words with the bloodied demon.

That demon glanced towards the servant again, who shuddered at his gaze as his blood felt like it turned to ice.

"Stop right there Heretics! Come face divine judgement!"

A shout came from further down the street, followed by the rattling and crashing of a dozen men running in full plate armour. Armour that was polished to a dazzling sheen and looked like it hadn't been used a single day in it's life.

The demons glanced lazily at the approaching guards, exchanging a few more words, before disappearing through the field of shattered glass, while rapidly began to stitch itself back together.

Before he departed, the bloodied demon gave the servant one final look, as well as another sinister smile as the space finally closed behind it.

The guards halted in their tracks even before it fully closed, many of them shouting that they could have pursued the heretics to their base and carried out the Lightbringers justice. But one man at the head of the group held them back, refusing to let them go any further. A man whose armour stopped just below his elbow, the same place that his arm stopped. A man who wasn't keen to be caught when the door in space closed again.

***

Giving the servant a warm and friendly smile, Seth stepped through the portal and let Lee quickly shut it behind him. Without even looking down, he stepped over the corpse that laid at his feet.

A part of him expected that his two absent subordinates would be shocked or even repulsed by his actions, that they might think it abhorrent to have a murderer leading them. Yet neither of them seemed to care.

Bob simply thought that if his Father did something, that he must have had good reason to do so. As for Fox... He wasn't so easy to read. Unlike Bob, whose thoughts were open and clear as day to his mind, Fox was always reserved.

His face was stoic, as it always was, and he regarded the corpse with the same cold eyes as he often had when observing the world. Yet when he looked up at Seth, he could swear that there was something within that wise old gaze. Not anger or disgust, not even confusion. Instead it almost felt like a hint of pride... or was it perhaps understanding?

Understanding that he only did what was necessary and not out of sadistic pleasure. Or perhaps, it was simply Seth's mind playing tricks on him, trying to help him cope with the guilt he had, not over killing her, but for feeling fine doing so.

"Bury it, Burn it, Toss it to the wolves. I don't care. I don't want to see it anymore, or ever again. Just... Get rid of it."

Seth turned his back, starting to walk away. Half way through his first step, his body simply collapsed into a pile of worthless scrap once more. His once favourite shirt, now stained with blood, rolled lifelessly across the ground.