When Storm Hammer picked up the child, with the strength of his body that this foul race held it was difficult for her to know his rank, but she pegged him for a Legend-ranked Explorer, a surprising feat anywhere else in the realm. Still, she understood that this continent was filled with nothing but freaks and abominations. She had once told the other Ascendants that it was a good thing that this corrupted race could not reach powers equal to the Ascendant level because, with their rate of growth in a century or less, they would hold a corner of the realm, but she was always shot down, nothing could reach such an exaggerated rate of growth.

Despite all that, she was among those who made sure that the Blood Bounds were placed under harsh conditions where no room for growth was allowed, and over the millennia she had made sure that every report leaving the continent about the welfare of these people always passed through her eyes.

Therefore the sight before her where this child seemed to be regenerating his head was surprising because such an unreasonable healing capability was something that a Deific Ranked Explorer with a Natal Treasure and technique focused on healing should be able to achieve, but there was no spark around him to indicate the activation of a Natal Treasure and if this was a technique channeled from elsewhere, she would have known.

Was there a massive formation underneath the earth linking this strange boy to a fountain of vitality? The hidden mystery beneath the earth that Jerediah was pursuing, had it finally been activated, and was that the cause of all these changes on the surface?

Storm Hammer was aware of an artifact that had been discovered beneath the earth and was waiting for news about it, and she suspected that everything that was happening here, all the changes in these people, including the healing capabilities of this child was linked to it. Was it possible that the artifact belonged to the strange creature that entered the realm nearly a million years ago?

The hand of the child that was reaching for his missing head finally brushed the wriggling muscles and bones that were gathering into a ball around his neck and he flinched as if he felt pain in touching the naked flesh that was yet without any skin.

In a second his head was recreated and his pale green skin and red hair flush with vitality were revealed, the eyes of the young boy opened and he was no longer smiling, he touched his heart for a few seconds as if he had come to a great realization before he stood back to his feet,

“That was very rude, Ascendant, and it hurt a lot. I did not wish to fight you, at least, not yet.”

Storm Hammer was not even listening to the child, she asked in puzzlement, “How are you still in one piece and lost only your head? You should be nothing but ash.”

“No more questions,” the boy shook his head angrily, “I will make you create monsters for me, not talk.”

Storm Hammer chuckled, “You silly little brat. Make me?” a peal of mad laughter erupted from her throat, “I do not know what madness this is, or how you are alive, I am sure you are part of the new changes sweeping across this continent, but I don’t care, you do not know who I am, but I have tortured and butchered your foul race all through the ages and I suspect that in all the times I have done it, I will enjoy this one the most! Nothing like killing the same person multiple times to get the juices flowing.”

A frown slowly crossed the face of the boy and he whispered, “I think I know who you are now. The Old Fathers and the Old Mothers spoke of you. They say that you are a scourge that descended on our people with lightning and ruin,”

At this moment the falling Calamities began to strike the earth like meteorites, some were as small as hailstones, others the size of an apple, but many were bigger, having consumed a lot of prey on the way down and were now the size of elephants, some were even bigger than buildings.

The ground shook and vibrated as multiple tremors ran through it and the land cracked but the gaze of the boy never left the Ascendant in front of him, as his voice grew more heated,

“You are the scourge who hung our fathers from their intestines, who bashed the skulls of babies against the shin bones of their wailing mothers, who bathe in a river of our blood…”

The Calamities that fell around the boy in their thousands began to rise but the boy seemed not to care, his eyes were on the Ascendant, “I know you, because all of the Blood Blessed know you, and you and your kind shall pay for what you have done to my people, a thousand times over.”

Storm Hammer opened her hands, and winds and lightning surged out of her body into the clouds above, churning it into a tempest and she laughed, her voice carrying for miles, “Blood Blessed? How ridiculous, if your bloodline is a blessing then the things I have done to you all in the past are a mockery of that title, for how could such a blessed bloodline allow me to prey on it for so long? You say that you know me, child, so tell me, what’s my name?”

The boy shook his head and was about to speak but an older voice interrupted him, an old man, although now flush with vitality with his age visibly retreating from his features with every day that passed, appeared unexpectedly beside the child and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder,

“He does not care to tell you, none of us will tell you with our mouths. If you wish for us to tell you your name, then we shall oblige. You shall hear it in the sound of our fist against your skull, the vibration you shall feel running down your backbone as our teeth crunch against your spine, and your screams shall have all the meaning you crave when we pull your intestines out of your stomach and adorn your skin at the feet of our god!”

It was unknown when it happened but every descending calamity over a ten-mile radius surrounding the area was gone without any indication, and in their place were a hundred thousand people.

The world was dark under the gaze of the Calamity Suns, only lit up by the flashes of lightning in the sky, and for a moment, Storm Hammer thought that between the lightning flashes, these people surrounding her seemed to transform into abominable giants, but when the light flashed again, they were just people.

Storm Hammer looked around, not even trying to understand how every descending Calamity could vanish in the space of a single breath, but on the expressions on the faces of these people. She had seen rage before, despair, pain, and all sorts of expressions on the faces of these people over the years, but the look in the eyes of the people around her was familiar, and the familiarity within made her begin to laugh,

“Hehehehe, the air on this continent must have rotted your brains, do you all think that I am prey? I came here to cleanse you all in lightning and fire! What foul confidence made you think you could even touch me? You will burn.”