The Forest Guardians

8. Black Butler Chapter 7

Omen's POV

I stomped on his foot and elbowed the 'kidnapper' in the ribs. He grunted in pain before he released me while speaking up.

"Damn it, Omen! It's me!"

I froze and turned around to stare at the auburn haired man who was rubbing his ribs while grumbling.

"Mike?! Where the hell have you been?"

"I was held up by more assassins but the Phantomhive's servants took care of them. Once I received the message from you, I slipped into the mansion and tried to find you." He closed the door quickly when he heard pursuers coming. "So Undertaker has defected to Dark Shadow."

"Yeah..." I sighed, putting my weapon away.

His expression darkened. "Undertaker might not be the only character who supports Dark Shadow. There could be others like him across the Worlds."

Mike was right.

Dark Shadow and his Army were bad enough. Now even characters, mostly villains, in the Worlds have a possibility of defecting to his side.

"But I don't think Undertaker is truly loyal to him."

"Why is that so?"

"Undertaker agreed that if we found out how the guests got possessed, he will give up information relating to the object. This benefits us more than it does to him."

Mike's brows rose up at my analysis of Undertaker. "You are right."

"We only have a time limit of 1 hour. So any idea how the guests got possessed?"

I saw the gears in his head moved as he pondered for a while. "I may have an idea."

From the internal alternate dimension storage inside his Guardian ring, he took out a black marble and tossed it to me. I held it up under the fireball I had conveniently conjured and scrutinised it. I realised that it wasn't a marble. It was a sphere shaped container which trapped a piece of dark matter that writhed and trashed against the inner walls of the transparent container.

"This is...?"

"Negative energy created from humans' thoughts. It was there in the spot of the assassin whom I killed in the garden and some more appeared when the Phantomhive servants cleared those assassins that blocked my way."

I raised an eyebrow at the seemingly harmless container of evil thoughts.

"It's similar to a Shadow." I remarked.

Shadows were also born from negativity and sins. In fact, they feed on them. If there's mana, they would gladly sucked the World they are residing in off of it. They start as formless little parasitic monsters that can level up to possess hosts and later form their own thoughts. What is worse is that, a small army of ten of them can bring the total destruction of a World.

"Correct." He plucked it from my fingers and stared at it. "I didn't think it is quite possible to create something similar to a Shadow."

"Shadows are hard to control." I placed a hand under my chin and thought out loud. "But this thing can easily control someone like a puppet."

"Have an idea where there are more of this?" He looked at me while holding onto the ball.

I paced around the room, trying to recall.

"I remember seeing something similar at the buffet table. Someone could havesecretly slip a bowl of this on the table. And anyone could have just taken oneand pop it right into their mouth."