Jacob looked at the last person they had killed. Everyone had gotten a turn, even though few had managed to stand right after.

Jacob’s mood was sour.

“How could these people create this disgusting…” Juliet was as disgusted as she had ever been. She had seen the monstrous Charybdes, but this was different. Charybdes looked like monsters, whereas these monsters looked like people.

“It always starts with one or two people,” Jacob commented, tired of the whole situation, “then, if there is a charismatic person – and trust me, there usually is one – people start slowly expanding this sort of things. Then, bit by bit, what was one episode or two becomes the go-to for everyone with bad enough in them to commit such acts. And when more than two or three people start doing it, you feel justified. It’s like, ‘hey, everyone’s doing it, it can’t be that bad.”

“But it’s rape!”

“Maybe these people didn’t think it was. You can convince yourself of the wildest things. Maybe there was someone who truly believed they were just taking the most sensible course of action. Some just wanted a piece of the cake, but there was for sure someone who thought they were doing nothing wrong. It’s always like that.”

A movie I’ve seen a thousand times.

“But, but! Blacksoil is just a common city! How could they architect something so devious!” Juliet felt Jacob’s calm through the Ancestral Bond. She couldn’t even understand how something like this came to be.

“Again, you start small. No one starts thinking, ‘we should really set up a rape-ring hidden behind a complex social ruse’. But then, with a few nudges from the right monsters, it starts taking that shape. Wait to see the people who are starting to think about slaves.”

“Slaves?” Juliet didn’t even understand the implications of such a word. To anyone who had lived in a first-world country like her, it was more of a philosophical concept than anything else.

“Slaves. You can do things with Souls, Inscription Patterns, that would make the entire human history we had so far looked like a fairy tale. Sweatshops would sound like magical heaven compared to what it’s going to happen in a few years from now,” Jacob knew that people spiraled even if they started small. And they started spiraling fast.

“What about the women?” Juliet suddenly asked. “What are we going to do? Don’t they need help or something?”

“Epagogia is taking care of it. She’s healing their injuries and making them into a special fighting force,” Jacob declared.

“A what?”

“A special fighting force. It sounds crass, but they have experienced terrible things already and will make for excellent warriors. They know what the world has waiting for them if they don’t start cultivating hard. Epagogia is going to write down Soul Contracts like the one Frank and his family signed.”

“Jake, aren’t you against these Soul Contracts?”

“Oh yeah, I think they are very dangerous. But these women have lost something that cannot be replaced by anything in the world, Juliet. Now, I know it’s cynically practical, but it’s better to give them something to live for than trying to heal scars that will never disappear.”

Jacob had briefly talked with Epagogia, and they had come to the same conclusion. Make an élite strike force out of those women. Give them a few days to think about it, then have them sign the Soul Contracts that Jacob himself would oversee.

“But,” Juliet was struggling to find the right words.

“Whatever you are thinking about, Juliet, I have been there. I thought of every single argument I could. But a well-written Soul Contract is nothing more than the kind of assurance we need. For everyone else, there is the Contribution System. You don’t need to bind your Soul to us eternally in order to receive power, but you will have to work damn hard to get it. These women now deserve a shot at becoming strong. And that’s because if there is Karma involved with me coming back to this life, saving humanity just got much harder than you would think. If the worst people—monsters I killed are back and they have their memories…”

“But isn’t that speculation?”

“Yes. Yes, it is,” Jacob sighed, “but what happens if instead of just Epagogia, there is the Black Tyrant with his memories back? I’ll tell you what happens, we have a conflict bigger than the Second World War on our hands. I don’t like it, but I prefer the odds on my side when we go to war.”

“That’s a racist name,” Juliet frowned.

“Black Tyrant? I’m talking about one of the scariest—haha! Juliet, you made my day!” Jacob started laughing uncontrollably after catching the irony. “Oh my God! Someone help me, I’m going to suffocate!”

Jacob couldn’t stop laughing for almost two full minutes.

“Are you done yet?” she brooded.

“Sorry, I know it can’t be that funny for you. But the thing is, the Black Tyrant is Asian. He just uses Black Magic, that’s all. Oh man, if the guy could hear you. He was massively racist and enslaved many survivors in Africa. But not the most racist among my enemies, that’s for sure. I’m not even sure that the word ‘racist’ conveys the degeneracy of these people. But whatever. I needed a laugh, especially today.”

“But why ‘Tyrant’?” Juliet asked.

“Tyrant is a title that’s given to the most fearsome people on Earth. The Undeath Tyrant, another of my mighty foes, has the title because he was an overpowered Necromancer, allegedly the strongest Necromancer to ever exist on Earth. But the strongest Tyrant was definitely the Blade Tyrant, the one who wielded the sword the best among everyone else.”

“Shouldn’t he be called the Sword Tyrant, then?”

Jacob frowned at that question and swore.

“For Christ’s sake, why does everyone ask that? If the Undeath Tyrant is called the fu**ing Undeath Tyrant instead of the Necromancer Tyrant, can’t the Blade Tyrant be left alone? And shouldn’t you ask who the Blade Tyrant is? I was building up to that,” Jacob whined.

“Jake, I know who the Blady Tyrant is since I share an Ancestral Bond with him. I’m just messing with you,” Juliet smiled.

And that was the most important thing at the end of days like that. To smile, to remember that the horrors and problems were many, but that they would come later. For now, people should enjoy the little they have.