CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Bringer of Pain stood silently on a hill, thinking.
It had not been very long since he had inherited this grand title, one that he had engineered and given to himself; he had no real concept of time besides days and nights, but he guessed it had be at least a week since the incredible urge for blood had come over him, and he had begun his bloody reign of terror against the peoples of Oddworld.
He found it amusing the way that, for centuries, the continent of Mudos had been divided into three factions: the naturalists—Mudokons, Gabbits, and Grubbs; the industrialists—Glukkons, Sligs, Vykkers, Interns, Vamps, and Clakkerz; and the rogues—anyone who felt they didn’t belong in either faction and had decided to branch out from the rest on their own. All three of the factions had been at war since this unusual cycle had begun, and no one had really won. Both sides had their heroes; the Mudokons had Abe, while the industrialists had whoever was in charge.
The Bringer of Pain had no sides. He was his own side, and his own hero.
Why did he have any need of participation in this three-way war? He had enough power on his own to destroy everyone that got in his way, and then look back on the slaughtered bodies and laugh till his guts grew loose. That seemed like a nice way to spend his evening…and the next evening after that one…and all the evenings after that, until he finally met his end.
But that wouldn’t be for a long time. That was obvious. It had been so very simple to wipe out everyone in the Gabbit village; he’d barely had to exert himself to wipe out those pathetic pacifists.
The Bringer of Pain needed no aid to make him utterly powerful. He used the Dark, and the Dark used him. The two were one. He gained all the power that darkness could grant him, to further darkness’ cause. It was a fair exchange.
The Bringer of Pain sighed once. It was a pity that Abe had to be on the other side of the exchange. Even though he might have been a naturalist hero, working for the Mudokons against the industrialists in this war of nature versus machines, Abe had such Light power within him it was quite a pity that he would try to exterminate the Bringer of Pain when he found him.
The dark being knew he would catch up with Abe, or Abe would catch up with him. There was no other way Destiny could go about its course. And when they met…
The being smiled. When they met, there would be such a collision of Light and Dark as had never been seen on Oddworld before, not even when the ancient heroes had finally vanquished the Ninth Chieftain.
It was almost a pity that the outcome of this battle was inevitably in the Bringer of Pain’s favor. Light would always succumb to the Dark…and the Bringer of Pain was simply the embodiment of the Dark.
He turned and moved off into the daylight…a day that would be scarred by the murder of countless more innocent people.
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