Eisen slammed down his sword into the ground in front of the Filth as it tried to escape. He had increased the blade's size as high up as it would go, so the path was blocked pretty well, "And where do you think you're going?"
The old man quickly dragged the blade over the dirt, pushing the pieces of the 'thing' back toward Brody and Jyuuk, who continued to try and take it down. But a part of the Filth was able to recover again, forming a clump of flesh that was like a bundle of hands trying to grasp at each other.
"We wish to make a deal!" it exclaimed, and the four originals that were gathered all stared at the lump of wriggling flesh.
"A deal?" Eisen asked. Clearly, the Filth wouldn't be able to fight back against these four; that was clear to everyone gathered here. So was that thing desperate now?
"What kinda deal?" Brody asked, and Jyuuk snapped his head toward the orc-demon halfling.
"Brody!"
"What? Aren't you curious? Why not hear it out? Eisen said that thing's from a whole separate world, right?"
"Well... I... would like to hear more about that world..." the beastman replied, and the two quickly looked over to Eisen and Xenia, who seemed a bit more hesitant. Since they actually had memories related to these other worlds now, they at the very least had a feeling about what could potentially go wrong if they weren't careful when dealing with something like this.
But in the end, Eisen figured there was no harm in, at the very least, hearing it out. Though, some safety-measures were needed.
He squatted down and pushed his hand into the ground, making his item storage appear there. From inside, he grabbed a large compressed mana crystal, quickly manipulating it to form a cube large enough for a person to stand inside.
With his ego-tool Bai, he took a few moments to carve an extremely simple pattern into the cube; it was practically just a few symbols that were meant to make the mana crystal act more protective. Mana crystal was already nigh indestructible by regular means, but who knew what this thing could do?
That was why the cube, once the carvings were activated, would work to retain its own shape as much as possible.
Getting the memo without having to be told to do anything, Jyuuk and Brody scooped up every little piece of the Filth's body and threw it inside of the cube. Eisen looked around with his truth-seeing eyes to make sure that there wasn't any part of it that was accidentally left behind, and then closed the cube up.
"So you're scared of not growing anymore? Or that you'll stop existing once nobody is there to 'observe' you anymore?" Brody asked, crossing his arms, but the Filth quickly explained.
"No... those in that other realm will not cease to exist anymore, but they will also not grow. They will be stagnant, but not cease. Here, they may cease, but they may also grow. There it is safer, but..."
Eisen frowned lightly. He didn't understand what the issue was. The Filth was about to be killed here, so why would it want to risk staying if it could be safer over there? Unless...
"You made a mistake."
The Filth stayed silent, and Eisen continued as the others seemed a bit confused.
"What do you mean?" Xenia asked, and the old man grinned, continuing to stare at the filth.
"You were the first to leave that realm, and gave yourself a physical form. But you made a mistake when you did. Since you didn't know about this place beforehand, you took as much as you could. All the benefitial parts. Mass, strength, language. But you didn't know where to stop.
And then, you learned fear. You learned what it means to be scared, and if that's what those things feed on... What would happen if you were thrown back there? Would you be able to return back to what you were before, or would you become a source of infinite fear for everything else in that realm? Would they continue to grow and feed and grow and feed?
Forever and ever and ever," Eisen suggested, "That's it, isn't it? If you were to return, now that you learned how to be scared, your own world is too terrifying for you."
Brody let out a slight laugh, "Seriously? Is that it?" .net
The Filth stayed silent for a few moments, but soon responded, "That is our expectation."
"Hm, got it," Eisen said, smiling lightly. It was actually pretty funny, so he was trying to hold back a laugh. Brody was doing that more than enough anyway.
"Do you understand now? If we go back we-"
"So what? Why's that our problem? You're one of those 'fears' as well, right? Why would we leave you here, where you can become a threat? You'll keep growing stronger the more people are scared of you, right? In my opinion, we should just get rid of you right here."