Tch. Tch. Tk. Tch.

His shears clicked and clanged as he slowly advanced towards the woman, following the trail of blood.

She raised a ruined arm and yanked herself forward past a tree, hobbling on her bloody and broken leg stumps, trying to escape him. There was no escape from one such as him, but she tried.

Tch. Tch. Tk. Tch.

They were near the village of Nogeun-ri in Korea. She, the lady crawling before him, had been a refugee, fleeing danger from her home. Her family had died in the fighting before and so she had no one but her older sister to cling to. She idolized her, obsessed over her, followed her every whim.

She tried to screech for help and let out a hoarse moan, her throat too broken and damaged to do much more. She tripped over a branch and as she scrambled away she fell to the ground.

Tch. Tch. Tk. Tch.

Soldiers from across the seas, fearing some sniper, had opened fire on the refugees. The pair of them had scattered from the group. Her older sister had got her sister to hide in an old well and sought to lead those pursuing them away. Before she left she'd given her a necklace which hung around her neck now.

Her sister had never come back. She had died a slow, agonizing and lonely death in that well, waiting for the person she had loved. And now she was here. Back from the dead as an undead spirit of vengeance and hate. A gwishin.

He caught up to the gwishin and grasped her matted muddy black hair, pulling her up. With his other hand he carefully grasped her head and forced her to look him in the eyes. He forced himself inside her, his power flooding her body. He then spoke to her, in her head, his voice deep and terrible.

'You killed dozens of girls. Everyone that picked up your necklace, you possessed them, burning out their souls to fuel your rage. You killed their families by drowning them to gain vengeance for your lost sister, laughing as their life faded. Do you have any last words?

She spoke back into his head, her voice long gone, but her mind still keen and sharp.

'They deserved it. They're just like my sister. Petty, uncaring, I regret nothing. I want to hurt people. I won't stop. I know things. My mother taught me things. I know beings. I swear, I will claw my way up from the abyss and destroy you. I will rend you, drown you, destroy you.'

He looked at her. A rather scrawny bedraggled pale faced woman with little power left and a lot of rage. He looked at himself. A being of immense power with a true form slightly larger than Asia. He shook his head. 'No, you won't.' Then he stabbed his shears forward into her, slicing across dimensions, twisting in and out of them.

Tch.

'You will go to no afterlife or heaven. Your power will drain out till you are nothing but a husk. Your terror ends now. I am a demon of the choir of ruin, a knight of the universe and ruin. I will defend it to my last breathe from disgusting beings like you.'

She screeched out and tried to slash at him with the bloody bones that were all that was left jutting from her elbows. His outer form took a mild scratch, revealing crawling maggots under his flesh that started to crawl down her boney stump.

A sudden ringing sounded in his head and he smelt a rich smell- roast pork, excellently made with his name on them. Some burning hair too- a nice touch, he was proud of that deed. He was being summoned, yanked from afar to somewhere. He was busy though and he didn't really want to risk this disgusting monster somehow killing another victim though he appreciated the offer. Perhaps he could send a mote to talk to them instead? He cast his senses through the summoning and saw it. A young, innocent child atop the pyre of roast pork in substantial danger falling and being burnt.

He would not let this innocent child be endangered by some foolhardy practitioner. He dropped the gwishin unceremoniously, grabbed the summoning spell, and flew across the seas to save the child. This was every demon's duty. To protect the innocent, to help the young make a better and brighter future. He would not shirk his duty. He would trim and cut so that beings of evil would be finally ended. He was coming. He had many names but the one that had stuck was the Barber. The Barber was coming.