SYSTEM ASCENSION

He took one step closer. They moved back.

He stretched his battered hand.

”...Yvonne...”

There was no response. No twitch of any sort. As absurd as it is, she was gone.

He took a step closer.

”Who...”

The participants shifted their stances at him.

”You!” One took the lead. A youth who look no older than eighteen. One glance at his arrogant expression, a it isn’t hard to pinpoint him as a noble.

Elias turned his gaze to him.

The noble gritted his teeth.

”You’re with that girl right?! Her kill count is almost the number of all of us!”

Elias took another step closer.

”What...did you do to her?”

”We just wanted to ask her a question! It was her fault she resisted.”

”A question...”

”You’re her ally, right?!”

”Ally...” He mumbled to himself. He has never really thought about it. His eye moved to her, a girl he had only seen across tubes, exchange words in a cell, and shared similar pain.

”Ally...”

The noble stepped forward.

”See?! He admits it! We must kill him!”

”Yeah!” They chorused.

”See how many people that girl killed. She’s a monster!”

”Maybe he’ll start killing us in our sleeps.”

”We must get rid of him.”

They threw tantrum here and they, but the forest went quiet when Elias took a step forward.

Every survivor had already decided he would die next to her. Weapons were drawn. Weeks of terror had finally found someone to blame and take out the anger on.

Elias on the other hand was losing it.

”She...is mine...”

He took another step forward.

”She belong to me...”

The noble yelled at them.

”He’s one small child! Take him out!”

He didn’t answer them. The sight of Yvonne pinned to that tree had stolen every word from his mouth. All that was left was the sound of his breathing and the taste of rage building behind his teeth.

He stared at them without blinking. Elias’s injured legs finally gave out, but he didn’t fall. He staggered back slowly, tilting his head toward the sky.

Then he parted his lips and summoned his hunter dagger straight into his mouth. Dark light twisted in the air, and the smell of ozone burned in the clearing. The whole line of survivors flinched back at once.

There was nothing human about the way he held that blade between his teeth while his busted hands hung useless at his sides.

One archer panicked.

He drew an arrow and attached it to his bow, aimed right for Elias’s throat.

”I’ll deal with him!”

He fired it.

Elias twisted sideways. The arrow missed him by inches, cutting a line of red across his cheek before slamming into a tree trunk.

Elias didn’t speak. His dark eyes followed the arrow’s path. From the quivering shaft in the bark, all the way back to the shaking hands of the boy who fired it. When his gaze locked onto the archer’s face, the whole forest temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.

He took another step forward. The dagger was still clenched in his teeth. His voice came out muffled, but everyone heard him clearly.

”So you shot the arrow in her forehead, right?”

The question made them tightened their on their weapons instinctively.

Before they could blink, Elias was already in front of the archer, his body moving with the same unnatural precision he’d used to dodge the arrow.

The hunter dagger found the archer’s eye before a warning could leave anyone’s lips. It went straight into his eyes, and sent them both crashing into a tree.

”Aaarrrggghhh! My eye! My eye!”

The boy screamed and thrashed, clawing at the air as panic overtook him, but Elias was unmoved, hovering above him.

He tilted his head and tossed the dagger up with his teeth, the blade spinning once. A sickening crack came from his left hand as he forced his injured fingers to work, and he caught the hilt of the dagger to work without looking.

He raised it up, and sent it straight down to the archer’s chest.

The entire clearing forget how to breathe.

[Elias Morail]

[kill count:210]

Elias began to make a scene that made them gasp in pure horror. He stabbed and stabbed and stabbed again, making a pool of bloody mess.

The system blinked, turning from dark to red.

[Trial forcefully override]

[Bounty quest triggered]

[Trigger reason: Elias Morail]

[Objective: Kill or be killed]

[Time limit: None]

[Penalty: None]

[Reward: Elixir of life]

The red text burned into their retinas. No rules. No penalty. No limit.

As they stared at the message and the boy who’d caused it, Elias turned his head slowly. His dark bloody eyes were empty of anything except that dangerous calm, and his voice was quiet when he spoke around the blood on his lips.

”That’s one.”

Every weapon lowered at once. Then every survivor took a step back. Then another. The panic broke like a dam.

”Run!”

They turned and ran, crashing through the trees with no formation. They disappeared into the forest, leaving the scene behind.

He blinked once and glanced back at the archer beneath him.

A sudden feeling of emptiness clouded him. He turned around, and his eyes locked back to the tree.

Reality seem to come crashing back to him.

”Yvonne...”

His eye widened. He dropped the dagger and ran forward to her.

”Hey! Open your eyes!”

He grabbed the arrow and pulled it out of her skull. Then with his bare hands, he broke off the spikes, and he caught her before she could collapse. He lowered her to the ground with a gentleness that didn’t belong to the boy who had just triggered a bounty quest.

”Yvonne?” He bent down.

His ear hovered over her mouth, waiting for the warmth of breath that never came, and his fingers pressed against her neck where a pulse should have been, finding only skin that was cooling too fast.

”...is she dead?”

Mona’s invaded. ”Of course, she is dead.”

”So she can’t answer me again?”

”Dead humans can’t talk. Haven’t you learn that already?”

He blinked.

”Can’t you get me another Yvonne?”

”Do you want another human?”

”...that is not Yvonne?”

”Yes.”

”No...”

”Then no.”

The realization didn’t hit him all at once. It settled in slowly, like a fog. He pulled her to his chest.

”She can’t talk to me again...”

A tiny line of tear slid down his eye. He finger dug into her skin, raging clouding his mind.

”My eyes are itchy again.”

”You’re crying again. It’s a human emotion.”

”I am human.”

”Humans don’t have double personality and other worlds vision Elias,” Mona pointed out. ”You’re not human.”

He lay her down and stood up.

”Why do humans cry?”

”You cry everytime but you don’t why?”

”It hurts...” He took one step forward.

”Where are you going?”

He halt, and turned his gaze.

”They broke her...so I’ll hunt every single one of them.”