The Path of Ruin

Kael grabbed the creature by the face, digging his fingers mercilessly into its skin. He gritted his teeth as all his muscles contracted, his vision blurred even more, but he endured. Then... he threw the creature's body as hard as he could into a random spot.

The creature was thrown like a lifeless doll, hitting a tree and causing most of its leaves to fall, barely coming to a stop.

Kael was not finished, though. His dagger was still in his hand, his eyes determined.

He walked towards the creature's trembling body, slowly... confidently. He saw the squinty eyes staring back at him, and then they widened. As with the wolves, this creature was now afraid of him. But he did not care.

He took his dagger in both hands, crouched over the creature... and without a second thought, plunged it into its chest.

The creature's squinty eyes widened even more, blood oozed from between its lips. But Kael did not stop. He drew the dagger and swung it again. And then again... and again... until the last glimmer of life faded from the creature's eyes, until he felt the warmth that spread through his body every time he killed a living being.

And finally, what he waited for happened.

The dagger slipped from his hands and fell to the ground. The pain of his wounds returned as the strange force that had suddenly appeared in his body receded.

"Hah..."

He still didn't care.

"Hahahah..."

And he laughed. He laughed as hard as he could, and at the end, he clenched his fist and shouted.

"I- I won!"

But then, suddenly, his voice trailed off. His expression quickly turned ugly as he paused, a wave of pain spreading through his whole body.

Yes, he had won... but he was not unscathed.

'My back is burning, the wound on the left side of my stomach is almost serious, and my legs are numb...'

There were no fractures or dislocations, so it wasn't too bad. Once his wounds stopped bleeding, he would be fine.

He just... needed to rest.

'Can I... rest, though?'

He thought of his curse, how he had to fight all the time to live. He had no time to rest.

But then, he paused, his eyes widened a little.

'How many hours have I gained from this creature?'

He focused on his heart, on the loose chains that encircled it. But... he couldn't be too pleased with what he felt.

It wasn't much... he had gained about three hours from that creature.

Only three hours.

'Why so little...?'

He had thought he could have gotten more. The creature was as strong as he was, in fact stronger, after all! Couldn't it have been at least six hours, or eight?

But three hours... the creature was only worth three wolves.

'Tch, I feel like I've worked so hard for nothing...'

For a moment, there was a deep silence. He thought nothing, spoke nothing... He just waited. Then, with a sigh, he forced himself to stand up.

His legs were in really bad shape, but he didn't think there would be a problem if he walked slowly.

'I need to get away from here...'

He would find a tree again, climb on it, and rest. Then, he could keep moving forward. But right now... he had to make sure he would survive.

He looked back at the corpse of the creature and the carnage it had caused... then, he couldn't help his lips curling upwards slightly.

'I will be back, my work here is not done.'

He would grow stronger, he would come back here, and... he would start hunting these creatures instead of wolves. That was his new purpose.

'I just need a little time...'

And so, he began to move forward slowly, with a limp.

*******

His eyes opened slowly, he felt the hardness of the place where his back rested. The sun was shining on his face and the autumn breeze was a bit harsh today.

Immediately afterwards, he felt a pain that spread throughout his body.

Yet he didn't make a sound. He sighed deeply, then looked at the position of the sun.

'I slept for about six hours, huh...'

It wasn't bad... but he had expected to sleep more.

'I'm a little better, though.'

His wounds had stopped bleeding a long time ago and his legs didn't feel as numb as they used to.

It was strange, actually. In the past, he was sure he would have needed two or three days to recover to this extent. Now... he could recover this much in just six hours.

'I am not a normal person...'

He was stronger, faster, more resilient, and healed faster. He was very different from people his own age.

He paused for a moment, his brow furrowed. Something had come to mind, something he had experienced while fighting for survival with that freak creature, something he couldn't care about because of his condition...

'I suddenly became faster, stronger... the pain disappeared a lot, too. Why?'

He remembered the warmth spreading through his body. He became stronger with that warmth.

There was no way it could have been something normal. He wasn't going to attribute something like this to something childish, like his body exceeding its limits just because of his lust for life. Such things only happened in fairy tales.

'Was it because of the curse?'

He put his hand to his chest, touched the crown. But then shook his head.

'No, the curse doesn't have an ability like that.'

So it was something else, something independent of the curse.

'How was it triggered?'

Well... even if he ignored it because it was childish, the only thing he was thinking about at the time was his will to live.

Was he really strengthened by the desire to live?

'No... that's ridiculous.'

He waited for a while, thinking and thinking. The minutes ticked by... and, finally, all he could do was sigh.

'At that time, I wanted to speed up, I wanted to get stronger... I gave everything to it... So what if I do it again? Can I repeat what happened?'

He closed his eyes and waited on the tree he had climbed. He wanted to get faster, stronger, more resilient.

But... nothing happened.

His brow furrowed, yet he did not open his eyes. He tried harder. He didn't just want to, this time he imagined it.

But... again, nothing happened.

He opened his eyes, looking frustrated.

'I'm doing something wrong... or it was really something spontaneous.'

He looked for a while at the emptiness, at the leaves of the tree. His brow furrowed even more, his face twitched.

'No.'

He stretched, moved his limbs a little. He shook off the numbness in his body for a while, then climbed down from the tree.

The chances of creatures in this part of the forest were slim. He was back in the wolves' territory after all. And they were not a threat to him. So he was at ease.

Still, he took out his dagger, held it between both hands, and took up a fighting stance. He closed his eyes again and let his imagination work to its fullest.

First, he desired. To get stronger, faster...

Then, he imagined it. That he was getting stronger, faster.

He replayed that fight over and over in his mind. Each scene was burned into his mind, into his muscles.

He remembered the warmth he felt in his body. It had first started in his chest... right by his heart. Then, it spread through his body, giving him strength and speed...

He imagined this same warmth. The way it arose in his heart, the way it spread through his body.

And... this time, something actually happened.

His lips involuntarily curled upwards as he felt a warmth in his heart.

It was tiny, much smaller than what he had felt during the fight. But... it was there.

Kael focused on this warmth. He isolated himself from the world, even though he knew it was dangerous. He wanted to continue this experiment, he wanted to see what would happen. So he didn't stop.

He imagined the warmth growing, and it did. His chest grew hotter and hotter, but it never reached the same level as during the fight.

Still, he didn't care too much about it. At some point, he stopped, thinking that there was no need to go any further for a simple experiment. So, he stopped increasing the warmth, stopped concentrating it... and distributed it throughout his body. Not in random places like during that fight, but literally all over his body.

The moment he did this, the whole world changed. His constant pain suddenly became meaningless, his ears and nose more sensitive than ever. He could feel the new power coursing through his body.

He opened his eyes. He hadn't noticed it in the fight, but even his eyes had become sharper. The difference was really small, but when he focused, it was hard to miss.

He raised his hands, looked at his palms. He clenched and unclenched his fist a few times.

'This is... strange.'

He had never heard anything like this before. Was it a common trait of the Blessed and Cursed?

'It's not as effective as the first time, but I'm definitely stronger, I can feel it.'

He jumped slightly where he was.

He was light, he felt like a bird. He had never been a bird before... but that was what it felt like!

He wanted to experiment more with his new power, so he spotted a tree and gripped his dagger tightly. He didn't care if his body was in bad shape now.

He approached the tree, then took a deep breath. He took his dagger in his left hand, stretched... then attacked the tree with all his might.

The bark split without feeling hard at all, and it left Kael in shock. It wasn't with the ease of cutting through plants or cloth, perhaps... but it managed to make a large gash as if the tree didn't have the durability it should have. One more cut and he could have split the tree in two!

'This is... very good!'

With this, he could hunt the creatures much more easily. If he had known all along that he could do something like this, the previous creature would have given him no trouble at all!

He wanted to test his limits even more, he bent down to run... But just as he was about to leap, he paused. His smiling face suddenly fell.

'Huh?'

The warmth in his body was receding without him wanting it to.

'No!'

He closed his eyes again as his newfound strength slipped through his hands. He did his best to protect it, but... it was futile. After only a few seconds, both the warmth radiating through his body and all his strength vanished.

When he was back to normal, he had a disappointed look on his face. He had wanted more, but...

'This power... It is limited!'