The Path of Ruin

Tharon's head separated from his body and fell to the ground, then rolled slightly. As his body slowly collapsed, it made a resounding sound that echoed throughout the area.

Kael suddenly felt an extremely intense heat enveloping his entire body. It was so sudden and intense that he even felt as if he might lose his balance for a moment. But he held himself together.

He took deep breaths, closed his eyes, and waited. As his focus shifted to the chains around his heart, he tried to process what he had gained.

And... he was surprised.

No, not simply surprised.

He was literally shocked.

'This...'

It was nothing compared to simple goblins, wolves, or creatures. Even humans were the same.

'Did I gain a week... almost a week, just by killing one person?'

It seemed a little longer than a week, he couldn't be sure. But... whatever it was, it was a mind-blowing amount.

So far, he had only been dealing with hours, after all. One hour, three hours... that sort of thing.

And now suddenly many times more than that?

And not only that...

'I can feel... this time, I really got stronger, even if only a little bit.'

Before, when he killed anything, he couldn't feel that he was getting stronger at all. The difference between before and after was so small that it was almost as if he didn't gain anything.

But this time, it was different.

It wasn't like he suddenly became several times stronger, of course. But... there was a strange feeling as if he had gained what little he could have gained if he trained for two or three weeks in one go.

'Strange, too strange...'

It was good, though.

Much better than he expected.

This was one of the reasons he wanted to be the one to kill Tharon. To satisfy his curse like never before and to grow stronger.

And he had achieved that goal.

He clenched his fist. He paused for a moment, his expression gradually returning to what it had been before. Then, he looked around.

The town... it was really a mess. He wasn't sure how much time it would need to recover, or if it could recover at all.

The fight between Tharon and the man with the sword had been devastating.

That wasn't the only problem, though.

The real problem... were the Imperial soldiers he was sure were around the town.

His eyes drifted to the ground, to Tharon's disembodied head. Slowly, he approached it and then stopped.

He took a deep breath in and out.

Now... he would swim in dangerous waters.

He was not sure how Tharon had been able to recognize the royal blessing. But the fact that it had happened once meant that he should also expect it from others.

'That man in the black clothes couldn't feel it, now that I think about it.'

Maybe Tharon could feel it because he was too strong, who knows?

But that meant that the man with the sword could feel it too.

And there was the problem. The town was surrounded and this man had given the order once to capture him. So he was going to face him no matter what. And when he did, his identity, at least for him, would be revealed.

What was he supposed to do then? Accept his fate and wait for death...?

No.

That was another reason why he wanted to kill Tharon with his own hands.

To create a way out, a chance for himself.

"I... apologize again."

He bent down, grabbed the obviously dead man's head by the hair, and lifted it off the ground.

It was disrespectful... but he kept his expression as straight as possible.

Even if he knew nothing about Tharon, he could tell that he was a good man in the short time he had spoken to him. And... even though he was a rotten human being, he had never really had a problem with good people. On the contrary, he preferred to stay as far away from them as possible. Mostly because he didn't want to hurt them.

Things were a little more complicated with Tharon, though. There was really a lot he didn't know about the man... and he was strong. And also important. The fact that he had been a slave to King Markhus' father, that he had knowledge about the royal blessing, that the Empire was after him... there were so many mysteries he didn't know about the man. Yet he had seemed like a good man. He was almost certain that he did not deserve such treatment.

But now... he had to do this.

He had to continue to be ruthless, at least to try something new for his future.

And so, grasping Tharon's head by the hair, he started to move forward. Occasionally, he could see the eyes looking back at him. The townsfolk who had survived were looking at him with many mixed emotions. But Kael ignored every one of them.

After a while, he came across a few Imperial soldiers. They too looked at him with a puzzled expression, but... things changed when they saw the head he was holding.

No, they did not attack him. They had no hostile intent whatsoever.

They just... cleared the way for him without saying anything. As if they wanted him to go on.

'They're showing the way to their superiors, huh...'

Kael kept moving forward, keeping a cold and straight face. He made it to the entrance of the town without any problems. Not a single person had crossed his path or tried to stop him.

Now... there were dozens of soldiers standing side by side right in front of him. Their cold eyes were on him as if they were ready to pounce on him if he made one wrong move.

The man in black, who had disappeared when the fight between Tharon and the man with the sword started, was standing on the front lines. He was not in very good shape, to be honest. Like the others, he had suffered his share of the impacts of the big fight. All his clothes were wet, and his skin could be seen through the tears in some spots.

Yet he was not the one who caught Kael's attention. It was the old man who stood in front of him, his keen eyes scanning him. He was the one who stood against Tharon, fighting against him.

The top part of his clothes was completely torn. His muscular body, full of dozens of wounds, was exposed, showing bruises with new wounds and the teeth marks of dragons. His long sword was at his waist, already sheathed.

When Kael couldn't see him, he thought that he must have been thrown somewhere, and he was probably right. Because the man was covered in dust and dirt. There were a few tree branches and leaves clinging to his body. He looked like he had just come out of the forest.

Yet it was not his appearance that mattered, but the air he exuded around him.

Kael swallowed hard. The man's presence felt really heavy. Just being in the same area as him made him want to hold his breath involuntarily.

'It wasn't like this with Tharon...'

Maybe he was holding back, maybe the man in front of him was deliberately trying to make him feel that way... who knows?

But Kael didn't care. He tightened his fingers in Tharon's hair. Without a word, without a reaction, he threw it in front of the man.

Tharon's head rolled all the way in front of the old man. Finally, it stopped just in front of his feet.

The man looked down at the head under his feet, then up at the boy who had thrown it at him.

It was at this moment that Kael... as if he could finally sense that the man was truly giving him his full focus, spoke.

"I killed him."

It wasn't a lie, he had indeed killed him.

He was going to hide the fact that he would have died on his own if he had waited a little longer, of course. No one needed to know that.

"And?"

When the old man's deep, gruff voice echoed through the space, Kael momentarily forgot the words that had been running through his mind. But he quickly pulled himself together, made sure no sign of weakness escaped him, and... confidently continued.

"You ordered your men to bring me to you without killing me. Why?"

He had a pretty clear guess as to why. But... he had to ask, to keep the conversation going in the direction he wanted.

And the man with the sword gave him the answer he wanted.

"Because you are a bearer, why else?"

Kael's eyes narrowed. No matter how scared he was, no matter how much he wanted to run away... he remained calm and cold. And he continued in the same way.

"So, here I am... I have killed your main target with my own hands."

The old man paused for a moment. His head tilted slightly to the side as his eyebrows rose. His expression changed in an instant.

"Oh, so... what are you trying to say?"

"You're going to drag me along, aren't you? You're probably going to take me to the Empire..."

The old man did not evade the question, he nodded honestly.

What else were they going to do? A bearer, at least in parts of the continent like this one, was not a common occurrence. And bearers left on their own at random, especially if they had just become one, was quite dangerous in places like this.

So there was a general law that 'new' bearers who were seen, whose presence was detected, had to be brought immediately to the Empire.

Every bearer had an identification in the Empire and this identification was a necessity for them.

It was the only way they could be kept under some control.

And Kael was in no way an exception to this law. Especially now that he was on Imperial territory.

He didn't know any of this, of course.

"I'll go with you."

The old man's eyebrows rose even higher and his face became even more puzzled. He was almost certain that Kael was going to ask for his release, given the way this conversation was going.

But... he heard the opposite.

"I will come with you to the Empire."

And... that was exactly the card Kael played.

"But I have a simple request. As the person who killed the man you've been looking for so long... don't I deserve a simple reward, at least?"

The last thing Kael saw before he continued with his next words... was the lips of the man in front of him curving upwards.

"I... want to get stronger, that's why I want to come with you... to be a soldier... if need be."

He was not going to run away from the Empire. He couldn't... After seeing the end of someone like Tharon, he was sure he could do nothing when he was not even as strong as one of his fingernails.

If the Empire came after him just once... he was finished. He had no chance of running or surviving.

So instead of running from it, he would try to use it.

That was the gamble he was taking this time. But... nothing had even started yet. This was only the beginning of the gamble he planned to take, the plan that was forming in his head slowly.