"This is it! DIE!"

Xiao's kitchen knife nearly reached the monster eyes, it was a going to be one fatal blow for the monster.

But, things don't always go the way they want.

"CAW!"

The monster lets out a ferocious cried, the next instant, Xiao was pushed back by a sudden force coming from the monster beak.

"Shit! Too strong!"

The monster strength was so strong that it put in monstrous strength at its beak to pushes away the cutting board that was blocking its way, which also sent Xiao falling backwards to the ground.

And just like that, the upper hand had change side, the monster was unhurt in any way while Xiao was left vulnerable as he had fallen to the ground and the kitchen knife had also fallen out from his hand.

No more plan and no more weapon, Xiao was now at the mercy of the monster, but did the monster know about mercy? If it knew, it would have left Kang and his parents to live, but it killed them, that means Xiao was going to die anytime soon.

(It's over, I am going to die too, I should have known from the start, that there is no way I can kill this thing, hahaha, how naive I can be, bizarre as it seems, this is still in real life, not in some video game where I can shoot fireball and summon weapon.)

The monster moved towards Xiao, it raises its right arm high up, aiming at Xiao's body with its hollow eye.

Xiao was laying on the ground, looking at the enormous arm that will send him to the afterlife, he didn't struggle, or plan to struggle, he just looked.

Surprisingly, Xiao's body had stopped trembling and his expression has calm down, he was just staring blankly to space as if he had given up hope to survive, and accept his death.

(I'm tired, I don't care anymore, what a freaking day, just end me and be done with it.)

"CAW!"

Like a called of death, the monster roar out a loud cried, followed by the drop of its right arm, coming down with immense force towards Xiao's heart position.

Xiao had already closed his eyes as he had prepared to die.

One second, two seconds, three seconds had passed.

Xiao was waiting, waiting for the unimaginable pain, for him to scream like never before, for his heart to be destroyed and he futilely covered the hole punctured by the monster with both hands, for him to bleed out until the pain no longer exist as he slowly passed out and finally died.

Four seconds, five seconds, six seconds had passed, still nothing!

This time, Xiao slowly opened his eye to see what's keeping the monster so long to kill him.

"Wha....what the hell?"

Xiao was shocked at what was in front of him, the monster had stopped its right arm at the top of his body, just a tiny gap left before its claws sink into his body.

The monster had stopped its movement completely as if a machine had stopped functioning.

A few secs later, Xiao notice something was falling to his face, he rubs it off and looks at it.

"Dust?"

It was a peck of black dust that was falling to Xiao's face, he traces the source of the dust and found out that the dust came from the monster.

The monster's body was slowly cracking apart, forming black dust from it, which disappearing in mid-air or falling to Xiao.

After another few secs, the monster completely evaporates away in dust, leaving nothing behind, even the black dust in Xiao's hand slowly dissolve into nothing.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Xiao was speechless, he can't seem to wrap his mind around on what just happened, with all the life and death situation, and now this, Xiao almost went insane on all the happening.

"Where....where did that thing go? Did it just....disappear?"

Xiao looked around as he slowly came back to his senses, and also stay vigilant for anything.

"Nothing, the monster....is gone....right?"

After slowly standing, Xiao's looked around over and over again, and he sees no sign of the monster.

"Hahaha! what the hell's going on? am I safe now? what the hell?!"

Relieve that he is safe now as the monster disappear mysteriously, Xiao burst out loud laughter like never before, he was confused and relieved, and he was laughing so loud and unnaturally that tears was falling from his eye, fluid was flowing out from his nose and his body was shaking vigorously.

Suddenly, an urge was rising in Xiao's body, without holding back, Xiao rush to the nearest sink, bends his body down, opened his mouth and puke out a mouthful of digested food.

"Shit....freaking vomit out all the food I had at lunch."

Immediately after the vomit, Xiao's felt an incredible fatigue building up in his body and mind, for his adrenaline has stopped pumping.

As Xiao begins to felt extremely exhausted from all the running, thinking, and surviving, he slowly sits on the floor and leans his body and head to the cabinet.

"So....tired."

And just like that, Xiao closes his eye and passed out, after this bizarre life-threating situation.

==========================================================

Few hours has passed after Xiao had fallen unconscious, some unknown forces were gathering at the living room, the space at the centre begins to distort, and some kind of energy was building from the distort space, it continues to distort until a portal was formed, and three white clocked human-like body came out from the portal.

"This mana scent.....were we too late?"

One of the trio with a female voice spoke first.

"Goddamn it! Never thought it got one step ahead from us again."

Another one with a rough youngster voice spoke out loud while stomping the ground.

"Don't assume anything first, search the area, now."

The last clocked man who had an old veteran voice gave out the order for the other two.

They began to search the floor until they stopped at Kang's lifeless body.

"I knew it by the mana scent already, but still, I want to believe he would stay alive, damn it!"

Unable to contain his anger, the old cloaked man punch the wall so hard that it formed a hole.

"No mistake, the attacker was Umbra."

The cloaked women inspect Kang's body while giving out any found information.

"Once again, we had failed to secure the candidate of the light hero."

The young clocked man express worried and disappointed while looking at the pool of blood surrounded Kang.

"Didn't I told you all, that there is someone in the empire feeding information to the Demon army? this is the third time we had failed to secure the Light hero! The previous generation of the heroes band barely defeated the Demon army and Demon God without the Light hero, but what about now? The demon God is not a fool, it knows how one hero can make a tremendous difference in battle, what's more, is the light hero, the strongest hero of all, last time might be just pure luck, but this time it will build a stronger army than before, how are we going to survive their attack ?!

The old cloaked man spoke his thought to his two other comrades with furious anger, his fist was holding so tight that it starts bleeding.

The two didn't say a word, as they too had the same thought as the old cloaked man.

"Pardon, I got too emotional, what done is done, no use staying here any longer, let's return and report back immediately, this mission was a failure from the start, we need a counter plan now!"

After a while, the old cloaked man regained composure and gave the order to return to their world.

"By the way, anyone checks on his family member?

The cloaked women asked them out of curiosity.

"I did, both his parent were also killed by the Umbra, such is the fate of the hero candidate, it even affects people around him, a complete annihilation huh?"

The old cloaked man expresses the feeling of helplessness as he shakes his head at the sight of Kang's dead parent.

"No sir, there is still one more family member who's alive, I believe he is the elder brother of the Light hero candidate."

The young cloaked man spoke out, which slightly gave a shocked to the other two.

They moved to the kitchen and stopped beside Xiao, who's still unconscious and have no clues at all at some strangers standing beside him.

"He is unconscious, I believe this is the place where the Umbra ceases its function, judging that he is still alive now."

The clocked women inspect on Xiao while also observed the kitchen situation.

"Still, this child is such a fortunate one, he manages to hold on long enough for the Umbra to reach its time limit, is it his ability to survive or just pure luck?

The young clocked man express interest on how Xiao manages to survive the attacked from the monster so-called Umbra.

"Or maybe he just hides his coward ass elsewhere while his family got the slice n' dice, he is not the Light hero candidate, his life and death mean nothing to us."

The old cloaked man coldly comments, while making a signal to the cloaked women to open a portal.

"Alright, opening the dimension portal."

After the cloaked women made a portal, the group walks into it and disappear from the living room, immediately, the portal begins to distort until it disappears as well, leaving no trace of anything.

After the cloaked group has left, it was silence for a few moments, until another unknown man appeared in the house, he looked at the unconscious Xiao with his crazy eye, slowly he chuckle and whisper with a lunatic tone:

"Hehehe! Just as calculated."