I was homeless most of my life. Even as a child, when I needed a home, I didn’t have one. To be that young and lose everything that meant something to you is the toughest test anyone can go through.

I lost my entire family to a house fire when I was seven years old; my mother, father, and siblings—all in the same night, all the same gruesome way.

People said they died from suffocation first, that they hadn't been hurt when the fire finally caught them.

It wasn’t a comforting thought. I lost my entire family, and it changed my life forever; I wouldn't have been here if I still had them.

You might ask yourself, how did I survive?

I was playing at a friend’s house, and the night came. Our village is humble. We all know each other by name, fathers’ and mothers’ names, and even grandparents’ names. There was nothing hidden. All the villagers knew everything that happened in every house.

We slept in front of their house. His mom provided us with a rug to sleep out on. It was a very warm night, and those were the best nights to sleep out and look at the stars.

The village was friendly. They cared. They cared for one another.

But they left me alone with nothing; when the fire took my family and my house.

The elder of the village took me in, waiting for someone else to take this responsibility, but no one did. He was a good man, or he didn’t have a choice as the village elder.

But his wife didn’t want me there. After a few weeks of abuse, I left. I had to. We only tolerate so much abuse when it’s from our family, because there are bonds and some good to balance the bad, and my family wasn’t even abusive like that woman.

I went and lived under the bridge of the village, where stray cats gathered. I lived by their side; they didn’t mind me.

We didn’t have a source of food, but what people threw out, the cats could eat that. I lived on what the villagers in the market threw away at the end of each market day.

I shared my food with the cats, and they started getting used to me, sleeping beside me or on top of me for warmth.

The villagers would walk on top of the bridge and try to look away after noticing me. They don’t want to have feelings of guilt for allowing this homelessness of a child to happen.

As time went on, I stopped feeling sad. I was feeling better with my cat friends. They didn’t let me go anywhere without one of them accompanying me. The younger generation of the village, who didn’t know my story, became fascinated by me. They called me the cat boy.

Sometimes when a troublesome kid riled them up, though, they lost their fascination and became petty demons, throwing rocks at me, and calling me a crazy boy!

I wore rags, but I didn't have anything better to wear.

I lived that way until I was 16 years old, when a calamity befell the entire region, and a drought occurred.

People started storing what they had, and eating it, waiting for the drought to be over, but it remained for a long time.

While they had stores of grain in every house, my cats and I didn’t.

They stopped throwing away the spoiled vegetables. People started eating the spoiled vegetables. I lost my only source of food. No one knew when the drought was going to end.

I started losing weight, as water alone won’t keep me alive.

I couldn’t go knocking on the doors of the villagers who have lived as if I hadn’t existed since I lost my family.

I started becoming emaciated, and I was sleeping more because I had no energy, and one night I died quietly in my sleep.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I woke up later, not knowing how many days had passed.

How did I know I'd died? You ask?

My face was half eaten when I woke up, as well as many bits and pieces of many parts of my body.

My cats needed to eat, and I was the easiest food they could find. Once I woke up, they started getting close to me again, licking my palms, rubbing against me.

I felt as though I was one with them now; I could order them to do my bidding.

My name is Kafka, and this was my story.

But I hear a sound ringing far away, a sound that's calling to me, a sound that I must follow.

I have to say goodbye to you now. Thanks for being my cat’s food!

Kafka walked away, leaving a corpse behind him that was eaten thoroughly by an abundance of cats.

*****

image [https://imgur.com/XfBSXXC.jpg]

It was finally Seph’s turn. He headed towards the arena confidently, with Sun on his back.

Yes, there were monster cultivators among the contestants, but he had a legendary martial art to back him up. That was only going to get better as time went on.

Once in the arena, Seph noticed an old man with a turban heading towards the arena. He looked to be somewhere north of forty, with dark skin, black mustache, and a petite goatee beard.

He had some pimples on his face, and his hair wasn’t visible under the turban he wore.

The man had a calm gait and carried a large covered jar on his back.

The similarity wasn't lost on Seph, and it wasn't lost on everyone who was watching. One person carried a jar, the other carried a gourd. Was this fate?!

Once on the stage, the man put the jar down in front of him and removed its lid.

“My name is Al-H’awi, I would advise you to keep your monkey away from this fight. With the way I fight, his life is in jeopardy.”

Seph didn’t know how to respond to that. The life of Sun was important to him, but he didn’t want to look threatened. Sun didn’t let him think, though.

As he started shouting at their opponent in Monkeyese.

He pointed forward for Seph, signifying he wasn’t abandoning this fight!

“Well, Sun answered you himself. My name is Seph; fight well, old man. I won’t hesitate to kill you if I get a single opportunity. You don’t threaten my friend’s life and get away with it.”

Seph finished saying that, and started walking confidently towards his opponent; his palms extended by his side, twitchy, ready to attack at a second's notice.

The old man sat on the ground and took out a flute that he started playing with.

Something appeared to be coming out of the jar in response to the flute’s music.

A king cobra came out of the jar. It kept rising little by little. Seph guessed it must be standing at four feet tall right now, but it kept rising even more!

H’awi had changed the tone of his playing to a more aggressive tune, and the cobra jumped out of the jar and slithered fast towards Seph.

Seph launched two palm strikes toward the oncoming snake. When he saw it dodged the first, he followed by a third one as well.

The cobra dodged the second palm strike as well, but when it attempted to dodge the third, Sun had sailed through the air and hit it hard on top of its head with his new staff.

The attack staggered the snake, and Seph wouldn’t let such an opportunity pass him by, and he launched a 4th palm strike that flattened the snake to the ground.

Sun and Seph were panting because of the excitement, thinking the threat was gone, but it wasn’t!

The dead cobra shed its skin, and out came a ghostly, incorporeal smaller version of it.

Al-H’awi changed his tone again, to a more mysterious calmer melody, that the new cobra seemed to answer to.

Seph tried to hit it with palm strikes again, but it kept dodging. Sun attempted to hit it again, but he passed right through its invisible body.

The snake jumped at Seph. He didn’t know what to do but tried blocking with his Gourd, hoping against hope that it would work.

Luckily for him, it did. He tried to make some distance between himself and the phantom snake. When he thought...

Phantom snake. What if one of my phantom wolves can deal with this problem for me?

Seph took out a phantom wolf bone and threw it towards the snake. The wolf immediately materialized and swallowed the snake in one bite!

It also seemed the phantom snake replenished his powers somehow, and he went towards the closest enemy target, which was Al-H’awi, and it bit him in the shoulder while he was sitting down.

Seph started running towards the sitting man, but the man had more tricks, it seemed, as he steeled himself despite the pain and his bleeding shoulder, and continued playing on the flute.

A faster tune it was this time, and many smaller snakes started coming out, must have been ten of them at least.

Each one was about 19 inches, and they moved fast, spreading around, trying to approach Seph from many directions.

Sun descended from Seph’s shoulder, and stood back to back with him, trying to protect his back from the encirclement that was taking place right now.

Seph made his gourd move beside him, and started launching palm strikes, but not before he got a lump of his ungodly substance out of the gourd, and threw it at Al-H’awi, not missing him.

He started blocking with the gourd, while Sun made the staff smaller and kept swatting away snake after snake once they got closer.

After a while, they were done with all the smaller snakes. Looking at Al-H’awi, they noticed he was already becoming in an awful shape because of the lump.

Scorn appeared again, before Seph could go over and end the fight.

He declared Seph the winner, and gave Al-H’awi a cure, continuing the trend of no deaths in this tournament so far, despite the initial promise of there going to be death.