The closer he got to it, the less the pain that thrummed through his body tormented him.

It took a while for him to get to the clear fields at the border of the territory wall where the red light seemed to descend on, but he finally got there.

Shocked to see the light streak down in a mighty flash.

His vision melted into a shocking white light that was so great, he needed to cover his entire face just to block it out.

"Urgh…that hurt," he mumbled, tentatively raising his head to ensure that whatever had flashed in front of him was gone.

By the time he fully opened his eyes, he discovered that the light was indeed gone, but in its place was a huge building that appeared to have been made of acrylic stones.

Every inch of it glimmered and shimmered in an illusionary manner and Karh was instantly in awe.

The entrance was right in front of him, but noting how the building had suddenly popped up out of nowhere, he was suddenly wary of being the first to go in.

But that was until he realized that with how much suffering he had to endure on a daily basis and how little his life was worth, there was really nothing else he should be afraid of.

'Nothing except death,' Karh thought to himself as he slowly walked through the entrance directly in front of him.

If he died then he hoped it was a quick one, but if by chance there were indeed treasures inside then he would be a fool to wait for any other person to get in before him.

He walked cautiously, his footsteps barely making any sounds as he walked deeper through the short passage in front of him, while glancing around with extremely wary eyes thankful for the touches by the side that illuminated the way.

He didn't have to walk for long for him to reach a huge tall but plain black gate that towered over him, so much so that he was sure it was made for someone more than thirty times his size.

"Well, I guess this is where I turn back," Karh muttered to himself out loud, staring at the gate about two feet away from him and knowing how impossible it was for him to push such a humongous thing open.

Merelyto humor himself, Karh walked closer to it, raised his left hand and poked it with his index finger, already chuckling to himself in mockery only to jerk back in shock the very next instant.

An ear-splitting sound rang out in the air followed by a fierce wind that threatened to pull Karh right in as the high double doors creaked and parted to the side.

Karh was stunned. Raising up the index finger he had used to push open the door and staring intently at it with slight wonder in his eyes.

For a split second he couldn't help but wonder if that was indeed his doing, already considering moving over to the gates and pushing them closed to test his new theory only to momentarily forget his train of thought, the instant he lowered his hand, his gaze washing over the astounding scene in front of him.

A few steps in front of him and around him were nothing but bare stones and massive broken sculptures of tall and mighty part-human looking creatures. But raising his head up past a long and wide flight of stairs was what appeared to be a separate part of the hall, one he soon found himself standing on.

The roof was gone and the light from the sun streamed in, in all its glory allowing Karh to see every detail of what was right in front of him as he steadily stood at the edge of the stairs, skeptical of going further.

The nasty metallic stench of blood filled the air even before he got all the way to the top. Which was why the moment he arrived, he wasn't all that surprised to see the ground dyed in red.

In front of him was a huge round table broken in five pieces and even the chairs weren't spared from the disaster as some were clearly too broken to even resemble chairs.

It was obvious to him that there had been a fierce battle there even if he was unable to see any traces of where the dead bodies could possibly be.

'Still, they must have been terrifying,' Karh thought to himself looking up at the chair he stood beside, one that was barely intact, shocked to feel how hard the massive chairs made of stone were and how intense the battle must have been to cause such damage.

There was nothing else special about the hall, and no matter how carefully he scanned his eyes past every nook and cranny of it, he couldn't find anything that seemed to be a door that led to a treasure room or something like it.

Nothing was particularly striking but a small red ball at the center of the table, one he didn't dare to go close to.

Regardless of how broken everything was, the fact that the glossy ball looked completely unscathered was more than enough reason to be wary.

Karh was still considering going down the stairs and physically looking around or even leaving altogether seeing as there was nothing else to be found in the hall when to his dismay he heard the clear sounds of heavy footsteps heading his way.

Karh instantly moved, intent on getting down or hiding. Anything that would reduce his presence to zero, but he had only taken a single step when a familiar voice rang out, echoing loudly in the hall and right onto his ears, sending a slight shiver down his spine.

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"Now what do we have here? I was confident I was the first, but it appears that even rats these days dare to struggle for their master's food,"

Karh felt his heart race a little more in his chest as he heard his second brother Roe, speak.

'Couldn't it have been anyone else but him,' Karh lamented to himself, feeling his heavy gaze scrutinize every part of his body like he would like nothing more than to take it apart inch by inch.

"I…I just got here. The hall is empty and there's…" Karh began explaining in a loud voice that trembled ever so slightly, with him unable to hide the fear now embedded in his bones.

But he had scarcely begun speaking when the loud sounds of even more footsteps broke into the hall at an extremely fast pace, as he watched his brothers arrive one after the other until they were all there.

"Roe…" Kon, Karh's first brother growled the moment he arrived, being ahead of the rest, and greatly surprised and annoyed to find out that Roe had beaten him to it.

"There…there, brother. It seems your little PET was even faster," Roe smirked in a condescending tone, talking to Kon like an elder brother would speak to a younger one.

Usually Kon would instantly flare up and engage with him, but the moment he raised his head to see Karh, whatever he had been about to yell at Roe withered and died.

"KARH!" he bellowed, a great dissatisfaction on his face, coupled with relief. To him, as long as whatever the hall that had magically appeared had, didn't fall to Roe first then it was fine.

By then, Nox and Froh, the third and fourth had also arrived.

"Damn it…I should have been faster," Nox growled with great annoyance on his face, the moment he saw Kon and Roe standing in front of him and glaring at each other, before he also moved his eyes up in the direction they both stared at, beyond surprised to see their family's embarrassments standing there, staring down at them.

"YOU!" he cried out in shock, doing his best to restrain himself from running forward and cutting him into two.

The main reason why they had all taken so long was the need to check for traps in the passageway, who would have thought that while they were busy doing so, their useless brother would have long gone ahead of them.

Froh was also shocked as he stood quietly by the side, with a worried look on his face, staring up at the last person he would have imagined to find there.

All of them had read the ancient scrolls left behind by their predecessors and the periodic falling of the red star was common knowledge to them, which was why he instantly ran towards it the moment he spotted it in the sky.

Yet, for some reason none of them got there fast enough.

"Has he already gotten the inheritance?" Froh thought with a high frown on his face clenching his hands tighter around the sword by his side, ready to draw it the moment he felt the need to.

Drue, the sixth and Rurt the fifth had also arrived and although Drue had a soft smile at the edge of his lips as he looked up, behind it was a masked killing intent one he found difficult to hide.

The red star was said to only fall once in ten centuries. It was one of the reasons he had held in whatever dissatisfaction he felt towards the existence of his other brothers, patiently waiting for it to appear.

Yet for all his patience a puny waste, one whose flesh he should have slowly stripped from his bones, stood exactly where he should be.

He continued to look up with a faint smile on his face but he had long made the decision in his heart.

'He's not leaving these runes'

Rurt, Karh's fifth brother was slightly different, instantly bursting into a loud chuckle the moment he spotted Karh standing at the edge of the stairs.

He stared up at him with a clearly pitiful look in his eyes, breaking the silence in the air as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Did you find anything?"

The question to Karh was like a cup of water to a man dying of thirst as the tension in the air was palpable enough to choke on, so much so that he didn't even mind the fact that it came from Rurt, the brother he hated the most.

"No. I had only just walked up the stairs when Roe arrived…" Karh began and continued speaking doing his best to explain and convince them he really hadn't found anything in the empty hall, even if from the way they stared at him it was obvious that they were convinced he had.

"I…I looked around and I found absolutely nothing. There's nothing but broken chairs, a round table and a small red ball up here. You can come up and check it yourself…" Karh hastily continued, even as he moved to the side of the stairs raising both arms up to show that they were indeed empty.

It would really be a shame to die for absolutely nothing. If he had indeed taken something then he might even feel slightly better for dying in the afterlife.

One last rebellion…only that he really was innocent and the hall was just as useless as he was.

Kon and Roe were the first to react, bounding straight for the stairs even before Karh was done speaking.

A Red ball! Of course they had to see it with their own eyes.

The rest weren't at all for behind as they instantly ran up the stairs with the greatest speed they could muster with hopes that they might be the first to get it.

However that all changed when Roe suddenly stopped about three steps away from the top.

Kon, the person closest to him was the first to notice and he instantly froze that very second.

Nox and Froh were a step behind but their reaction speed was just as great.

Drue kept pace with the first two and regardless of the great annoyance he felt, he knew better than to go ahead if for some reason his brothers suddenly stopped.

'There was no way he was going to become a chicken experiment for the rest of them'

"What's wrong?" Karh couldn't help but ask in a low tone, warily looking around trying to discover why they would all suddenly stop one after the other since he was sure that at the point where they stood, they could also easily see the huge table broken to pieces on the floor and the red shiny ball sitting on the floor right in the center of the pieces.

"Karh!"

Hearing Kon's voice he instantly turned to look straight at him with an obviously confused look in his eyes, one that instantly disappeared and his eyes trembled ever so slightly, his lashes fluttering sharply in fear at Kon's next words.

"Pick it up!"

"Wha…what?"

"Do I need to repeat myself?" Kon's voice thundered across the room as he spoke, angry eyes fixed on Karh satisfied to watch him take a half step back in fear.

"You just need to pick it up then drop it right back. Nothing more," Roe gently explained from the side and for some reason that terrified Karh even more than hearing Kon yell at him.

Roe had been the first to stop the moment he laid eyes on the ball, instantly recalling all the words written in the ancient manuscript he had read.

{No one has successfully gotten the inheritance to date}

If so then there must be a reason why, and there was no way he would sacrifice himself as a stepping stone for his brothers.

But Karh was different. There was no way he would get the inheritance with how weak he was.

Before he could get it, killing him would be as easy as killing a bug.

Karh had to swallow the urge to laugh as his eyes shifted past all his brothers one after the other, instantly reading the intention behind their words and actions.

Not picking it was 'death', picking it was 'possible death'. There was never a choice to begin with, as he moved his legs past the chairs on the high platform he stood on, walking right into the center to pick his DOOM.