To the 15-year-old me, this was the first taste of what was to come.
Years of fighting in the jungles of Rayon against animals and beasts alike had sharpened my fighting skills but not my killer instinct.
That couldn’t be honed against any animal or beast.
Only humans and their endless thirst for fighting could do this. The life-and-death symphony of the battle zones was a perfect example, as were the pro-and-death matches we were accustomed to seeing in the holographic displays.
Here I was now, facing off against five, well, no, make that two killers now of the underworld gangs. This wasn’t like the jungles or the matches; it was something completely different, but still, it required a life or death struggle, so, in essence, it was a christening of sorts, a welcome to the shit show kind of thing.
“It’s my turn now,” I said to Keo with a devilish smile.
“What the fuck are you?” he said, almost tumbling over his feet as he tried to get back.
“How can you still be alive after getting stabbed with my fire blade,” he said, screaming as he backpedaled from me.
"It's a top Tier-Three skill. It's taken the lives of many men before," he said in disbelief.
Damian was also dumbfounded by the whole situation. He shook his head, and his eyes showed a lost expression.
“You don’t need to know who I am; you only need to know that you won’t leave here alive,” I said sinisterly.
Something in me changed after being attacked by the Death Knights. A feeling deep down in me was brooding, growing, expanding, you might say.
I looked at Keo, and I couldn’t see a human after what he tried to do to me just a moment ago. I saw evil, a devil, you might say.
Devils were supposed to get killed.
Without realizing it, I had started creating a wind blade in my right hand, and then another, and another. By the time I was done, I had five wind blades, spinning in unison around each other.
“What do you plan on doing with that?” said Damian, unnerved.
“This is a gift for the badass killer over here,” I said without removing my gaze from Keo.
Keo was now in desperate mode. He knew he couldn’t run, but his attacks were all for not against Khyrum. He needed to find a way out quickly.
“Damian, help me out here,” squealed Keo as he saw the five blades in Khyrum's hand.
“Kid, let's not get hasty. Haven’t we had enough deaths already?” Damian said, trying to appeal to Khyrum’s soft side.
He figured that a kid as young as Khyrum had to be soft. He hadn’t experienced any of the horrors out there yet. He was banking on this.
“Didn’t you guys come here to kill me? How is this any different?” I said calmly.
“Fuck, this kid is smarter than he looks,” thought Damian.
“Keo, it looks like we are going to have to go; suicidal on this kid if we want to survive,” shouted Damian as he prepared his next assault.
“I get you, boss; I’m sure with us both fighting at our max, this kid is not going to be able to keep up,” said Keo while eyeing Khyrum.
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Little did both know that they were about to experience something that had never been seen before.
"Do you really think I’m just going to sit back and watch you attack me?” I thought.
Without much hesitation, I moved my right arm in a crescent motion, releasing the blades. They traveled in unison at an exaggerated speed toward Keo.
In less than five seconds, he was enveloped by the blades. As they started spinning around him, they gained speed. The blades spun around Keo so fast that it looked like an orb had formed around him. He was inside an elliptical encasement, and there was no way to escape.
Keo was sweating buckets now; sweat dripped off his chin like an open water faucet.
Keo had never seen this skill before, so he went from desperate mode, skipped panic mode, and straight into crazy mode.
He kept using his fire skills to try and break out.
“God Dammit, why is this not working” he screamed as he used Fireburst repeatedly trying to break through.
Damian also tried to help; he repeatedly shot his Tier-two skill, Wind Strike, to try to break through, but nothing worked.
I felt a bit pressured seeing them try to escape. This was the first time I had ever used this skill; to tell the truth, up until a few minutes ago, I didn’t even know I had it.
“I can’t wait any longer; I need to finish this now,” I said.
Suddenly, the phrase Blade Storm popped up in my head on instinct, and the next moment, I could sense the blades encasing Keo starting to spin even faster.
They were turning into a storm that resembled a tornado.
“Kid, listen to me; stop before you regret it later,” said Damian, looking desperate.
“Brat, please forgive me; I didn’t know what I was doing. We were just paid to do a job, so please let me go; I will give you all the money and treasures I have if you just let me go,” said Keo, so frightened now that he couldn't stop shaking. Snot and tears were rolling down his face.
“Too Late,” I said coldly.
The blades started glowing with a light green hue, and in the next instance, all five blades shot to the middle of the storm where Keo was, and a very large and loud explosion was heard.
BOOM!!
The explosion created a huge dust cloud hundreds of meters high. The clouds turned dark with a tint of red. It looked like it wanted to rain, and it did.
It rained blood mixed in with chunks of human flesh, bone, and organs in a 100-meter sq. area. It was a very gruesome site.
“Fuck that is one stupidly strong skill,” I thought.
“There is no freaking way I can use this just casually; this has to be one of my trump cards,” I kept thinking.
On the other hand, Damian was more than scared; he was mortified.
“What’s happening here? What type of devil are we fighting?” he kept thinking.
He only removed his gaze from Khyrum to look at the gruesome sight that lay in front of him. There scattered to a million pieces was his lackey Keo, who had served with him over the last five years.
He knew he couldn't fight this kid; he was way out of his depth here. He still couldn’t believe what he had just seen. He needed to try and get some answers to understand what happened.
“Kid, what skill did you just use?” he said incredulously.
“Better said, what are you? You can’t be more than 14 or 15 as you are just coming from school with a freshman uniform. So, either you just awakened or are about to, so this makes no sense,” he continued.
“You use spells that have never been seen, and I should know as I have done both the battle zones and the strike team matches. Let me tell you, there are very few people out there right now that can match you,” he said, still shaking his head in disbelief.
“Don’t worry about what I may or may not be. Worry about your next move,” I said, getting another wind blade ready.
Damian already knew his fate if he decided to fight, so he did the next best thing. He knelt in front of Khyrum.
“Almighty Prime, please spare this idiotic fool. I was blind to attack you, but we did not know who you were then. Please spare my life, and I will forever be in your debt,” he said in the sincerest tone he could muster.
Looking at him, I felt wary about sparing him.
“Can I trust him?” I thought.
I don’t know, but seeing his power level, I knew there was little chance he could hurt me even if he betrayed me.
He did hold an answer to a question that was gnawing at me. So I asked him straight out.
“I can consider sparring your life if you tell me who hired you?”
Damian looked at me, contemplating what to say,
“Any other time, my crew and I would have been enough to deal with almost anyone out there, but unfortunately, we met you today.”
“The people that hired us said you were a pushover and that we would make a small profit for almost doing nothing. Let me tell you, the 20,000 silver credits they gave us to kill you seem utterly ridiculous now in retrospect.”
“Not even for 1 billion gold credits would I have done it, knowing it would have cost my whole team. These people don’t even know who you are, do they?” he asked with a questioning look.
“Well, let me tell you, the people that wanted you dead are Daisy Richie and her son Brandon Richie!”