CHAPTER 10

He couldn't fool around , he knew. He took his battle stance , and rushed at Karthikeyan , his sword aimed at his chest.

If this connected it would be a fatal blow.

"CLANG" the two metals struck against each other and produced sparks of metal . The two of them applied equal force and no one seemed to budge a single step back.

Lessilius stared into the eyes of karthikeyan. His eyes didn't look dull or fearsome or happy , etc. All he could see was something strange , something he couldn't comprehend .

It was like he will never be able to predict what Karthikeyan would do.

"You' re quite good kid , with the sword . You have raw talent" Lesillius praised

Karthikeyan stayed silent and seemed to watch what lessilius would do .

Lessilius was someone who looked older than him. Even if he was on the same level as him , he would have more experience in swords than him.

Literally he just held a sword an hour ago.

"People who do the most mistakes know more than the one who do no mistakes at all" He embraced this simple life philosophy and didnt let loose.

He was giving his full attention on this fight.

Suddenly as they were fighting, karthikeyan overpowered lessilius 's sword and did a quick strike aimed at lessilius's neck.

Lessilius blocked it just on time and took a step back.

They spent 10 seconds looking at each other and then karthikeyan broke the silence.

Lessilius 's head was severed and it fell on the ground. Blood flowing like a fountain .

"What happened?" was probably the question he wanted to ask before dying.

His 21 years of ambition came to an end , just like that to the one thing he hated the most. Raw talent

----

Karthikeyan saw the demon's head rolling down on the ground. He let out a deep sigh. If he had let the fight drag on any further , he would have been faced with extreme consequences. He just stood there for some time to catch his breath as he had used a lot of his energy to rush at him to severe his head

After calming down for like a minute , he looked at the countdown of his "skill".

[THE CURSE OF THE SHADOW] [??? RANK]

Countdown : 3:40 minutes

If he hadn't noticed before that his skill was going to exhaust , he would have been meat paste as the demon could've easily overpowered him thanks to his lowered defences.

The area fell silent . Except for distant sounds, nothing could be heard.

He looked into his system.

[CONGRATULATIONS THE HOST HAS RISEN TO LEVEL 5]

[EXPERIENCE BAR] [100/1600]

He skipped a level entirely just because of this battle. The experience needed to raise levels seemed to be exactly double at this point. You had to do double the work in order to progress. That made sense.

He also received currency of 200. Not bad , not good either. He had also received currency of 200 from the fly as well.

He now had 350 currencies in my person. He could buy a lot of items.

Just as he was analysing his rewards the girl who he had helped came out quite injured.

"I told you to be inside " he thought . Why was she coming out ?, even though she was exhausted and could just fall to the slightest of hits from a sword, he simply didn't know.

The girl who just came outside saw the three demons laying down there on the floor , lifeless.

Just before she and her friend were struggling to take them down but now the man who was standing in front of her had done it in a jiffy.

She could have saw what happened but was busy attending to her friend who was hanging on to dear life.

Even with all that... she couldn't save his life .

After karthikeyan began to fight the demon , she carried her best friend Cyrus and went inside a building where she thought she could tend to him.

She made him lean against a wall , stopped the blood loss and wrapped a bandage around his severed arm.

After she had done everything , she began to tend to herself when suddenly Cyrus began to open his eyes.

"Don't stress yourself , you are all right " Yerilia told Cyrus

Cyrus finally looked up at Yerilia . He mustered all his strength and said in a low voice.

"k...kill m...me"

A person without an arm had so many problems even in a world which was normal without all these madness and chaos. But what was he supposed to do now? he was a cripple.

He would always depend on others for stuff. The girl in front of him was his best friend and could look after him for some time but even then she at one point would just leave him to be if he was to become a baggage to her progress .

And the pain he was experiencing right now , he just couldn't handle it. This way he could be in peace forever.

Yerilia couldn't believe her ears. She asked again what he actually meant . No matter how many times she asked him he wouldn't answer her and just looked into her.

"Have you gone insane dude? Why are you talking like this ?"

He didn't answer.

They have been together for 8 years. Although there was nothing romantic between them, they were still friends . She knew everything about him , she couldn't believe the person who was being this negative was actually her friend Cyrus.

Whenever she felt down he always gave moral support to her. Even at the day when she was rejected by her 2 years long crush , he gave a crying shoulders to her. He never wavered

Yerilia didn't know what to do and cast a down look. She was blank

"Yerilia " Called out Cyrus.

Yerilia looked up

"Im sor...sorry for being selfish. I know how strong of an impact will be caused on a person when they kill their best friend. You can just leave me here and walk away. I would either die from starvation or get killed by those bastards who invaded our lands " Cyrus gasped for breath

Yerilia held him. Tears streaming down her cheeks . This was just too much. Was this how it felt like losing someone you knew for a long time ? She just didn't know.

Cyrus looked into her eyes and muttered his final sentence " You don't want me to suffer right ? "

"End me"

Silence surrounded. Yerilia stood up , thought for sometime , took out a knife, crouched down and stabbed cyrus in the abdomen. Cyrus coughed out blood.

Even after this , he was smiling .

Yerilia just stared at him when finally he stopped smiling and moving she took out the knife from his abdomen. She checked whether he died or not. After affirming the former conclusion , she hugged him for one last time and bade him goodbye.

She was acting tough but the grief that filled her right now was unbearable.

If she took so much grief in this then going ahead she would become extremely weak and be played around by others by using her emotions against her.

What she regretted right now was that she was unable to give her best friend a proper goodbye by burying him.

Controlling herself , she went out of the building to see whether the demons had been killed or if they killed the boy who challenged them.

She was pretty sure it was the latter.