35 Chapitre 35: Lying in the blood

Rohan was on the ground. The pain he was feeling was eating him. The harsh blow he had received on his abs had crushed him on the ground without him being able to do much about it. He had tried to leap back to dodge the kick when he had seen it coming, but he was too slow.

This hit had easily pulverized his armor, and pieces of denfensives stripes of metal and leather were scattered on the floor around him, half covered in the blood filling the red room. But thanks to it, he should be pretty fine.

He coughed up as the pain was still spreading on all his body. At least, he didn't lose any feeling. He raised his head to look before him. At this scene he didn't want to see.

Halem was lying on the ground, a great part of his body wasn't attached anymore: his right arm, connected to the shoulder and a bit of the chest was several meters away from the original body. This one one facing the roof, his face looking straight. From where he was, Rohan couldn't see a lot of things, but what he discerned was enough to make him want to vomit.

He looked away from this macabre sight, only for his eyes to pose themselves on one of the other forms lying on the blood. It was the rank 4 Beginner Warrior. A tenacious warrior. He still had the two swords planted inside his body, making his body leaning on the side. His head was looking straight toward Rohan, still with a mask of hatred in his face.

Rohan shuddered as he watched this corpse, with his lifeless eyes scrutinizing him. He was without any doubt the stronger foe he had never fought against. Not that he had much experience anyway.

He felt something acid and amer going up in his throat, and spitted a mouthful of blood and bile mixed together, filling his mouth with an atrocious taste and the air with a nauseabond smell. He coughed up again. He felt like lying here until the end would be a great idea. But of course, he couldn't do that, not if he wanted to survive.

He turned his head back toward the roof made of gray rocks. Why was he even in this situation? Lying in the center of this room filled with blood, Rohan thought back at the life he had until now.

An easy life as the son of a count, inside a whole mansion for himself, living with his personal butler Jonas, the captain of his guards Makin, and other personnels. Sometimes, his brother would come from time to time to visit him where their mother let him go. This one who had forgotten his own existence, and even now, he didn't understand why she seemed to hate him that much. A father always away, working on his own after coming back from the war against the goblins just before his birth.

Then the war. The war that had changed everything. Rohan had thought about it each day, each night since he had fled that terrifying day. The rebellion that had been launched to save their duchy from the terrible famine, only to be crushed by the Empire which had decided to help the kingdom of Prasthana. Rohan didn't understand why, but what he could understand was that this scheme had been prepared for a long time. The Old Monster wouldn't move for no reason, and the army that had appeared alongside couldn't have moved in only a few days.

He had seen the true hell during this war. He had seen the soldiers kill for the first time. He had seen nobles or children of nobles doing the same as the commoner and fighting in the blood. He had murdered along them.

And he had seen what was the true power.

A sea of flame ravaging and devouring everything. A single swing of the sword, and hundreds and hundreds of soldiers falling on the melting floor, eradicate. A single man, who had stopped and destroyed by himself a whole army.

And after he had fled, the peace and his easy life was nowhere to be seen. He had fought a beast, bandits, and now he was here, lying on the blood, smelling the blood, living with the blood. The words of Matthew, said to him not even a few hours earlier entered his mind.

"You should fight more, at the end it becomes a normal occurrence."

It was so true, that it made Rohan a bit scared. Maybe a day he would truly live each day in such an ocean of blood. At that time, would he be happy? Of course, he didn't have any answer.

This half a year had truly been the worst for him. He clenched his weak fist with all his remaining strength. He had already taken the resolve to continue that day. If a bit of blood like that was making him scared, then the warrior's path wasn't for him.

He still had a lot to do. He must go back, find his family, and honor the last words of his father. He must also forget them, and wage war against this rotten Empire and Kingdom, willing to kill thousands of soldiers for seemingly no reason. But he didn't want to do it the same way as the Duke governing the Duchy of Barnes. No. He wanted to destroy them with his own hands. With his hands filled with the power of a Supreme Warrior, and making them feel what was the meaning of judgment.

Suddenly, Rohan laughed. His laugh grew higher and higher as he asked himself if he had lost his mind. He had only trained like a mad man for four months or so, with two meditations a day and all the other time passed to exhaust himself at training and improving his swordsmanship. But in the end, he was still weak. So weak that he couldn't even fight a rank 4 Beginner Warrior alone.

And because of his dependence, another one had died. It was always the same. His father had died because he was too weak, alongside all the others. Makin had died because he was too weak, alongside all his personal guards. And this Halem, was dead because of his weakness. Alone he was nothing. And here he was, thinking about crushing an Empire all by himself.

"But even so." His hoarse voice echoed in the red room. "I will still do it."

That was his promise, floating and permeating the air, filling the room. Even if he was weak, even if alone he was nothing, he would grow. He would rise and become powerful, and destroy his enemies. But for now, he already needed to get out of here.

He sat up, still feeling nauseous. His mind seemed to be willing to shut down everything as his head was facing the corpse of Halem. He let go of a sigh as he forced himself to look toward him. Without this young warrior, he would probably be dead by now. After all, it was with his blow that the warrior hadn't slashed at Rohan who was then incapable of defending himself.

He placed his gloved hand against the sticky floor, and used it as a help to stand up on his legs. His stomach hurt, his head was trying to fly around, and his legs were having difficulties supporting him. But even so, he still stood up.

He headed toward the young warrior. He didn't know him, and he had seen his face only a few hours ago. Maybe Halem wasn't even his true name. He didn't care about this unknown guy. Or at least, that was what he would want to say. But it wasn't true, and these only a few hours were enough to make him sad to lose this companion.

Rohan bent on himself to crouch at the side of Halem, and removed one of his gloves. This guy deserved all his respect. He put his hand on the face of the still man lying in front of him, and closed his inanimate eyes, which will never open again.

*sigh*

he stood up, before picking up a weapon resting on the floor. It was soaked in blood, but he didn't care anymore. In any case, his whole body was itself a painting of scarlet blood which was dripping against the floor. His armor barely remained on him, with pieces here and there that were missing, but it would still do his job.

He didn't choose to continue into the corridors, and headed toward the staircase standing there, going up. He felt like each of his steps were taking an eternity to raise and to land as his footstep tapped against the stairs.

The staircase was plunged into darkness, without a light to chase the shadows from this place. Rohan didn't have a torch on him, but he still went up without so much of a problem. He was already used to the staircase going in the center of the earth with no light, as if the shadows had eaten them away.

A door appeared in front of him. It wasn't a wooden door like the other ones he had seen until then, but an iron one, which seemed to say that it would never move. The metal creaked as Rohan pushed the handle, giving a vigorous hit of the shoulder to make it move. But it opened without any difficulties, as if this passage was used frequently.

The brightness of light on the other side blinded Rohan the time he got accustomed to it, before he was able to see. What he saw in front of him, standing in the middle of a room and seemingly waiting for him, was a strange man.

There were a lot of tables in this room, with strange utensils filling them to the brink. A strange smell of dried plants permeated the air, making Rohan unconsciously breath in loudly as if he wanted to clean his nose from the metallic smell of the blood.

The man staring at him had a calm face, with a small smile on it. He had short blond hair, and seemed to be a young man in his twenties. If Rohan wasn't inside a dangerous place filled with powerful warriors able to tore iron with their hands, he would have found this character to be likable. But now, he could only find the way he looked at him to be creepy.

He was wearing a gray dress, a particular one. It wasn't the kind of sophisticated dresses that the nobles liked to wear, it was simpler. Rohan had already seen this kind of dress. Only once. And that made his heart beat harder in his chest.