’How do I even fight this thing? I don’t know any techniques or skills,’ Lucien thought while floating as the creature approached him.
Lucien didn’t even know how to fly properly, so fighting back wasn’t a viable option in his current state.
The creature approached him, a loud thud accompanying each of its steps. With each step, a deep rumbling voice echoed from within the creature’s body.
"Withering Magic? No, it’s something else." The creature raised its hands, its fists mutating into a blunt hammer.
"Move!" Lucien told his body, desperately trying to evade the attack, but his body just hovered in the air, paralyzed. The attack was surprisingly slow, and Lucien would have easily dodged it if he wasn’t paralyzed.
The large hand hit Lucien, sinking itself deep into Lucien’s abdomen, tearing a portion of his robe. Lucien bent from the impact and was immediately thrown outside of the bar.
"Hahaha! Weak folk like you deserve to die. You can’t even use a single skill." The voice within the creature, most likely that of the bartender, taunted.
"Wow, that definitely didn’t hurt," Lucien said, standing up from the pile of rubble his impact had created. "At least, I’m not stuck anymore." He dusted off the dirt on his shirt and was immediately jump-scared by the approaching creature.
Before Lucien had any time to react, the bartender had appeared before him, its claws raised in the air to hit him. Its killing intent radiated all around Lucien, and just before its claws hit Lucien, his left hand moved on its own.
"What am I doing?" Lucien’s left hand gripped its wrist tightly, almost breaking it, and threw it far into the air. "What was that?" Lucien asked himself, too concerned to speak properly.
He tried retreating, but the creature flew right back at his blind spot. Lucien swiftly turned around, and in an instant his fists were already sinking into the abdomen of the creature.
Lucien had an expressionless face. The mix of excitement and concern canceled each other out, leaving Lucien confused.
"That wasn’t me," he muttered again, only to be interrupted by the creature’s petty attempts. Without any thought, Lucien’s left hand gruesomely gripped the creature’s head, killing its approaching velocity in an instant.
His right hand proceeded to lift itself into the air. His fingers curled, and he aimed them at the creature. A strange black orb materialized within his palm and blasted straight into the creature’s face, breaking it down into nothingness.
Lucien floated slightly into the air involuntarily, his left hand still gripping the creature’s face. The blast left a large crater on his face.
Lucien didn’t plan any of that.
He didn’t even know Mana could be manifested in the physical world.
His hands shook as the cloak wore off. The aura around him slowly dissipated, and just as expected, his energy was suddenly depleted.
"Why am I feeling tired? Wasn’t this all from the demon’s Mana?" Lucien questioned, his eyes still trembling from what had happened.
He wasn’t afraid of the creature or how fast he killed it.
He was afraid of being a puppet.
The demon effortlessly controlled his entire body even while Lucien was conscious. That alone was enough to frighten Lucien.
"You better explain what happened!" He screamed, expecting a response from the demon like he always did.
After a few minutes of Lucien lying helplessly on dirt, trying to comprehend what had happened, another member of his division showed up.
"Hey! What happened?" The man, young enough to be slightly younger than Lucien, called out from afar.
Lucien shifted his gaze and stared at the approaching boy. "He looks a bit over 18. I’ve been surrounded by old men for so long that I forgot people were still younger than me in this world," he muttered, his expressionless face turning back to his palms.
"What happened?" The boy asked, but Lucien didn’t immediately respond. After a few seconds, Lucien stood up and started walking off into the distance.
"Turns out that thing was a cursed bartender. Be careful out there, because it was really exhausting to defeat," Lucien replied, his back already facing the boy as he continued walking.
Lucien kept moving in search of another cursed individual, his head spinning from all the chaos that had just unraveled. ’I killed him. I need to learn to control this power,’ he thought, dropping to the ground from intense fatigue.
’Do I even know how to lift a curse?’ He questioned, getting back to his feet with a determined gaze.
But first, he needed to eat, and the only way was to either steal it or ask for it.
And Lucien wasn’t in the mood to ask nicely.
He spotted a small deserted shop in the distance surrounded by flowing sand and a cool breeze. ’Who even opens up a shop out here?’
Lucien held his abdomen tightly, rushing to the shop with the last bit of strength he had. The shop reminded him of his first encounter with the soldiers and the division he found himself in.
"Sweet! There’s no one there." He picked up the pace and ran straight into the section of the small shop where the foods were showcased.
Bread, cookies, chips, fried meat in the confines of a glass display case. Anything Lucien could think of was sitting unprotected before him, waiting to be stolen.
Lucien swiftly picked up a bag of chips lying on the floor and began consuming it. "I can’t be healthy without a bit of protein, even if it’s fried," he muffled, his mouth filled with crushed chips.
He picked up the fried meat, already placed on a plate inside the display case. Seeing as no one was there, Lucien decided to rest behind the shop till the owner returned.
"There aren’t any nearby houses. Where could the owner be?" Lucien asked himself, genuinely concerned as he swallowed down the last bit of chips in the bag.
Suddenly, he felt a disturbance.
The shift of Mana was synonymous with that of a demon.