Severin stood in the middle of the Dungeon and stared death right in the face.
Just two days ago, the Dungeon had killed his sister when she went diving into it to improve the quality of their lives. She died, and he finally lost the final will to live. And so he went into the Dungeon that was so far above his own rank.
His eyes were bloodshot, his breathing uneven, and his limbs mangled beyond recognition. And yet he was still standing, his back as straight as an unyielding sword.
He growled, "So it was betrayal after all!"
The Dungeon was dark, the ground filled with the corpses of dead monsters covered in blood. And the biggest monster, the boss of the Dungeon, a massive thing of flesh and fang, was lying dead not far from Severin, but he wasn’t the one who killed it!
Above the monster’s body stood a slender man in a blue robe. He held a sword casually in his right hand. The sword was painted with fresh blood. A terrifying aura radiated off the man, making his surroundings ripple and shimmer with dim light, as if his very presence demanded attention.
The man looked down coldly. "You will die here, Severin, the First Awakener. You have long hit your ceiling and can’t advance anymore. You are nothing but a damaged relic. Don’t blame me, blame the system you helped create. The strong eat the weak."
Severin smiled with bitterness. There was no warmth on his face, only bitterness and deep hatred. Even with his broken body, the aura that surrounded him was profound and unbroken.
He replied darkly, "I have given so much for humanity, and yet I’m to be disposed of. They sent you, Sword God, to finish me off after you killed my sister and forced us into debt."
Sword God chuckled. "Seriously, you’ll try to play the pity card? Severin, you are the one who created the whole system! You put venomous bugs in the jar, and then you created stronger monsters. Isn’t that what you did when you threw a bunch of me and my friends into a Dungeon?
"Only I came out alive."
Severin shook his head. "And thanks to that, you became the Sword God. Another sword against the dark tide consuming this world. I did all I did for humanity."
Sword God looked at him with a complicated expression. He didn’t speak for a while, but the terrifying aura around him continued to build. The temperature became even colder. "I see now. Severin... you are a madman. But now you are the weaker one. And what’s your mindset about weakness?"
Severin’s face twitched.
Sword God shook his head. "Exactly!"
Severin suddenly took a shaky step forward. And as he did, all the blood on his body, and that on the ground, shook and rippled. It came to life and then began to flow upward like reverse rain.
Severin shouted, "But you won’t get rid of me so easily! I am Severin, the First Awakener! I am the Blood Sovereign!"
The blood lit up with red light, casting the Dungeon into twisting shadows. Then the river of blood condensed into a beam that roared like shattering waves as it blasted forward.
The expression on Sword God’s face changed to brief surprise and even mild respect. But otherwise, he remained calm and cold. He shook his head. "You are strong. But in your next life, you had better be stronger. Achievement is nothing without strength!"
Then Sword God raised his sword. A dim sword light flickered. It was dim, and yet it dominated everything, swallowing everything, including Severin’s attack and him!
Severin’s vision was consumed by that light. He felt countless small blades slash at him. Pain made him scream, but his voice carried no sound. His pain and his hatred mixed with his anger, exploding out of him in a wave.
But no miracle happened.
The words of Sword God turned into hateful daggers in his heart, fueling his anger. "You had better be stronger..."
Then darkness swallowed him, and he died.
He was submerged in eternal darkness that covered everything, smothering his senses and consciousness.
But then he suddenly heard a distant voice reach out. A small light blinked. And in the darkness, it felt like a sharp sword.
A distant voice said, "Hey! What did you do to him? You know there’s a method we have to use to kill him! Nothing that will damage the..."
Another unknown one snapped, "I did not do anything! He’s just so scared that he fell unconscious. Seriously, how useless can one be?"
A new, different voice replied, "He’s a spoiled brat with no cultivation base. He spent his life in a weakened state, lavishly, and..."
"How ironic. Even someone like him can be from the Unorthodox Family?"
"Don’t underestimate him." The voice couldn’t contain their laughter. "Don’t you know? He’s also ’villainous.’ He sleeps with his students’ girlfriends and takes bribes from them to pass, even if they know nothing, and that’s why his class is the worst place to be..."
The conversation was so fast that he almost didn’t catch it, and then the voices suddenly became too low for him to hear.
But Severin was confused and stunned. ’But I was dead, right? Why am I hearing voices again? Why do I feel like they’re talking about me... wait, wait! If I can think, then I’m alive!’
’I’m alive. The Sword God wasn’t strong enough to kill...’
Severin paused because he knew something was not right with that line of thought. The Sword God was an S-ranked Awakener, and the difference between them was like heaven and earth, so it was impossible for him not to be able to kill Severin.
’Don’t tell me that bastard didn’t kill me and instead wanted to continuously torture me?’
’But those voices are unfamiliar. That language too, and yet I can somehow understand it.’
He thought about the conversation again.
’And why are they saying all of that to me when I’ve never even been a teacher...’
’What exactly is happening? What is going on? I’m not dead?’
Severin was baffled. His brain began to analyze. He tried to figure out what might be going on. But he couldn’t come up with a suitable explanation, so he did the next best thing. He tried to think of how to survive whatever was currently happening!
’Since I can’t feel my body, I should try and see if I can hear anything more that will help... wait, wait! I can now feel sensation in my body? And the light is getting brighter!’
Suddenly, the voices became even clearer again.
A dark, sinister voice asked, "So what are the instructions again? How should we kill him?"
Another one replied, "We need to insert something into his body that will corrode his spirit body, and another will be implanted. Don’t harm his body and leave no mark.
"You know a lot of people are focusing on him!"
An even colder voice said, "Don’t look at me like that. I only grazed him with my dagger to scare him. Look, only a small cut on his neck. Just a line of blood."
Severin had gotten more control of his body. He could now feel more sensation. But he remained perfectly still, thinking to himself. ’There are three different voices that I can detect. From the sensation on my skin, I can tell that I’m on cold ground. I can smell blood. Is this from me? Are they assassins? They want to kill me, but not directly. Something about a spirit body...’
Severin calmly calculated. ’So either the Sword God had taken me to another place, or something went wrong and I’m now in another place. Either way, I’m in an unfamiliar place, and I’m in danger.’
With that out of the way, Severin went to another phase of mind. How to get out of that danger. ’The only way to get out of danger... is to directly eliminate all of the assassins!’
Severin was an Awakener, the very first to be Awakened on Earth, and he had been in so many dangerous situations that he was quite used to it, so he wasn’t that fazed that he was surrounded by enemies.
The next question that came to Severin’s mind was, ’What are the strengths of the three assassins?’
He tried to sense them with his awareness, and he was shocked. ’Although they don’t radiate the same feel as the usual Awakeners or monsters that I know, I can still measure their level. They’re Rank C?’
Severin was now confused as to why Rank C Awakeners would want to take on a Rank A Awakener. ’Have I really fallen so low?’
As the years went by, Severin’s power hit a ceiling at Rank A Awakener without moving an inch further. All the enemies he had made, who were now stronger than him, suddenly turned on him, and that was exactly how his sister died and the Sword God dared to challenge him.
Severin’s thoughts boiled. ’And now, even Rank C Awakeners can look down on me?’
’I must destroy them all.’
Instinctively, Severin began to stimulate his Aspect, the Sovereign of Blood, and his body froze.
’This... this is not my body!’