Simon's father, William was a good man. He knew that the artifact will create a lot of problem so he never used it.
But as fate would have it, one day when Simon's parents were on a adventure with their party, they met a powerful devil. To save her husband, Lilly, Simon's mother, used herself as a shield to protect William from the devil's curse.
After using the curse the devil became very weak and in the end, William along with his party members managed to kill the devil. But his wife under the curse from the devil experienced unimaginable pain everyday.
He went to the Devil Exorcism Association, to ask them to lift the curse from his wife. But as the devil who cursed his wife was a noble among devils, his curse was very strong and would require a lot of effort so, saying this, the people from the association asked for a large amount of money.
But he was unable to get such a large amount in a short time so in the end he decided to sell the Warlord ranked artifact, which allows one to change into another person to, Lucas, one of his party member as he was afraid to sell it on the black market.
But who would have expected that upon getting the artifact, Lucas, which he trusted the most would conspire against him.
He alleged that the soul of dead noble devil resides in Lilly and they would have to kill her to get rid of it.
A noble ranked devil is a big deal and if it is is strong enough it can even massacre everyone in the city. William's party was one of the strongest and all of its members were of Warlord level but even they lost four party members during the fight.
Using the artifact Lucas got, he used it to create false evidence against him and along with the help of a certain someone they were able to turn everyone against William.
By the time William found about it, it was too late. Even though he was a strong adventurer he alone wasen't able to fight against twenty Warlords who wanted to kill Lilly.
In the end William managed to kill Lucas and another warlord and get the artifact back. He escaped with his son but sustained many injuries during the escape.
He knew that his end was near. He gave the artifact to his son so he could survive with its help.
After many days the adventurers found William's body but they were unable to find his son.
Simon with the help of the artifact was able to survive. But the death of his parents changed his personality. He started to hate the empire.
He used the artifact in terrible ways and commited many crimes for his revenge. He became an adventurer hunter. His main targets were the people who were related to the twenty Warlords who who attacked his father.
But after killing those people he didn't stopped. Or to be more precise, he couldn't stop himself anymore. He started hunting adventurers. First he joins a party and after gaining their trust, he strikes them.
Soon the Strom empire released a hunting order against him.
The rules of the empire are strict. Adventurers can't do whatever they want here just like they do in kingdoms. They had to follow the rules. If they disobeyed, they will be arrested and sent to a special jail amd even executed for serious crimes.
But this also makes the empire a safe place. So even though adventurers were restricted here, new adventurers never stopped coming here especially adventurers of lower levels.
The empire's special forces tried to capture Simon many times but with the help of the artifact he was able to escape.
But a few months ago, the people on his pursuit had created a device with the help of a War Engraver which can make his artifact unable to function for some time. Simon had many near death experiences at that time. In the end he decided to leave the empire.
So he came to the Amberlight city. The city is near the boundry of the empire. After a few weeks of travelling east, one can reach Emerald empire. Simon decided to strike here one last time before he left the empire.
So he made a new party here. He chose the quest of Cherry town because the town is some distance away from the city, nobody will be able to help the adbenturers. After killing the monster the party members will be weak and at this moment he will strike.
But he didn't expected that the monster they were going to kill turned out to be of Warlord level.
From what he heard, the monster was of Warlock level. His party has 7 people including him so they should be easily able to deal with a Warlock level monster. But in front of a Warlord they can only run. Morever the monster was also cunning.
The first time it saw them, it didn't attacked and tried to escape and after some time they caught up with it.
Simon was thanking the monster internally, as to chase it they had to run for quite some time and now they are quite a distance away from the town. Now he could hunt these naive adventurers easily.
But just when one person tried to attack it, the monster which had been running for all this time exploded with frightening aura. It claws pierced the body of the person in an instant, creating a big hole in the chest.
Feeling the aura Simon immediately recongnised that it was a Warlord level monster. Immediately he commanded the members to run in different directions.
The reason he said was to buy some time. As he had movement type artifact he would be able to escape. All he needs is some time for the artifact to activate, so he told the party to separate. And even if he said them to fight, he is sure that none will follow his commamds. Fightning with this monster is simply a death wish. They could only separate, hoping that the monster will not come after them.
"Just a little bit of time." While activating the artifact Simon looked behind and cursed aloud.
The monster is chasing after him now!
"Damn it! Don't think you will be able to kill me so easily." Knowing that he couldn't survive Simon decided to use his most powerful skill.
Just as he was about to attack he heard a strange noise.
Hum
BOOM!
A spear blazing with hell flames pierced the body of the monster with frightnening speed. The monster exploded into flesh and blood almost instantly. The ground cracked and a horrifying shockwave was released, shredding anything that came into contact with it, turning the surroundings into ruins.
If saw in a very slow motion, one could see that the moment the spear pierced the monster, cracks started to appear on the body of the monster, soon covering its entire body and then it exploded from within, releasing a destructive shockwave.
Simon was thrown a lot of distance away due to the shockwave. But he didn't suffered any injuries. Because just moments before the shockwave could hit him a shield in the form of a sphere enveloped him. Even though he didn't get injured, the shockwave sent him flying. Fortunately the shield didn't break or his body would has been ripped apart.
The moment the monster exploded Simon was able to see a person behind the monster. He wasen't able to see his appearence much except his white hair before he was blown away.