"Aaaagh...!"
An ear-piercing cry was heard amongst the people fighting.
Three men were being surrounded by the lesser horncreepers inside the lush forest. One man's leg was chopped and some lesser horncreepers even sliced his chopped-off leg to distribute among themselves.
This was the reality of this place, it was plagued by these inhuman monsters at every corner, and they killed till they were satisfied. These were the calamities Ruel has to face again from the bottom of the ladder.
"Ruel you wait here, I will go and help them." said the man who had warned Ruel to move out of the way of the incoming attack.
With the nostalgic memories resurfacing back, Ruel now clearly remembered the young man. His name was Agon, a friend and fellow cultivator who followed him here from the sect in times like these.
Holding him by the arm, Ruel said to him with calmness in his voice "They are surrounded by dozens of lesser horncreepers, don't go there."
"It is too difficult to even clear a path to them" he added.
"But-" Before Agon could finish his sentence, Ruel interjected him.
"No buts."
"I will go help them, you go and help other people to find a way out of this mess."
Just as these words came out of his mouth, Ruel kicked the ground and sprinted across the battlefield toward the place where screams were last heard.
Make no mistake, Ruel wasn't a 'saint' to help people, he just wanted to increase his chances of getting out of this place. More people alive meant a higher chance of surviving this battle.
The place he was currently in was called the Twilight Forest. It was a place filled with these kinds of monsters and the further one traveled, the more dangers one would come across.
And his regiment had of course gotten lost in these woods.
This place is bordering between the Human settlements and its ruins, and these ruins were occupied by calamities, monstrosities each with its unique personifications and powers. Their only goal was to destroy everything. The demons were also spawns of these calamities.
As he moved toward the path, he was killing some of the isolated red imps that stumbled upon his way.
Ruel's current cultivation is just below the peak of the Qi cultivation realm. The Qi cultivation realm was the starting realm for all cultivators. It signifies that a person has started to connect their body to the spiritual energy of the world.
It was the only realm that could be reached by anyone because by simply existing, a person interacts with spiritual energy in the world.
Just as Ruel was making his way, three lesser horncreepers blocked his path, giving off cynical smiles while brandishing their small daggers. Hoping the man moving forward would be in a panic due to their sudden appearance.
But to their dismay, Ruel directly charged at them while holding his sword in a stab position, impaling the rightmost lesser horncreeper with his sword.
Killing the demon by piercing his heart, Ruel took out his sword and swung it towards the one in the middle, but the lesser horncreeper wasn't completely a fool and dodged the incoming attack with ease.
Just as he wanted to show his dodging skills to his last friend and kill the foolish human, his eyes widened in horror, the head of the last imp was cleanly severed.
In his last moments, all he saw was a sword coming at him and his world went green from the blood coming out of his body.
Swinging his sword again to remove the blood from it, Ruel sped up in the direction of his original destination, he swung his sword toward the second lesser horncreeper not to kill him but the one behind him.
When Ruel had killed his first lesser horncreeper, he was already in the blind spot of the last one and when he swung his sword towards them, the last didn't know what was coming for him and inevitably died to his sword.
Killing these lesser horncreepers wasn't very difficult for people here, they were one of the lowest mobs in the ranks of calamities, but they had one power, the power of high numbers.
Even an elephant could fall with hundreds of ants attacking it, so what were humans when faced with the same?
Finally arriving at the location and clearing some of the lesser horncreepers, a gruesome sight awaited him, all three men he had set out to save were alive, but some imps were skinning them alive, torturing them with happy smiles on their faces as they were children playing with new toys that their parents bought them.
Ruel stood there in a trance, staring at the helpless eyes of the people, begging him for a quick death.
He understood more than anyone else about the situation of the world and its lands that were filled with this madness, all in all, it had even affected him to the point when he decided to use a suicidal method to kill a remodeled demon lord.
He was ready to sacrifice his life and everything he had left, just to get back at the demons. He hated himself for being weak and wasting so much time in his past.
But he regressed back to his teens, to the times he was still weak, to the times when it all began to fall out. He could change the future now.
This was the chance he was given!
Waking up from his daze, he moved, slashing at the nearest demon in a concise manner and killing them before they could notice.
He rampaged into the area, killing every demon nearby, his muscles spasmed from the intense yet unfamiliar moves to his current body.
Ignoring the pain, Ruel kept killing them till he was bathed in green blood and corpses. Giving the demon corpses one final look, he moved toward the cultivators.
One of them was still alive, holding on to life's last string.
'End me....please..' These were the words mouthed by the man. Looking straight into his eyes, Ruel raised his sword above the man's throat.
"Thank you for your services," he said with an indifferent face, decapitating the man in one swift motion.
Looking towards the sky, Ruel said in a low voice, almost as if asking himself.
"Why... why does it have to be this way?"
His voice was shaking and his palm bled from how hard he clenched his fist.