A man lay next to a wall, his face filled with regret, sadness, and despair.
'Why?!' he questioned.
'Why did they do this to us?' 'We people haven't done anything wrong to them!'
'But why did they indiscriminately kill anyone they saw? Weren't they also humans?'
'So why... did they kill Nia...?'
He kept asking himself questions, as a girl's lifeless body lay on his chest. He glanced at her lovely face, recalling the words she uttered before dying.
Just a few moments ago,
A blood-splattered girl crawled towards him. She crawled inch by inch, despite terrible pain emanating from her body. She approached him and peered into his tear-filled eyes. Her heart ached as she saw him cry.
Still, she smiled and snuggled up to him, burying her face in his chest, with the last of her strength remaining.
Then she muttered,
"Lax...I'm sorry."
"I don't want to leave you, Lax. So even if we won't be here anymore, please don't give up hope and fall into despair."
"And even if this is selfish of me, if you ever feel like giving up, remember, you still have to take revenge for me, Lax."
"I know that this selfish wish of mine will hurt you, and it might even make you suffer, but still... I want you to live on Lax."
"So don't give up Lax, take revenge, and... live."
That was her last words as she gathered the last of her strength to look at him with a loving smile tinged with pain and remorse, tears streaming down her lovely eyes.
She died with anguish and guilt in her heart, but she was relieved and joyful knowing that he would be able to live on. Because she understood from his personality that when he does something, he will give up right away or finish what he started.
"Nia..."
Lax muttered as the tears in his eyes fell on her smiling face. Then, he stood up and gently laid her body on the floor.
"Wait for me for a while, Nia. I just have something I have to take care of."
He said as he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and walked out of the door. And as he exited his house, he saw someone with a full body of silver armor.
She was slightly shorter than him, but she had a great body along with her short blond hair in a military cut, and she had a bloodthirsty aura that leaked out from her body.
But Lax wasn't looking at her, instead, his focus was on the sword in her hands, which was dripping with blood, and just from that, he knew that she had already killed his aunt.
He was angry, and inside he was raging to go and kill the woman in front of him right now, but he calmed himself. Although he was angry, he still kept a clear mind and a poker face until the end as he planned many scenarios in his head.
The woman was looking at the boy in front of her with interest. She had just killed this boy's family, and she didn't know what happened to the other girl from before, but seeing that he was alone, she guessed that the girl died.
Boy, aren't you angry that I killed the people you loved?" She asked with a playful smirk on her mouth.
"..."
Not hearing a reply to her provocation, she shrugged her shoulders and proceeded to advance towards the boy.
She then arrived in front of him, and as she scanned his body, she noticed one of his hands was behind his back. Seeing that she grinned, he moved a little closer to her.
And that's when the boy finally moved his hand behind his back, revealing a sharp kitchen knife.
The boy quickly raised his arm forward to slash the knife, but as she was already expecting that, she moved her hand to stop it.
However, the boy's arm stopped mid-way and he punched her throat with the other.
"Ga-hak!"
As the punch landed, she subconsciously grabbed her neck with both her hands and tried to distance herself from him; however, Lax wasn't going to give her any chance to do that as he slashed the knife at her neck, leaving a deep wound.
But he didn't stop at that and continued to stab her neck multiple times with the knife, stopping only when he noticed her stop breathing. The sight of her neck full of cuts and deep wounds as blood spurted out from them was truly a gruesome sight to see.
Lax looked at the girl in front of him. She was dead. And with that, he finally took revenge on Nia and his aunt; however, his hatred still remained.
He knew she wasn't the one behind the invasion, and there might even be someone much stronger than her among the ones who invaded Earth.
So that's why he wasn't satisfied with just this, he wanted to kill every single one who was behind it. He wanted to make them suffer, he wanted them to despair and feel the same pain he felt, and he wanted them to regret killing his family.
He thought back to Nia's words. But according to the novels he read, things like revenge won't lead you to a good ending. Still, he didn't care; he had nothing to lose anyway. That is why he will use revenge as a motivator for the time being and consider what he will do after completing his revenge and what he will do after that.
After that, he went back inside the house and carried Nia's body to the backyard. He also headed in the direction where the woman came from and retrieved his aunt's body, carrying it back to the backyard.
He dug two holes to make a grave for them, and after he finished making it, he sat in front of them for hours, mourning them.
After a few more minutes, he said some last words as he stood up and resolved himself. He once again went out of the house wearing the bracelet Nia gave her for his birthday.
It was a custom-made one, as she herself designed it and had a master craftsman make it, so it was very expensive.
She saved her allowance for the entire year just to pay for this and gift it to him on his birthday.
Lax treasured it very much, as it was given by Nia. It looked like it was made for a girl; it had beads around the strap and an expensive metal with the shape of a heart in the middle that had a picture of the two of them together.
Actually, it wasn't really a picture; it was just sculpted and painted, but it looked so real, meaning the person who made it was really a master of their crafts.
He wore the bracelet on his left hand and walked towards the woman he killed and picked up her sword.
'What an irony! I'm going to use the sword that killed the people I loved."
'Still, I have no choice, so I'm going to use it to kill the people who are the target of my revenge.'
He thought and walked toward the city near him.
But before he left, he threw the woman's body far away from his home to rot and left the sword back inside his house.
An hour passed.
Currently, Lax was looking at the city ahead of him; it was as if an apocalypse happened and riots began. Well, that description wasn't really far from what happened.
Even so, Lax entered the city, walking vigilantly while observing his surroundings. Along the way, he saw some people: some sleeping at the sides of the building, some running in a rush, and some dead as they lay lifelessly on the ground.
He ignored them because his current goal was to find a safe place to stay other than his house, and the military was one of the options he could think of for now.
But, for different reasons, he did not wish to join them straight away. First, he was still weak, and new recruits in the military may be bullied by some people given the state of the world right now. So he wanted to get strong enough to protect himself first.
As for how he will do that, that was his second reason. He wanted to learn about the energy inside his body and find ways to use it because he knew that it would help him achieve his goal of becoming stronger.
Lastly, the world right now is very chaotic, and the military needs more people to fight against the invaders and monsters that have appeared.
And being strong will help you get a higher rank faster in the military, and even if you can't, at least you'll get treated better by the higher ups. After all, the most essential thing at the moment was strength.
Lax wondered around the city for a while before he found an abandoned convenience store. The store was almost empty right now, but he was still lucky enough to find some water bottles in the freezer and canned foods on the shelves.
He took the ones with a longer expiration date and put them all inside the bag he brought along with him.
Then, noticing some people approaching the store, Lax hurriedly left the area and headed outside the city in a rush.
An hour later, he arrived back at his home with a bag full of canned foods and water bottles.
He went inside the house, and after putting his bag on the floor, he jumped onto the sofa as soon as he saw it and positioned himself in a comfortable position.
Luckily, the power lines were still functioning, so there was still electricity. He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV to listen to the news.
"Half a day ago, cracks appeared all over the world, and some started calling them gates, and according to them, they were portals to another world."
"However, people emerged through the so-called gates, fully armored, and as soon as they arrived, they began slaughtering everyone, even tourists, in the Liancourt Rocks, which are located between Japan and Korea."
The reporter then went on about how they then moved along towards Korea and fought against their army.
To summarize it all, five gates suddenly emerge from all across the world, one on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.
There were no gates in Australia, and as for Antarctica, they still haven't explored every single place yet.
And as for the other gates that appeared, different monsters emerged from them than the ones that emerged in Asia. They caused havoc and destruction in every direction they went, causing cities to be destroyed.
Many people had already died before the military came to their rescue. At first, they pushed back, but they were able to hold their ground against them after a while as they discovered some of their weaknesses and learned how to use the energy inside them.
The energy that was called mana awakened inside them along with the gates, and mana was very effective against the monsters, so with that they were able to gain some advantage.
The TV screen turned off as Lax pushed the power button and got off the sofa. Then he prepared lunch for himself. He felt lonely, missing the joyful scenes when his family ate together at the table, but now he was alone, eating by himself.
He snapped out of his thoughts after reminiscing for a while and began eating. After that, he headed to his room and sat on the bed.
Mana.
He wanted to figure out how to use it to power himself, but he had no idea how. After clearing his mind, he did the only thing he could think of: focusing his mind to feel the insides of his body, where mana lay dormant in his heart.
A few minutes later, he still wasn't able to control the mana, so he sat in a similar way to how cultivators in the novel meditate.
He cleared his mind once more, focusing all of his attention on controlling the mana within him.
He remained in that position for around half an hour, until he was finally able to control the mana in his body.
He attempted to move the mana into his hands but failed; nonetheless, he didn't give up; after all, it was only the beginning. He attempted to move it a couple more times before succeeding.
"Wow!" he shouted, appreciating the gorgeous black and blue tint of the dark blue hue that surrounded his hands. Then he stood up and left the house; after all, he intended to put its might to the test on a tree outdoors.
He arrived in a 20-foot-tall tree and looked at its trunk, which was thicker than his body.
He prepared to swing his arms as he swung them back, and then, "Haa!" he flung his fist as hard as he could towards the tree.
"Ow! Shit! That hurts!" he screamed in agony, his face contorting from the pain in his hand. Despite the pain his hand was perfectly fine.
Seeing that his hand was completely fine, even though it hurt, he smiled at the results, satisfied with the results because he knew that he had made some major progress.
Because he knew that if he did this before controlling Mana, his hands would be a bloody mess right now.
So he kept command of mana and used it in as many ways as he could. He directed it to move from hand to hand, feet to face, and every other part of his body.
He was as absorbed in learning about mana as someone is when they read a new chapter of their favorite novel.
And just like that, six hours passed by, and the moon had already risen to the sky an hour earlier while he was still immersed in trying to find ways to use mana.
"I'll test it out one more time before I make dinner." He said while looking at the tree in front of him. He paused for a few seconds before inhaling deeply.
He directed all of his mana in one direction, leading it all to a single place. His hand then began emitting a dark blue glow once more, but this time it was more evident.
After gathering all of his mana in one palm, he let out a little shout and delivered a punch with all of the strength he could muster right now and...
*Crack*
A crack formed on the tree trunk, but it wasn't the end of it, since his fist has still to reach the tree's surface.
His powerful fist blasted at the tree trunk when they collided, blowing it halfway through.
The pain was considerably more bearable this time, and his hand was still perfectly fine. 'It appears that mana can also be used as a shield. 'No surprise the military was pulling back, even if they had guns to combat swords,' he thought as he smiled at the outcome of his punch.
"Noice," he said contentedly before returning to his abode.
Later that night, after he ate dinner, he visited his aunt and Nia's grave to say some words and went to sleep right after.
...
Morning arrived as the sunlight shone through his window, lighting up his room. When the light landed on his face, it shimmered from the sunlight illuminating his handsome face.
He awoke and rubbed his eyes, and when he opened his eyes, two pairs of lovely eyes with silver iris were revealed.
After completely waking up, he let out a long sigh and began thinking about his plans for the day.
"Haa, this is going to be a long day," he muttered as he got out of bed and went to the bathroom for a morning bath.