Not even 10 minutes had passed since he stepped inside the school, and Derrick was already stirring trouble with him. That was one of the reasons Sebastian didn't want to come to school.
Sebastian knew why Derrick always picked up on him and treated him like a servant.
Well, it wasn't a secret, after all. Derrick belonged to the Lawson family, a Thespian family with no ties to the four sacred clans, but that was relatively powerful.
Based on what he learned, the Lawson family felt always overlooked due to the lack of a prestigious lineage, as the family was relatively new.
Due to this, Derrick grew up in an environment in which he always felt the need to prove himself and his family's worth.
Everything was due to a feeling of inadequacy and jealousy. That blossomed when he got to Hayhurst High school, where everyone was richer and came from a better family than him.
Sebastian came from a once incredible family. The family who founded what was once considered the best clan in the world, the Tide breaker clan.
However, due to his father's death, his family grew impoverished. So, how could someone like Derrick, with so many inferiority complexes, resist the urge to pick on someone that should have once stood at the pinnacle of this world, but that was now a nobody?
He couldn't. That was the answer. Bullying Sebastian made Derrick feel better, plain and simple. As if those acts could elevate his status somehow.
Besides, Sebastian was ridiculously handsome. The first time he came to school, girls flocked to him. It was to the point that Derrick's jealousy pushed him to go on a crusade to ruin his life the most he could.
Petty reasons? Yes. But Sebastian had seen the worst in life, and knew how these emotions could bring even the best of the men to act like a criminal.
"1."
"Uh?"
Sebastian punched Derrick in the jugular while smiling with a sadistic grin. As his fist connected with Derrick's jugular, the young man's body jerked violently, his eyes widening in shock.
He staggered backwards, clutching his throat and leaving Sebastian. The smile vanished from his face, replaced by a mix of pain and disbelief as he struggled to draw breath.
"2."
Sebastian attacked again, this time kicking Derrick in the groin. Derrick's body doubled over instantly from the brutal kick, a guttural groan escaping his lips.
His face contorted in agony as he dropped to his knees, hands desperately clutching at himself.
The pain was overwhelming, rendering him vulnerable and gasping for air on the ground.
"Hey!" Derrick's friends ran toward Sebastian, who was looking at them with a mad grin.
Sebastian's grin was a disturbing spectacle, wide and twisted with a sadistic pleasure that chilled the bone.
It was the smile that spoke of madness, a gleeful anticipation for chaos that was both eerie and unnatural.
This was no mere smirk of triumph; it was a declaration of his unsettling enjoyment of the moment.
Derrick's two friends halted in their tracks, their resolve faltering as they took in the unsettling sight.
The sight of Sebastian, reveling in Derrick's pain with such a psychotic grin, sent a wave of unease through them.
Sebastian's refusal to halt his assault was driven by a dark, unsettling enjoyment. As he charged towards Derrick's two friends, a spinning kick finding its mark with terrifying accuracy, there was a chilling revelry in his actions.
This was no mere response to provocation; it expressed a deep-seated delight in the act of inflicting pain.
The effort required for such a physical feat was significant, especially without the aid of his mana-enhanced body. Doing that had not been easy even for Sebastian's trained mind.
Yet, it was clear that he thrived on things like these, each movement fueled by years of combat experience and a sinister desire to dominate and hurt.
His expertise in combat was twisted into a macabre art form, each strike calculated not just to incapacitate but to torment, to leave a scar both physical and psychological.
In this moment, Sebastian's sanity seemed to fray at the edges, his actions painting the picture of a man unhinged, consumed by a madness that found joy in the suffering of others.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA HE HE, HE HE, HE HE!"
His laugh, wide and maniacal, was the embodiment of this chaos, a terrifying glimpse into the depths of his instability.
"3," Sebastian then said.
As the second friend lunged forward, aiming a punch at Sebastian, the attempt seemed feeble, almost laughable in its execution.
For Sebastian, whose life had been a relentless sequence of death battles, where he had faced down countless foes and taken many lives, the assault from the Auditor was almost comical.
The punch, so devoid of skill and intent compared to the lethal confrontations of his past, only amplified his laughter.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA. "
He easily sidestepped the sluggish attempt with a grace that belied his madness, his grin never faltering, only widening into a more disturbing expression of his unsettling joy.
Sebastian saw an opening and seized it. He launched a swift, brutal counterattack, striking his opponent with a force that was both shocking and precise.
His fist connected with the side of the man's head, a direct hit that sent shock waves of pain through his skull, rendering him unconscious before he even hit the ground.
"4."
Throughout this exchange, Sebastian's grin remained etched onto his face like a grotesque mask.
The onlookers, who had gathered to watch the spectacle of Sebastian being humiliated, now stood in silent horror, their excitement replaced by a deep, unnerving sense of fear.
"Crazy! He is Crazy!"
Sebastian turned, his grin unfurling towards the woman who had spoken, a sinister gleam in his eyes.
Her courage evaporated under the weight of his menacing smile, fear seizing her heart.
With a gasp of terror, she turned on her heel and fled, desperate to escape the madness emanating from him.