"Ugh!"
Groaning slightly in pain, Paul stood up from the black floor of the citadel.
With the same hollow look in his sunken eyes, he looked at the scene of carnage before him. All around him was littered with blood and corpses.
According to the old man, this was his payment for the performance.
Paul looked down at the corpse of the leader of the assassins, the man who led the original cohort of assassins that led to his current misery.
Staring at this man's corpse in a pool of blood, Paul took another deep breath even as he felt a painful feedback from his lungs.
He looked around.
What happened after he told the old man his wish almost felt like an unrealistic dream, everything happened in a flash, a flash of crimson and screams.
Immediately after he told his wish, the old man with the same sinister smile on his face moved finally. Paul could not keep track of his movements at all, the old man was by far the fastest human that he had ever seen.
He moved like a hurricane of unimaginable speed.
Before he knew it, a cacophony of screams echoed as assassins started dropping dead left and right. This man used no weapon, simply using his fists to smash his opponents till all that was left was corpses and blood.
He left the leader of the assassins for last.
"Wait," Paul called, desperate in the last moments. "Please let me kill him myself, let me get my revenge".
Only to be greeted by the indifferent reply of the old man. "Your revenge doesn't concern me".
"If you truly yearned for revenge, you'll get strong and get it yourself".
"All I'm doing is payment for a good show that I watched".
And with that, he punched the head of the assassin in, smashing it against the ground as it was flattened against the black floor of the citadel.
The leader of the assassins died on the spot.
"Boy, I'm not generous enough to give you a healing potion that can heal all your injuries, but I'll give you a clotting potion".
"With it, your injuries will stop bleeding".
"If I'm you, I'll stay in one place, focus on circulating my essence to recover God essence till I can heal".
"Only after that will I leave".
"If you want to survive, start now, though it doesn't guarantee that you will survive. Your life is hanging on a thread boy".
And with that, levitating, this man flew out of this citadel, disappearing after reaching the edge where the spatial portal was made.
Watching him fly, Paul's hollow eyes narrowed slightly. 'An Ares'.
The faction of the Divine God, Ares was the only known faction in the world to create awakened warriors who could levitate and fly freely with no restraints.
And just like that, Paul was left alone in a suddenly empty citadel.
He was the lone survivor of the carnage here.
Standing, he felt dizzy and light-headed, everything was shaking and moving in doubles in his vision. Paul could feel it; he was close to death.
He could hear the whistling tone of the messenger of death.
Despite this threat to his life, Paul did not pay attention to it immediately, his emotions were too hollow to feel anything as he stared at the corpse of the leader of the assassins again.
In the end, what broke him from his distracted state was a name. 'Sophia'.
Immediately after he thought of his sister's name, including the last words of the leader of the assassins, he muttered. "Mom, you can now rest in peace".
And with that, he collapsed to the ground.
His breathing became rabid, he struggled to breath. His lungs burned, his heart beat fast like an engine that was about to experience a failure.
Paul was dying but in the phobia of death, this was when he forgot everything, focused on only surviving.
Like Geass taught him, he focused on circulating his essence to attract more even as the God essence in the atmosphere started rushing faster into his body.
He was in a race against death.
Would he recover enough to heal or would death be faster and take him first?
In those seconds, Paul felt like he was fighting an entirely new battle in a different battlefield but somehow, he survived.
In a stroke of luck, he managed to recover enough God essence to trigger his healing God power again as the remaining sun power stored in his skin worked to heal his injuries and restore him to barely working condition.
His heartbeat slowly reduced in intensity, his lungs no longer burned as hot, and most importantly, he could see again.
His vision was still clouded due to the blood, he wiped it off his face.
He didn't stand up yet though, focused on only healing till the sun essence he stored in his skin was finally exhausted.
By then, his condition already improved considerably, he could now walk.
Finally standing up, Paul glanced around this empty citadel. He looked around at its kilometer-long interior, it's majestic black walls, and then, the elevated platform where the throne was.
That was all that this citadel comprised of.
Thinking of something, Paul walked closer to the elevated platform before scaling it through the steps that were at the side.
Walking closer to the black throne of obsidian stone, he observed around it, finding nothing but when he finally went to its back, he found a small cubic box.
Paul picked up the box, it had a coded locking mechanism.
Too exhausted to think of using his head to crack the code, Paul simply ripped this box open with his sheer superhuman strength, then…
Cling! Cling!
The sound of jingling coins sounded.
Looking down, Paul saw coins, gold coins!
He counted. '1…, 2…, 3…," Paul counted 10 times, 10 gold coins!
There was no change in the look on his face as bending down, he picked all 10 gold coins before keeping them safe in his leather pouch.
After that, he jumped down from the elevated platform. He didn't leave yet though. Approaching every one of the assassins, starting from the leader of the assassins, Paul looted them all, their daggers and armor, leaving them only on their underwear.
He managed to find another space storage pouch with the leader of the assassins. He tried keeping it in his original brown leather pouch but it didn't enter.
In the end, he had no choice but to strap it to the other side of his waist.
Hesitating slightly, he took one of the black cloaks before also storing it in his storage pouch and with that, he was ready to leave.
In an empty black citadel littered with mangled corpses and filled with red blood, a man in a black cloak and hood walked out.
He was the lone survivor.