Bang!
Luca's face slammed against the glass mirror, shattering it instantly.
As the shards exploded outward, his face was dragged across the mirror, causing some of his skin to be torn by the fragments.
Flung to the ground, he lay motionless.
In fact, the bathroom tiles were stained with blood. It was so bad that the blood that oozed from Bentley, Oliver, and Phillip—who were unconscious and sprawled on the bathroom floor—merged to form a pool.
Especially when Liam was slammed into the ground, he bled incessantly, contributing significantly to the expanding pool of blood that stained Felix's boots.
Stepping over their bodies, he pushed open the washroom's door.
Walking in the hallway of this building, behind him, he left a trail of bloodied footsteps.
By the time someone realized this, the footsteps had long died out and he had disappeared in the crowd.
At the same time, a scream originating from the washroom, resounded out.
"Hah…"
Stepping out of the combat hall, he ran a hand through his hair and looked up at the planets and stars above. "Fuck you!"
They said fate whispered, destiny heard those whispers and wrote them down, inevitably etching them into stone.
These concepts inhabited the heavens above. Gazing at the sky, he felt a deep sense of loathing as he beheld the mighty cosmos.
That very night, Felix slept peacefully in room 36's bed for the first time since entering the camp.
In a corner of the room, Alek was curled up into a tight ball.
His legs were bent at unnatural angles, and his arms were twisted painfully.
He bled relentlessly, revealing the whites of his bones beneath the skin.
Then there was Dorion.
He wasn't physically present, yet a piece of him lingered.
Curled up in a ball, Alek's body trembled every time his gaze landed on that "thing" on the floor.
Skin…?
Yeah, it could be described as such.
As if someone had expertly peeled off Dorion's face, all his features could be seen on the piece of shed skin that lay intact on the ground.
Felix did not clean himself.
He peacefully slept with bloodstains all over his shirtless upper body, neck, face, and hands.
Yet, it almost seemed like his own blood just from the sheer amount of bruises and swellings across his body.
But he did not seem to sense it.
When awakening, he slowly got out of bed where he saw Alek, stooping in a corner, his eyes still open wide.
Though his eyes were open, he was fast asleep.
Walking up to him, Felix sent a kick that landed on his chin, making his head buzz.
That same day, Felix's rankings skyrocketed as he humiliated several students in his class and defeated even more higher-ranked opponents.
It stopped somewhere in the early hundreds, and still, his life did not get any better.
Fate heard his curses and prepared a beautiful joke.
Luca, Bentley, Phillip, and Alek all had siblings higher on the rankings.
If he had been severely injured on most occasions before, after his rankings shot up, he found himself walking on death's doorstep for most of his time.
On the first morning, around three, he woke up to carry out his usual routine, but as he opened the door, his head was struck by some sort of blunt weapon.
By the time he came to, he had several broken bones and punctured organs. A sharp object was embedded in his gut, but it seemed they had intentionally avoided any vital organs.
That day, he was covered in bandages from his waist to collarbone, and even his arms had bandages all the way to his knuckles.
In class, his body was trembling.
Still, he was forced to spar against the other students.
Even simple spars decided the rankings.
In the camp of ten thousand, spars weren't just spars.
These were death battles, because even if they were about to die, they'd just be brought to the healing pod.
And yet, even if they were one step into the grave, once death wasn't exactly guaranteed, they needed to suck it up and take care of themselves.
Obviously, if not for their high healing factor, dozens and several dozens of students would've long met their demise.
During the day, he was beat down until he couldn't move. For hours, he'd be left sprawled on the ground, paralyzed.
It wasn't specifically due to these spars, but the culmination of injuries.
Really, if not for his healing, he'd be dead long ago.
But like a cockroach, he found a way to make it back to his dorm room in the night.
Naturally, his roommate had long sensed that Felix was being targeted.
Like any sensible person, he simply ignored whatever the hell was taking place.
As for reporting this to an instructor…
Let's just say, Elissa, who had been that way to Felix, could be considered one of the nicest adults in the camp.
In this camp, they prepared the students for the military academy, and more so, the real world where the weak suffered and the strong thrived.
It was that simple.
The days went like this.
Some nights, the older siblings of Alek and the others would appear outside the dorm room.
Though Felix didn't exit the room, his roommate, feeling threatened and not wanting to be implicated, would naturally open the door.
At night, especially after a grueling day, Felix was too weak to prevent this.
Evidently, when this happened, he was beaten to the brink of death.
Spat on and even pissed on, he found it slightly unbelievable.
'How did things spiral so out of control?'
It was simple bullying from Alek, but then Dorion came.
Dorion was the true instigator of this.
He was much more aggressive, and even subtly guided Alek into more madness.
From the violence in the room, it leaked to the classroom, and that then molded Felix into a person that could've carried out the actions that he did.
And yet, the siblings of Alek and the others were even more violent than Dorion.
'It's this world, isn't it.'
Felix's eyelids were barely opened. In his vision, the world was red… his eyes were bloodshot.
'More than just a dog-eat-dog world, where strength reigns supreme, it's a world that lacks order.'
Felix smiled, 'Order, eh? Society has rules, but these rules are so very slack. I heard stories of the old world from Lener. This kind of violence would only be present in countries constantly at war.'
Thinking like this, it made sense now.
Technically speaking, humanity was in a state of constant war.
War against the beasts.
Against the plant beasts.
Even against themselves as humans trotted over the dead bodies of their comrades, all desiring to attain that title, to become a Knight.
On several nights, Felix would kneel over the toilet bowl, vomiting blood and lumps of his insides.
Blood would occasionally leak from his ears, nose, and eyes due to the constant external and internal injuries he was suffering.
But it was like his time as one of lowest ranked.
Not once did his eyes die.
With his bones constantly broken and healed, so to his muscles and tendons, unknowingly, his fleshy body underwent a state of refinement that he did not perceive.
It was late September.
Within Felix's dorm room, a young man standing at around 6'3, with noticeably long hair, sharp and bushy sword-like eyebrows, a chiseled jawline and highly defined cheekbones, stood in a messy pool of blood.
His upper body was bare, making the scars running across his skin visible as his heavy gaze observed the unconscious individuals in the room.
Felix had become even more vicious.
There was even a girl in this dorm which went against the camp's rules.
Luckily, her appearance in the male dorm had nothing to do with sexual activities.
It was obvious since she had no arms, or more accurately, these two limbs were torn off and thrown into the toilet, clogging it.
Felix kicked his roommate in the back and coldly stated, "Are you deaf? I said go fucking call an instructor lest these fuckers die."
This roommate, he did nothing wrong.
After all, it was better for someone else to suffer even more than for one to be implicated because of that tormented individual.
He only looked out for himself, as would anyone else do.
But just like he did nothing wrong, Felix was almost a saint for not forcing this roommate of his to step one foot into the grave. After all, there was no reason for Felix to forgive his actions.
Neither of them did anything that could be considered good, nor did they commit any evil acts.
The world was like this.
Only brainwashed individuals believed it was black and white.
Neither right nor wrong, more often than not, the world was grey...