The Sun...
The Moon... The whole world seemed to have suddenly frozen in time.
The autumn leaves which were going to fall on the ground stood hanging in the air like stars in the beautiful night sky.
At this moment, everything in the world had stopped.
No one knew how long this freezing state lasted, maybe it was simply for a few seconds or maybe for an eternity.
In the next moment, however, everything returned to normal as if whatever had happened a moment ago was nothing more than an illusion.
A gust of wind, colder than the winter's chill, blew through the forest.
The pieces of flesh which once belonged to a lively and quick-witted boy filled with ambition started to move as if they had minds of their own.
Small minuscule pieces came together to form a large piece of flesh, slowly merging piece by piece like a jigsaw puzzle to form a big piece of meat.
Slowly, the piece of flesh started to pulsate with an otherworldly color; the air around the flesh seemed to be filled with a force that defied common understanding built upon since the very beginning itself.
Even with such power, the surrounding environment was not affected one bit; the process seemed to be completely isolated from the outside environment.
The flesh slowly started to wriggle and move, bones and tendons stretched and rapidly connected with each other with uncanny precision.
A figure started to take shape– first a skeleton, then muscles, and finally skin. Eyes formed last, like two black holes that contained the deepest darkness.
The scene was eerie and almost impossible to wrap your head around.
Just as the figure was about to fully form, the bushes around suddenly shook and a bloodthirsty Apocalypse beast appeared, attracted by the chaos that happened a moment ago.
It sniffed the air; suddenly, a frustrated growl filled with discontent escaped it. The food was long gone.
Strangely, the beast didn't notice the person hovering in the air.
At this moment, the boy had finally regained his senses, and the first thing that he noticed was the dreadful beast.
Immediately, the memories, the painful memories, came rushing in like a raging tide.
Gray wanted to shout and roar at the top of his lungs, but he reeled in his emotions and looked at the beast with a cold gaze.
He had noticed that the beast didn't seem to notice his presence.
The beast, also hungry after not finding anything to eat, didn't stay around for long and hurriedly left.
After one more minute, the otherworldly glow surrounding Gray's body also disappeared, and he fell to the ground.
A profound sense of weakness immediately assaulted his mind as if his body was drained of all blood.
The world once again started to become blurry, and his legs wobbly.
"No, what is happening!"
"I can't fall here."
Gray gritted his teeth and mustered all the strength that he could offer, only to fall headfirst on the ground again.
Thud!
"Argh!" A painful growl escaped his lips; his skin felt prickled as if stung by a thousand bees all at once.
He needed to understand his situation first; otherwise, he would die again, and this time for sure.
"Status," Gray muttered under his breath. These simple words that came out of his mouth were enough to make him cry as his throat felt as if someone had poured hot oil on it.
Gray ignored the pain and focused on the screen flashing with a crimson blood color.
[Name - Gray Peace-loving]
[Race - Corrupted Human]
[Title - Ultimate Defier (SSS - Grade, currently unusable)]
[Spiritual force - 0 (Unawakened)
Strength - 0.4
Agility - 0.6
Health - 0.1
Stamina - 0.6]
[Origin Essence - 1]
[Acquired Skills]
[Cooking - Level 1
Potion Making - Level 1
Manipulation - Level 1]
[Origin Essence needed to awaken first skill - 10]
Gray immediately understood the problem, but that didn't solve his predicament; his eyes were refusing to stay open.
'Add all the Origin Essences to Health.' Gray held his breath and mentally commanded.
The system seemed to have understood the situation and didn't ask for confirmation.
A familiar current of energy started to flow through his body, nourishing his muscles and bones, making him recover a little bit of lost vitality.
Color immediately started to return to Gray's face, but he still felt like dying.
He immediately tried to get up, only to fall on the ground again, but this time it didn't hurt as much as before.
In his second attempt, he was finally able to get off the ground.
Gray looked at his fair hands, flexing his fingers, feeling the vitality of life returning.
He was reborn again, something straight out of fairy tales, but it wasn't like it happened for the first time.
Gray gazed at the forest around him; memories of the dreadful experience started to flood in, immediately igniting an uncontrollable anger in his heart.
'If I don't make your life worse than death...'
But first, he had to leave this place; the Apocalypse beasts won't care about his emotions and would gobble him up in one bite.
Gray slowly started to move, using all the learning from the past six months.
Bloodmoon forest was huge, divided into many layers. As one moved deeper into the forest, the strength of Apocalypse beasts increased exponentially; it wasn't difficult to find beasts who could kill someone like Gray just with a small sneeze.
He was deep in the forest but not that deep he was just couple kilometres away from the village.
He would never forget today's incident and would make sure that the Earthly Knight didn't forget as well.
Just as he thought about the Earthly knight, Gray felt a stinging pain in his head, as if someone had hammered a nail into his skull.
The memories of his interaction with the Earthly Knight were starting to get blurry as if someone was forcefully erasing these memories.
Gray had never felt so powerless and vulnerable before; it was as if the whole world was working against him to push him down.
"I don't care who you are, what you are,"
'But I will make you feel a thousandfold the pain that I have to endure today.' Gray swore in his heart, his mind filled with steely determination.