A chill ran up Tom's spine, sending the hairs on the back of his neck to stand at attention.
'Hmm?'
Looking up the gravel countryside road, he stared into the distance lit by the red-shifted rays of the setting sun.
'Is it just me, or…?'
Tom squinted his eyes, then cast a quick, sweeping glance over the rest of his party.
The chosen hero walked at the front with his keen-sensed huntress girlfriend. Slightly behind them was the stoically silent underdog of the group, an elegant sword strapped to his hip, followed by the graceful, divine-blessed saintess at the end.
And then, there was Tom, stuck at the very rear of the group with nothing but a tiered backpack strapped to his shoulders, rising nearly as high as the top of his head.
Tom looked at all four of his party-mates yet failed to see a single hint of anxiety or wariness beyond the usual levels. After all, even a party of geniuses like Tom's companions had to remain vigilant out in the imperial outskirts, where it was easier to encounter a monster in the wild than a fellow civilian or adventurer.
'Must've been the wind,' he thought, shrugging his shoulders and picking up the pace.
"You are lagging behind, man… again!" Dorio, the swordsman underdog, slowed his steps to match Tom's, then swung his hand to lightly slap the back of his head. "I can carry my own stuff myself, so just give it back."
Tom looked up and to the side, locking his eyes on his friend for a short moment before rolling them.
"Everyone has—"
"—their own job. Yours is to carry stuff; ours is to kill stuff," Dorio mirrored Tom and rolled his own eyes, then stretched out his hand. "Yes, we know. We've heard it a thousand times. But…"
"Just give it up, man," the saintess giggled slightly, shaking her head and looking back over her shoulder. "You know he won't buckle. Keep bothering him like that, and you'll be the one slowing us down!"
Neither the Hero nor the Huntress even bothered to join in the bickering, sparing only a single glance back before smirking, shaking their heads, and moving on.
"I take on the burden of your luggage, and you guys—"
"And we take the burden of all the achievements you don't want to admit responsibility for," the saintess happily summed up the rest of one of Tom's popular sayings. "I get that you don't want to give up on your role, even when there's no one around to see it happening, but damn!"
Ignoring the dignity of her status, the saintess slapped her hands on her hips, jumped lightly, and turned around, opting to walk backward for a moment.
"You really need to come up with some fresher quotes, you know?"
Tom looked at the saintess's face, allowing himself just a short moment to take in the calming sight of her pristine blue eyes that one could drown in or the graceful way her platinum-blonde streaks framed her small, shapely face.
"Guys, cease it," the hero finally decided to speak up. As he turned his face over his shoulder, the bickering trio could see the long, lone wrinkle marking his forehead and outlining his annoyed eyes. "I know the chances we'll find that bastard are slim, but you're taking it too far. We are strong," the wrinkle on the hero's forehead deepened as the annoyance in his eyes turned into cold-blooded seriousness, "but we're not THAT strong."
Scolded by the party's leader, the trio lowered their heads, unable to rebuke his words.
They might've all reached the tenth stage, the natural peak of human potential… But out in the outskirts, the chances of encountering a monster capable of eating them for breakfast were not zero.
And the man they had been dispatched to hunt down didn't subscribe to the standard, ten-stages power level either.
"You're right," Dorio nodded, dropping his hands to his hips before stretching his back with a silent groan. "It's best if we…"
"Shush…"
Unlike the hero's scold, the huntress's call for silence was followed immediately, without any follow-up comments or voiced self-reflection.
In fact, just that one hiss from her was enough to put all five of them on high alert.
'Where?'
Tom cleared his mind, focusing all five of his senses at once as he scanned the open plain to their left, the empty road with a lone, unassuming figure walking toward them, the dense forest to their right…
'Wind again?' he thought, slowly bringing his hand down to the small dagger hanging above his abdomen, in a spot as odd as the weapon itself.
Compared to the Hero's bastard sword, the huntress's powerful recurve bow, Dorio's dueling blade, or the saintess's crystal-decorated staff, Tom's blade appeared extremely unassuming—more of a kitchen tool than a proper weapon.
A misconception shattered when one compared the degree of wear on the fancy weapons of Tom's teammates to the state of his well-maintained yet heavily worn-down knife.
"Something's wrong," the huntress announced in a half-voice, just loud enough for the group to hear.
For the next few moments, the group stopped, scanning for the danger the huntress sensed. Ultimately, however, they had to keep moving, unless they wanted to become the prey of one of the many extremely territorial beasts that roamed the imperial outskirts.
"Must've been the wind," the hero finally relaxed after two tense minutes of nothing but wariness. He raised his hand from the handle of his crude yet bloody-effective sword and turned to the group. "Let us…"
"…go…ARGH!"
Right as the last word escaped the Hero's mouth, the narrow tip of a blade slid out from the center of his chest.
Everyone froze.
Only the Hero dared to move, bringing his chin down to give the bloodied tip of a blade sticking out of his chest a perplexed look.
His hand fell, reaching for the handle of his sword… Only to miss, slide past it, and drag the man down as the light of life escaped his eyes.
'What?'
Something was extremely wrong.
There was no enemy anywhere around them… and yet, the hero fell first to his knees and then planted his frozen face into the ground, with nothing but the lone figure casually standing behind him.
"Stop with the jokes, man…!" the huntress cried, her voice a mix of annoyance, terror, and anger. She took a step toward her boyfriend. "Didn't you just scold them for playing arou—"
'Stop…'
A single stray thought flashed through Tom's mind.
But how could he tell his companions what to do?
They were generational geniuses while he was nothing more than a cheat. They'd all reached the peak of human potential, while he had merely figured out how to compensate for his own shortcomings.
And if none of them found anything weird in this situation… how could he…?
"…around?!"
Stopping just above the corpse of the Hero, the huntress dropped her hands on her hips, looking down with an angry expression.
'Someone… Anyone…' Snapping his eyes from one friend to the other, Tom desperately sought the smallest hint to confirm that his feeling was correct.
"Were you that eager to play around?" the huntress asked, her anger giving way to concern as she looked down at her partner, her face twisted with worry. "If so…"
'Okay, fuck it,' gritting his teeth, Tom opened his mouth.
Swish
"BREAK!"
Infusing his voice with a specific mana pattern, Tom released the anti-magic spell into the wilderness of the imperial outskirts, right as the unassuming blade gracefully cut through the air… and the huntress's throat.
Dorian's eyes twitched… Only for him to jump forward and unsheath his sword in one fluid motion.
"Cure!" To the side, the saintess brought her staff in front of her chest, grasping its long handle with both hands as she infused her divine tool with all the pristine mana she could.
'Shit!'
Tom did several things at once.
He leaned forth, readying himself to leap ahead.
He weaved a string of mana, looping it around his knife's small pommel before tugging on it, pulling the weapon right into his right hand.
Finally, he meshed several more strings of mana before slinging it forward, right at the silhouette of their opponent.
But they were all just a tiny bit too late.
Swish!
The heretical hero, the very bastard they were on the hunt for, struck his sword right at Dorio's upper torso, forcing him to block the attack with his own blade. Before he could react, however, the heretical hero used the momentum of the swords clashing to flip his grip into a reverse, allowing the blade to bounce back… Only to press it down right as it pointed at Dorio's heart.
"NO!" The Saintess screamed out, outputting even more of her mana through her staff.
Stop it! Screaming in his thoughts, Tom allowed his muscle memory to guide him as he bent down and slid on the ground, sneaking below the heretic's radar, only to emerge right to his side, ready to plant his blood-thirsty knife into the bastard's spleen…
Thump.
A dull pain exploded all over Tom's chest as he flew through the air, thrown away by a casual yet monstrously powerful kick.
The pain subsided for but a second, the damage to his body repelled by the Saintess's healing spell… Only for it to then reappear all over his back, when he tumbled down to the ground, grinding his back against the sharp stones of the gravel path.
"AGH!" Back in the middle of the road, the Saintess's beautiful, blue eyes suddenly erupted with flames perfectly matching the color of her irises… Only for the girl to fall down to her knees with an empty look on her face, her soul eroded by the strain of trying to somehow heal the lethal wounds of her friends at the same time.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A strange sound of heavy beating filled Tom's mind as he struggled to rise up from the ground.
His mind failed to process what just transpired, just like it failed to connect this strange, thumping sound to the heavy beating of his own heart.
The four extroverts that adopted him all the way back in the academy days…
The moment he forced himself to rise up and look ahead, he had no other choice but to accept the reality.
His four friends, the geniuses of the academy and masters of tenth stage…
They were all dead.
And as the heretic turned its emotionless face towards Tom, it was perfectly clear it would be his turn to die next.
This bastard… Gritting his teeth, Tom forced himself to, in spite of all the pain and wear on his body, stand up again.
He stood no chance against the heretic in a direct fight, just like he stood no chance against any of his friends in a standardized, fair duel. And seeing how the heretic managed to dispatch his entire party with infuriating ease…
It's my fault they died, rising up to his feet, Tom had only one thought in his mind. If only I trusted my gut, if only I didn't rely on them to make the decision for me…
The cloaking spell the heretic used to remove its existence from their minds was the sole reason for why he had such an easy time killing Tom's friends. And if only Tom ignored his status as mere luggage carrier for the group and decided to trust his instincts instead…
Tom closed his eyes, fully aware he was no match for the heretic's impossibly graceful sword skills. His ability to handle the knife, even when combined with his tricky movement were entire leagues below that man's ability to handle his simple, undecorated sword.
So this is what an ascender is like, Tom thought, opening his empty eyes and watching passively as the heretic, the being that went beyond the ten stages of power describing the limits of human potential, approached him.
He watched as this inhumane bastard raised his hand and twisted his wrist before pushing its blade straight towards him.
And just like that, the heretic struck and drove his sword straight through Tom's heart.
"I cannot match your sword skills," as the overwhelming sense of pain and weakness filled the entirety of his being, Tom pushed himself to utter those few words. "No trick of mine would work on you either."
Taken by a surprise, the heretic looked up and locked its eyes on Tom's face, clearly not expecting his victim to speak so calmly and casually in the face of his own demise.
Unable to gather enough energy to move any fast, Tom struggled to raise his left, unarmed hand… and managed to place it on the heretic's arm, as if he was patting a friend to congratulate him for a job well done.
Tom then opened his eyes… but rather than saying anything, he simply revealed a bloody smile.
Unlock the curse, stop hitting yourself.
A dense net of mana weave suddenly erupted from the core of Tom's consciousness.
It was an ability he deemed too stupid, too out of the box even for his unorthodox way of fighting. An inferior breed of the ancient protolaw of equivalent exchange. A mere reflection of a truly genius creation.
The dense mesh of mana moved through Tom's hand and infused itself into the heretic's shoulder, nigh instantly spreading throughout its entire existence.
For an ascended being, to break down such a petty amount of magical energy would be as easy as to take a breath.
But for just one, slightest instant of time, Tom merged his existence with that of the Heretic hero. And within that very minute instant, the very same causality affecting Tom's heart was shared with his shared counterpart.
Khe…
Staring wide-eyed into Tom's face, the heretic spat out a mouthful of blood.
The curse broke in a mere fraction of a second… But by now, Tom's job was done. And by the time the two of them fell down to their knees with blood filling up their mouths, Tom's vision already started to fade along with his consciousness.
If only I was a bit more decisive… he thought, exerting all the energy that he had left in himself to cast one last fleeting glance towards the corpses of his friends.
The world darkened before Tom's eyes before he could even do so little.
Before he could say sorry once.
Before…
*********
"GO!"
A powerful shout jolted Tom awake, only for his body to rush up from the half-kneel and then sprint ahead amidst the crowd of uniformly dressed, sweaty bodies of his fellow cadets.
Before a single thought could form in his head, his hands shot forward, as if he was trying to grasp the back of the cadet ahead, while his legs kicked up against the ground, sending him into a frantic run.
"Your future is riding on this test!" the drill sergeant's voice rang over everyone's head as the whole crowd ran forth with all their strength, sparing no effort to reach as far as quickly as they could. "So don't you dare even think about slowing down!"