《Vampire》 Prologue Marth. A little village located right beside the giant¡¯s forest, on the right side of the Murland continent, on the world of Muros. The village itself, is nothing special or of note, but there is one famous inhabitant living there. His name is Serion, the ¡°Blessed Saint¡±. It¡¯s said that Serion is capable of healing any wound, no matter how big or small. Some even say he can revive the dead¡­ He has been scouted countless times by the capital to work as an official healer, but he refuses to leave Marth. He has been asked countless times about the source of his power, but he also refuses to answer this question. Most believe it¡¯s a blessing given to him by god. Others believe he obtained it through a pact with the devil. But, the answer to the origin of his powers can only be answered by him and one other person¡­ That other person is his son, Reed. Reed is a strange boy, who came out of nowhere. Suddenly, one day a battered up beautiful pregnant woman appeared on the village. She was immediately taken to Serion, the local healer (not yet known as a saint), so he could care for her. The woman¡¯s name was Seiria. Over the course of the few days that he treated her, they both fell in love with the other, and ended up marrying each other. Of course, once her son was born, whose father was unknown, they both cared for him deeply. They named their son Reed, due to his brightly shinning red eyes, who marked him since birth. However, one year after Reed is born; Seiria dies, due to her weak constitution. Serion was devastated. But he recovers, and his healing powers increase exponentially. two years after the dead of seiria, on Reed¡¯s third anniversary, word of Serion ability to heal starts to spread. The fame of Marth spikes, and Serion gains his nickname. The death of his wife right before the spike in his power and the red eyes reminiscent of a demon on his son, though, caused some people to question the true nature of his powers. Red eyes are a symbol of the devil, of the hated demon race. On the continent of Murland, that¡¯s common sense. Reed¡¯s eyes caused him to be hated by most villagers, and since young he had been bullied. Today is Reed¡¯s 14th birthday, but he isn¡¯t at all happy about it. After all, that only causes the kids playing outside to tease and bully him even more. The adults won¡¯t help, they want nothing to do with him. Even the people who are nice to him on occasion didn¡¯t show up today. It¡¯s already night, and the only thing he did today was run around and hide from the children in the village. He was tired, and wondering why he even bothers going outside.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. He ask himself that question every day, and every day the answer is presented to him once he gets home. After all, at home is¡­ A man with kind looking eyes and a cheery awaited him there, on the entrance home. He must have been about to go outside call for him. Serion is his name. The famous ¡°blessed saint¡±. And now they would start something that has been a daily routine for years now, since a few days after Seiria died. Serion¡¯s ¡°study session¡±. On Serion¡¯s house in Marth there is one place that is locked away in secret. A basement, that no one but Serion and his son know about. In there, empty flasks of potion are scattered across the floor, papers lay everywhere on the ground, and on the very center of the room, there¡¯s a table. A bright, white table. Right now, reed lays on that table. And looking over him, is Serion, Holding something is his hands. The object on Serion¡¯s hands is strange looking, with viscous, red liquid covering it¡¯s surface and flowing down on the floor. What he holds is¡­ An ¡°organ¡± The true reason why Serion¡¯s powers have increased so much is something no one would believe, or understand. By thoroughly slashing apart his son¡¯s body, Serion reached a deeper understanding of the human body than anyone else on the world of Muros. Through the use of that knowledge and his magic, he¡¯s able to perform his miracles. In order to restore someone¡¯s arm, he had to first take out Reed¡¯s arm. In order to restore someone¡¯s leg, he had to first take out Reed¡¯s leg. And in order to recover someone from the verge of death, he had to first¡­ Reed remains silent, and gazes at his rambling father with dead eyes. Serion has a habit of speaking about his discoveries and thoughts to Reed during their sessions together. Reed, in response, keeps quiet. He feels no pain, even when he is cut apart thoroughly. The first study session still hurt, a lot. And the second. And the third. And countless others after¡­ Reed¡¯s screams in the middle of the night caused people to fear, thinking monsters were approaching. That¡¯s how guttural his screams were. However, after some time passed, Serion came up with a spelt that deactivates someone¡¯s ability to feel pain. From then on, there as no pain. Or the pain was so weak compared to before, Reed no longer felt it. And so, he remains quiet, a numb feeling running through the emptiness of his body. After some time had passed: After removing Reed¡¯s restraints, Serion said so, going up the basement. However, Reed didn¡¯t move. He simply stared at Serion¡¯s fading back. He rapidly moved toward one side of the wall where a block was very slighty out of proportion with the others. He put his hands on the block and¡­ pulled it out. Immediately a bag that appeared to be stuffed full appeared. Reed had found this block roughly one year ago. And then, he started planning his escape from the hell that was Marth for him. By asking villagers that sympathized with him around town, he was able to get some fresh food during this week. The bag he had found in Serion¡¯s study, old and dusty. He had even gone through the trouble of preparing some healing elixirs by gathering herbs in the forest close to the town. He obtained the knowledge necessary for their preparation by listening to Serion¡¯s countless rambles. And now, one year after he first planned it, he was finally going to escape. He had no directions, he only knew that if he went a certain direction, he would end up in a city. Still, even if he wound living in the forest, it would be better than here. He picked up his bag, and went up. After seeing the unlocking the front door as quietly as possible, he started running. He immediately saw the forest and went in its direction. He felt a sensation of something breaking, as he entered the forest. And then, he ran. And ran. And ran, without ever looking back. After he was unable to run anymore, he fell down on the ground exhausted, and looked back over his shoulder. In the direction of the village. After noticing that he couldn¡¯t see Marth anymore, he smiled. And passed out. Chapter 1 - First Battle After waking up, Reed looked at his surroundings. He was currently inside the Demonic Forest, the forest that surrounds Marth. It is said that countless demonic beasts inhabit the forest, making travel from in and out of Marth difficult. However, that didn¡¯t stop Reed from escaping. He already knew the danger. He slowly started getting up, and when he did¡­ He heard a groaning sound close by. Quickly, he moved his head in the direction of the sound. And, he saw it. A dark beast, with black fur covering the entirety of its body, in the shape of bigger than normal wolf. A demonic beast! He and the wolf looked at each other, and¡­ The wolf leapt into the air, jaw open as if to bite something. He moved his arm in front of his face instinctively. The wolf immediately bit into it. Red, dark blood started to drop out of the wolf¡¯s mouth. Reed grimaced in pain, but only that. He was already used to this level of pain. After bitting into it, the wolf shook his head from one side to the other with enormous force, grabbing Reed out of the ground and shaking him together. He opened his mouth, making Reed fly out of there and smack into a tree.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Reed immediately got up, and looked over at the wolf. The wolf, once more, leapt with his mouth open. At that, time seemed to stand still for Reed. Various thoughts ran across his mind. He thought, if only I was stronger, I could beat this beast. He then thought, what if I make myself stronger then? He remembered, during his father¡¯s ¡°talks¡±, he mentioned a way to make a person stronger. A way to enhance the physical strength of someone, through the simple use of flowing mana. One of the very basic spells, that any magician could use. By focusing his intent on making mana flow through his veins, and concentrating that mana in the muscles of any part of the body. He immediately did it, focusing strength on his arms. Afterwards, you wait for the right moment, and release the mana at the moment you need the power. With Reed¡¯s enhanced perception from the adrenaline, he felt he could do it. He saw the wolf coming at him. He positioned both his arms on the sides of his body. And then¡­ *Crush* A sound of bones breaking could be heard. Reed had crushed the wolf¡¯s head with his hands. Blood flowed from between his fingers, and he feel something soft between his palms. He thought it must have been the brain. He let go of the wolf¡¯s head, and after it fell to the ground, he sighed in relief. He got a healing potion out of his bag and splattered the liquid over his bitten arm. The wound did not immediately start healing, but after some time had passed, his arm would be as good as new. He picked up his bag and tried to recover from the battle. Now that he had a way to defend himself, he felt confident, but at the same time, the wolf¡¯s attack had scared him. He became apprehensive of what was to come. Looking back at the wolf to make sure he was dead, he found a small gem shining from the inside of the wolf¡¯s head. He picked it up. He knew what this was. It¡¯s an ether fragment. Mana often condenses inside the body of demonic creatures and creates these. Other demonic creatures often ate these in order to become stronger. The gem was small enough, and he needed to become stronger in order to survive, so he immediately ate it, thinking it might help him in some way. He felt a small surge of power, but that¡¯s all. He instinctively knew he would need more in order to grow stronger. He then started walking, away from Marth. During his walk, he found a cave, and after verifying that it was secure, decided to settle down on it. Reed found a random spot on the cave, and after a while of turning left and right in fear, he fell asleep. Chapter 2 - Wolves Scheme Once Reed woke up, he immediately left the cave and started going in the direction he believed a river was located. Nearby Marth there was a river, where people would often go to in order to obtain water. Reed hoped he could find the same river and drink from there. However, he immediately ran into a problem. Another wolf appeared in front of him. This time though, he was prepared. After the wolf leaped for is initial attack, he crushed his head like the last one¡¯s. Demonic beast are very similar in nature to one another, especially creatures who hunt in packs like these wolves. After killing the wolf, he ate his ether fragment, and went on his way. He found it somewhat strange that these wolves weren¡¯t in a pack, considering the nature of normal wolves, but Reed didn¡¯t worry too much about it. After finding the river, bent down and started scoping out water and drinking it calmly. While he was drinking though, he felt a weird presence somehow on his back. Turning around fast, he was just in time to spot a wolf bigger than the other two, and covered in scars, coming in his direction.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. With reflexes a bit faster from eating the two wolf ether fragments, he instantly positioned himself in order to crush the big wolf¡¯s head. However! From his left came another wolf running straight for him, and he rapidly leapt into his left arm! Reed, surprised by the wolf biting his arm, was caught off guard and ended up letting the big wolf bite him. On his neck. Groaning a bit from the pain, Reed enhaced his muscles and started shaking his body left and right, trying to remove both wolves from him. The wolves detached themselves from his body, flying in two different directions. Weirdly enough, Reed had managed to survive the big wolf¡¯s bite. He thought it might have to do with the ether he ate or the mana that was enhacing his muscles. Either way, he was lucky to stay alive. The two wolves got up from their positions, and behind them¡­ A whole pack of wolves started appearing. Just by looking at them, Reed counted around ten, plus the big one. Reed then had a flash of insight, and understood what had happened. The other two wolves he had beat were only a scout to verify his strength, and one to lay a trap. After the first scout died, the wolves decided to send a second one, who attacked the same way the first one did, willingly sacrificing himself in order to make Reed misunderstand something. He misunderstood the wolves¡¯ intelligence. He thought they all had the same attack pattern, but that was only to prepared for this moment. After the first one attacked, the second laid in wait, to surprise him. That way they would have easy prey. Although the plan had gone without a hitch, they didn¡¯t calculate something. Reed¡¯s endurance, that caused him to survive even in this situation. Even though It didn¡¯t work, they still had the other wolves laying in wait in case something went wrong. And now they all came out to attack him. Now Reed was up against eleven cold-blooded wolves fighting seriously in order to kill him. Wolves who are so cold-blooded, they willingly sacrificed themselves for prey. And he was the prey now. Chapter 3 - Wolf Prey Reed and the wolves had a staredown, both looking at each other to see what they would do. During this time, Reed was frantically thinking of a way to escape this situation. While thinking, Reed took a step back to gain some distance from the wolves. And stepped on a branch. *Crack* That was the trigger. Three wolves came to him all at once, in three different speeds. Reed seeing no way out, prepared to fight back. The first one came from the right. Before he could come up close Reed enhanced his legs and went to him himself, kicking him with all his might into the air. The second one came from the left. When Reed turned around to look at him, he was already biting his leg. Reed enhanced his arm, picked him up and throwed him away. The third one came from the front. Reed looked at him right as he leapt and came up close to his face, mouth opened. Reed saw the inside of his mouth and lifted up one of his enhanced arms, punching him in the stomach. After the three wolves were down, the big wolf full of scars roared at him prompting all the other wolves to come to him at once. Reed looked left and right to find a way to escape, only to find the other wolves that were getting up. He thought a bit, and arrived at only one solution to this situation. Reed enhanced his legs as much as he could, and jumped back! A cold feeling spread through Reed¡¯s body as water covered him. The blood from his wounds started spreading in the river. He had jumped back into the river, in an attempt to flee from the wolves.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. But the wolves still continued to come at him, some already jumping into the water. Reed enhanced both his legs and arms, and swimming away from the wolves as fast as he could. The pursuit lasted a while, until Reed came out on the other side of the river. After coming out, Reed looked back only to see an incredible scene. The big scarred wolf came running towards the river he had just crossed¡­ And jumped over it! Before Reed could react, the wolf had already ran to the front of him, blocking his escape route. And now, Reed had the leader of the pack in front of him, and the rest of the pack coming out of the river in his back. With no other choice, Reed prepared to go up against the big wolf. Enhancing both his legs and arms; Reed went forward and gave the big wolf a right hook. The wolf flew to the left, but managed to somehow land on his four legs. The wolf immediately came running towards Reed and tried to bite his neck once more, but Reed blocked him with his right arm, being bitten into it in the process. Reed revided by punching in the right cheek once more, making him get knocked to left again. Reed looked rapidly back, losing a bit of focus on his mana in the process, to the river to see if the other wolves were coming up to him. The wolves, however, had all gotten out of the river and were standing up and looking at him, only observing what was happening. Reed was weirded out by, but he couldn¡¯t afford to think about it, since the big wolf had already gotten up. The scarred wolf came running to his left, going for his left leg. Reed positioned himself as if to kick him with his right leg, but suddenly¡­ The wolf stopped in his tracks, and started going for his right instead! Already with his face close to biting Reed¡¯s right leg, he started to close his mouth. When Reed¡¯s right hand came from his right and punched his right cheek once more! Reed, in fact, had come upon a discovery before the wolf had gotten up. When he turned back to look at the other wolves, he accidentally made his mana go to his eyes. And in that moment, he found out that by doing that, he could enhance his perception and reflexes. He then made use of that, and by looking at the movement of the wolf¡¯s muscles, he could guess where his next attack was going to be. When the scarred wolf did his feint, Reed had already found out about it. This time around, when the big wolf was in the ground, instead of wasting time looking back, Reed leapt up to him, landing over his body. Then, Reed started to beat the wolf in the right cheek as much as he could. This wolf seemed to be stronger than the other, so instead of attacking him all over, he decided to focus on only one spot. It took a while of beating, but Reed finally cracked the wolf¡¯s skull, and with one more punch, his hand went through the wolf¡¯s head. *Thud!* Reed felt his fist going through the skull,hitting the ground, leaving his arm bloody red. Reed, breathing roughly, once more looked back; to see if the other wolves would do something. They did. All the wolves looked back at him, and then¡­ They all lowered their heads towards him. Chapter 4 - Followers It¡¯s been two days since the battle against the wolves. Afterwards, Reed used up one more healing potion to heal himself, ate the big wolf¡¯s ether and tried to ignore the other wolves, since they seemed to be doing nothing. He felt a sensation of powering up after eating the big wolf¡¯s ether, which was bigger than the others. However, when he started walking away, the wolves started following him. And so, now, Reed has been walking around with a pack of ten wolves going with him. At first, they didn¡¯t bother Reed too much, so he let them by. But now he thought for sure they must have been up to something. During his walking, he had already encountered many other demonic beast besides the wolves. And of those he encountered, he had to fight three. It¡¯s plenty common to find demonic beasts in this forest. The problem is the monsters he fought. They were three orcs, and in all three cases, the wolves were the ones to draw the orcs attention. Orcs are a powerful race with the face of pigs and the body of giant humans. All orcs are at least 2 meters tall. They are probably one of the stronger demonic beasts in this forest. Reed managed to somehow win, even though he had to use one other healing potion, and he ate the orcs¡¯s ether. But the fact that the wolves went out of their way to call one of the strongest races in the forest to fight with Reed, it was weird, to say the least. Reed tried to run and lose track of the wolves, but there was nothing he could do. The wolves somehow always found him. Now, Reed is walking sneakily through the forest to avoid demonic beasts. He couldn¡¯t see the wolves, but somehow he knew they were there, following him. Reed thought he might know what was happening. The wolves were currently testing his power as a leader. He had beat their old leader in combat, now they were his pack, that at least was what Reed thought.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. He also thought having a pack of wolves was pretty cool, but the fact that they only bothered him was annoying. Reed came upon a huge rock, and sat on it to rest a little. Meanwhile, the wolves started to come out of hiding and surround Reed. Reed felt it strange, but sensing no hostility in the air, he let them be. Then, one of the wolves came out of the bunch, and placed something in front of Reed. Reed looked down to see what it was. It was the corpses of five imps. Imps are one of most common creatures in this forest, they are not very strong at all, but are troublesome in groups. They resemble small humans, having half the size of a normal human, and have red skin, two horn growing out of their foreheads, and two bat-like wings they use to fly. Reed looked over at wolves, only to see they looking back at him, expecting something. He instantly knew what it was, so he picked up the one imp¡¯s corpse, smashed his head in, and¡­ Ate the ether he found there. He did the same for the other four, and when he finished, the wolves suddenly started howling. It seems Reed had been accepted as a leader. ¡­ Two more day passed by with Reed going around with his pack of wolves. During the first day, Reed, feeling confident from having the pack recognize him, found another orc, and went to fight him by his own will. He didn¡¯t really care why he had the sudden urge to show off in front of the wolves, but he still followed his feelings. He had never felt this kind of desire before. The wolves, instead of staying put, helped him this time, by biting off the orcs legs the first chance they saw. Reed, feeling some strange euphoria from the battle, beheaded the orc and ate the ether from his head for the wolves to see. The wolves started howling in response. Reed felt satisfied and walked on. During the second day, Reed actively started hunting for demonic beasts. He easily found them, and started massacring them, drowning himself in the strange euphoria he got from hunting. All the monster he hunted had their ether eaten, prompting another power up for Reed. Now, Reed found himself facing another orc. He and the orc stood still, each one observing the other¡¯s movement. Reed then looked over at the orc¡¯s left leg, and thought: ¡°Left leg¡± In that moment, two wolves came out of hiding and bit the orc¡¯s leg together. Reed found out about this telepathic ability of his in a previous battle. Apparently he could communicate with the wolf¡¯s just by thinking. Reed thought it might have to do with the big wolf¡¯s ether he ate. The orc, enraged, tried to swing his arms at he wolves. But before he could: *Crush!* The sound of something being smashed was heard, and Reed had smashed the orc¡¯s face in and destroyed his head, with a single punch. Reed then pulled out the ether from the orcs head and ate it, prompting the wolves to start howling. Reed, in response, looked up at the moon that getting up in the sky. Once more, the wolves¡¯ howling spreads through the night. Chapter 5 - Arriving at a new village Reed has been battling and walking for two more days now. At this point, he really doesn¡¯t care too much about arriving at the city, he¡¯s enjoying battling with demonic beast now that he has the wolves on his side. However, every journey has to end. Reed has found finally found a small village, after one week of walking around and fighting in the forest. Reed looked back at the wolves to see if they would follow him into the village, he didn¡¯t want to scare people after all. But, the wolves had somehow disappeared. Although the wolves had disappeared, Reed still felt their presence somewhere close by, so he left them alone for now. Reed walked forward, with no idea what he should expect. In that moment, a man with two small horns coming out of his forehead and red eyes came out with a blade in hand, looking alarmed. After seeing Reed though, he stopped in his tracks. Reed tried to say something, but not having spoken for days now, he had difficulty getting words out of his mouth. In that meantime, the horned man grabbed Reed¡¯s arm and dragged him somewhere. Reed was taken to the biggest building in the whole village, and brought to the front of an old man who also had red eyes and two horns.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. After seeing the man out of the room, the elder looked back at Reed with sharp and threatening eyes, emitting a clear bloodlust. Reed took a while to recompose himself, and then he told the strange old man the whole story of how he ended up here, leaving out the part about his wolves, in order to protect them. Looking at Reed with a curious gaze, the old man then pronounced himself: Reed thought for a bit. He had no problems with the first two conditions, but the third one was weird. Guessing from the conversation so far, the demons were hostile against humans, so giving them information about Marth could very well endanger the village. Reed thought about it. He thought, and¡­ Agreed to it. After all, he had no reason to care about what happened to Marth. And thus, Reed¡¯s life among demons, creatures of a different continent who, for some reason, hated humans, began. Chapter 6 - Tragedy Four years passed since Reed began living with the demons. Live was harsh, but Reed had never been happier. Among the many people in the village, Reed had made plenty of friends his age, and met many adults who helped him get by. During the early morning, Reed would wake up and immediately start training. He would do not only physical training, but also sword and spear training. He was no master, but he was still one of the best warriors on the village. In the afternoons, Reed would either guard the village from demonic beasts, or play and help around the village, in his breaks and holydays. At night, Reed would secretly slip out of bed and go hunting with his wolves. His bond with the wolves was greater than ever, and he had taken to bath them and take care of their fur during those times as well. Last but not least, Reed had been living on the elder¡¯s house during those four years, so he had become a fatherly figure for him. The elder¡¯s name, Reed came to know, was Adjar. Reed preferred to call him ¡°old man¡± though. In these four years, Reed had grown, learned about the world, and learned about bonds. His love for this village and the demon race was high. But¡­ It was night, Reed had just gone to bed, and he was preparing himself to go out and meet the wolves, when he heard a sound. *BOOM!* It was a thunderous sound, as if something huge had just landed on the village. Reed, alarmed, rapidly got out of bed and went outside, to see what happened. Once outsided, he saw¡­ *ROAR!* A gigantic red form was there, on the middle of the village. With his gigantic tail and mouth, he wiped out all houses around, biting off roofs and destroying walls. The red form was, without a doubt, the strongest of demonic beasts, one of the most powerful lifeforms on the world of Muros, with high mana and explosive power:Stolen novel; please report. A dragon. *ROAR!* Reed stood there, shocked. All around him, people started coming out of their houses, screaming when they saw the dragon, running towards the forest, trying to escape, only to have their entire bodies eaten by the dragon. Reed was still paralyzed, until he realized someone had come out and was standing beside him. It was the old man, Aldjar. For a short while, both Reed and the old man looked on, both of them shocked. Until the old man came to his senses and said: With those words, the old man ran toward the dragon, determined. Reed stood there, agast. Once the old came to the front of the dragon, he kept still, chanting something towards the dragon. The dragon looked at the old man, ready to eat him alive. The people around seemed to realize something, as they all started to throw themselves at the dragon, distracting him from the old man. The dragon kept eating people and destroying houses houses, until the old man shouted something and lifted both his hands high into the air. A magic circle formed in the sky, and out of it a gigantic rock came out at high speed towards the dragon. When he saw that, the dragon immediately looked to the old man, and¡­ Bit his entire upper body off. Reed¡¯s knees gave out. He continued looking, still too shocked about everything that was happening all at once. As the old man and the people around died, the gigantic rock continued to fall down, until it hit the dragon¡¯s entire body, crushing him under it, making a huge sound and lifting smoke high into the air. *Crash* For a while, all the chaos went to calmness, and everything became silent. Reed couldn¡¯t see anything beyond the smoke, but he continued staring on the direction the dragon had stood at. Before his very eyes, all the things he had gotten these past four years had gone away, just like that. In a single instant, every memory of his life came through his mind. He remembered, and as he did, feelings started to come out in rapid succession. Emptiness. Bitterness. Happiness. Shock. Regret. And finnaly, he came upon a single emotion that filled him. HATE. Hate for his father, who destroyed his body and feelings. Hate for the dragon, who took his happiness away from him. And hate for the world, who didn¡¯t let him have peace. As this feeling consumed him, Reed stood back up. He continued looking in the direction the dragon had been at, when the smoke started to clear out, revealing rumbles, destruction, and bodies everywhere. The smoke continued to clear out, and when it finally did, it revealed: The dragon, standing up. It had clearly been injured, but it wasn¡¯t enough to kill it. Reed gritted his teeth, and: Let out one of the loudest screams of his life. He looked at the dragon, and his vision went red. He had found the target for his hate. Chapter 7 - Rage fight Reed knew he couldn¡¯t count on the wolves this time around. He could feel their fear from where they were hiding in the forest. But that wasn¡¯t going to stop him. He was going to DESTROY this dragon. The dragon, still groggy from the impact of the rock, looked at Reed. And when he did, a confused look appeared on his face for some reason. Reed didn¡¯t care why he was confused, he didn¡¯t have space in his mind filled with hate to care. Instead, Reed put a leg in front of his body, and¡­ Disappeared. There was no other way to describe the phenomenon that had happened then, other than saying he ¡°disappeared¡±. The dragon looked on, even more confused, at the place where Reed used to be. He did not seem to know what happened. At that moment¡­ *BAMM!* Reed appeared in front of the dragon, delivering a punch right to his chin. The Dragon¡¯s head went up. Reed, not missing this chance, jumped. With the enhaced legs he used to run, he managed to jump up and over the dragon. Arriving at where his head was, Reed quickly delivered a brutal quick to the top of the dragon¡¯s head. *BAAMM!!*This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. The dragon¡¯s head went down, hitting the ground with an extreme sound. Reed started to fall down towards the dragon. In that instant, the dragon recovered himself and opened his mouth up towards Reed. And then fire started to come out of his mouth. Reed knew that if he was hit by that, he would die. And he wasn¡¯t able to avoid it, since he was in the air. He was frantically thinking of a way out of this situation, when¡­ A wolf came out running, and jumped towards him! The wolf then pushed Reed out of the way, and ended up getting he himself covered in flames! The wolf covered in flames got burned and fell to the ground, his fur practically destroyed Reed landed on the ground, and his eyes went wide. One of his precious friends died in front of him, and once more he couldn¡¯t do anything to help. A scream came out from his soul. His vision went red, and a strage thing happened. Reed had no way of knowing this, but at that moment¡­ His pupils transformed, becoming vertical pupils. Together with his red eyes, his eyes started to resemble a certain creatures eyes. A dragon¡¯s. Still screaming in despair, Reed once again disappeared, and this time he instantly appeared behind the dragon. Reed grabbed the dragon¡¯s tail, and, using all of his strength and mana¡­ Launched the dragon into the air! Reed jumped up following after the dragon, going at an impossible speed, and got in front of his face. He immediately started to repeatedly punch the dragon, his punches so fast they couldn¡¯t be seen, and so strong they made thunderous soundw everytime they hit. He kept punching, and together with the dragon, they kept falling towards the ground. *KABLAM!* The dragon fell to the ground. Reed landed on top of him, and kept punching without ever stopping. He punched, and punched, and punched, until¡­ His hand went through the dragon¡¯s head. The momentum kept his hand going to the center of the dragon¡¯s brain, where Reed felt something hard inside. He grabbed the thing with his hand, and took it out of the dragon¡¯s head. He looked at it, and saw¡­ The dragon¡¯s ether. Much bigger than any other ether he had ever eaten. He put the ether on his mouth, and focusing his mana on there, he started to munch it. And then he swallowed everything. After swallowing the ether, he felt a strange sensation going through his entire body. When the sensation reached every part of his body¡­ Reed passed out. Chapter 8 - Waking up Reed wakes up, and after standing up, looks at his surroundings. He¡¯s in a part of the forest close to the village. He must have gotten here during the fight. He looked at the dragon he somehow defeated. But instead of the carcass he expected, he saw a skeleton of a dead dragon. Reed didn¡¯t know why the dragon had already become an skeleton, so he left it be. For now, he looked around to find his wolves. He immediately saw them. They were laying down close to him, with multiple bones and carcasses of different demonic beasts all around them. Reed was going to wake them up, until he noticed something weird about them. There used to be nine of them after the one that died in the fight, but now there were thirty of them in the area. Not only that, he could feel the presence of countless others lurking around the forest. Reed became speechless, and one of the wolves woke up. He looked over at Reed, his eyes wide. He then started howling. Once he did, an enormous amount of black wolves started to gather around Reed. Reed could feel the presence of at least a hundred of them coming over. All of them got into the crater that the dragon created on his fall, surrounding Reed. All of them looked at him and¡­ Lowered their heads towards him.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Reed, seeing this scene, reviewed the facts. After he woke up, the dragon who had just died, became an skeleton, and the wolves, who were previously nine, became a hundred. A sneaking suspicion started to come over Reed. A suspicion that couldn¡¯t be true, but was the only explanation. In order to find out if it was true or not, Reed needed to go back to the village. Reed thought that something interesting would be seen there. He started to go back the way he knew the village was in, and twenty of the wolves came together with him. ¡­ After going back to the village, his prediction about what happened was spot on. He found ruins of an old village, that had been abandoned for a long time. Moss and vines had been growing on the walls, roofs and walls were destroyed, and the pathways that used to exist became covered in grass. Reed gulped loudly, and said: He didn¡¯t know the answer to this question. ¡­ After recomposing himself, Reed tried to think about what he should do. He came up with nothing. When he looked up in resignation, Reed saw something weird in the distance. Something that didn¡¯t exist before. He could see a tower towering high above the trees. Instead of just laying around and doing nothing, Reed then decided to walk in that direction in order to find out. Also, he reckons there might be humans over there too. Even though he didn¡¯t like humans very much, he thought it would be necessary to talk to them to find out information about what happened. He disliked the idea of living in a forest forever as well. And thus, began another journey for Reed. The trip this time around didn¡¯t take one week like last time. With four days of walking, he managed to arrive the tower. Together with him came at least twenty wolves. The other eighty were doing their own things in the forest. Before Reed stood a black tower, standing tall over a village. Reed first looked at village to see what he could find. He went around the houses, trying to find someone, anyone at all, to talk to. Unfortunately, he found no one. The village seemed to be abandoned, although it¡¯s houses were intact. But he did notice one thing. The layout of the village was the exact same as Marth¡¯s, the only difference being the tower to side of it. In addition, considering the direction and the time he took to arrive, this should be on the same place Marth should be at. With all these hints, it was obvious. This is Marth. Once again, he asked himself. How long was I sleeping for? Feeling a lot of mana coming out of the tower, Reed went towards it. He came upon a gigantic double door. Pressing his hand against it, Reed opened the door to the tower. Chapter 9 - Tower and a Meeting Upon entering the tower, Reed saw three things. Stairs leading up to his left, stairs leading down to his right and a corridor in front of him. He noticed the wolves hadn¡¯t come with him. Either they were scared from the huge amounts of mana coming from the tower, or they disliked this place for some reason. Sensing that the mana was coming from upstairs, Reed went towards the stairs to his left. Going up, Reed saw that the second floor was some kind of armory, with various weapons around the room. There was a door to the left and right of the armory as well. However, he wasn¡¯t interested in those doors. What grabbed his attention was the cape that was displayed in a pedestal. He could feel some strange kind of mana coming off it. Ignoring the huge amounts of mana coming from upstairs, Reed went towards the black cape, as if in a trance. He picked up the cape, and¡­ Wore it over his shoulders. The moment he wore the cape, he felt something click inside himself. It was as if the cape had become part of his body. He could feel the ability the control the cape to his will, like he would do to an arm or leg. Trying out this ability, Reed tried to move the cape and make it pick up a sword on the floor. Then, a black tendril came out of the back of the cape, grabbing onto the sword and bringing it towards him. Marveled at the powers of the cape, Reed started to make tendrils come out in all directions, picking up everything he could see in front of him. Lifting multiple weapons up above his head, Reed played around with the cape like a little kid, when suddenly:This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Reed heard people screaming from downstairs. Letting everything he was holding up drop, Reed started to run towards the stairs, going down to ground floor. He heard the scream coming out from the corridor he saw before. He went through the corridor, and once he saw a set of doors, he rapidly opened them. In front of him, there was the most splendid room he had ever seen. Multiple candles and pillars adorned the side of the room, and at the very back, he could see a gigantic black throne with an enormous window looking outside behind it. In front of the throne, there was the source of the scream. Four people stood there, in armors of different colors. One was a man in probably his twenty, with brown hair, blue eyes and wearing a shining silver colored armor. He held in his hands a sword that shone as much as his armor, and he had a look of determination in his eyes. Behind him, there was a beautiful woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing a priest robe and hat. She had a staff in hand, and Reed noticed she had long, pointy ears. She was most likely an elf, habitants of the great forest to the north. To the left side of them, there was another man. This one had green hair and eyes, and wore light leather armor with a bow in hand and an arrow scabbard in his back. He also seemed to have a dagger. The other woman was just as pretty as the other, with short silver hair going up to her shoulders and black eyes. She had a robe on and a wizard hat on her head. She held a staff in hand with an blue rock on top of it. Once they noticed Reed entering the room, the brown haired man screamed: The silver haired woman said, to which he replied: Looking confused at their exchange, Reed tried to as something of them: For some reason, they immediately introduced themselves, as if on cue. Reed, trying to make sense of what they were saying, decided to introduce himself as well: Before he could finish saying what he wanted, he felt an enormous mana presence behind him. Reed hair stood on end. He looked back to see- Serion, his father, wearing multiple black clothes all over his body. Chapter 10 - Demon Lord Looking surprised, Serion looked back at Reed: Brimming with hostility for each other, the two of them glared at one another. Reed didn¡¯t know how Serion was here and why he was here, but he didn¡¯t care. His surprise at his presence was shadowed by his hate at seeing that figure Meanwhile: Leon, Anna, Sylfina and Adris seemed to be confused by the developments. Serion grinned at Reed¡¯s appearance, seemingly happy, and said: With those words as the trigger, Reed went forward at maximum speed. He could finally obtain vengeance for everything Serion did to him. Serion got shocked at the speed of Reed and his ability to use body enhancement. However, the surprise was only temporary. He lifted both his arms up and blocked the powerful blow from Reed. *BAAM!!* The blow made Serion go back a few steps, and he could feel the pressure from that single attack. Reed didn¡¯t think Serion would be able to block that strike, making him stop in his tracks. Then, Leon and his group decided to attack Serion all at once. Leon came forward with his sword lifted and shouted: When he swung his sword, a blinding flash of light came out, going in the direction of Serion. In response to that, Serion: Held one of his hands up, making the attack disappear. Leon, unflinching still came forward and started slashing at Serion. Serion, in turn, blocked every strike of his sword with a single a hand. While Leon and Serion battled, behind them Leon¡¯s group started to work. Anna started her chanting for a big magic, Adris nocked an arrow in his bow, and Sylfina collected mana from the air. Adris released his arrow, shouting: Reed honestly didn¡¯t know why they were shouting technique names like that, but now was not the time. Adris arrow came towards Serion at an incredible speed, almost invisible to the eye. Serion lifted the hand he wasn¡¯t using to block Leon¡¯s attacks with and pointed it towards the arrow. When the arrow came in contact with his hand¡­ It disintegrated. Reed looked on at that scene trying to understand Serion¡¯s power, but couldn¡¯t. He had never heard of magic that does that. Serion, seemingly bored, grabbed a hold of Leon¡¯s sword with his bare hand, and said: Reed, knowing he was about to disintegrate the sword, interfered. Making three black tendrils from his cape, he sent them towards Serion. Serion, seeing the tendrils coming in his direction, jumped back. The tendrils hit the ground, creating a hole in the middle of it. Reed made the tendrils come back to him, frustrated with Serion¡¯s ability to avoid his attacks. Serion said, amused. He lifted one of his hands, and out of it came a gigantic blast of air. Leon was knocked back, but Reed managed to stand his ground with body enhancement. Reed disappeared, and tried to come up behind Serion, sending his tendrils to attack him behind his back. Serion evaded the Tendrils with the smallest body movements possible. Reed jumped forwards and tried to punch the back of Serion¡¯s head. Serion got down to his knees, avoiding Reed¡¯s attack, and place one of his hands on Reed. This time around, he sent a blast of energy towards Reed, making him fly backwards. Reed might have good physical defense, but he never trained his magical defense. Serion said, mocking Reed. Leon, recovered, went forward and once again used holy slash, only to have it blocked again.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. At that instant, Reed got back up, and him and Leon both went forward and started attacking Serion, one from the front and the other from the back. Serion, with quick small movement, evaded all of Leon¡¯s slashes and Reed¡¯s punches, attacking them whenever he got the chance. Adris started firing arrows, but somehow Serion always managed to disintegrate all of them while still avoiding attacks and attacking Leon and Reed The good notice is that Serion seemed incapable of doing anything else in that state, transforming the fight in an impasse. Serion kept avoiding attacks and reviding, and Leon, Reed and Adris kept attacking. It was then that Anna finished her chant. Anna pointed her staff at Serion, and out of it came multiple lighting bolts, all attacking him at once. When Reed and Leon saw that, they both jumped back to avoid the attack. The lightning hit Serion square on, shocking him multiple times over. While Serion was being attacked, Leon and Reed were both being healed by Sylfina, who had been in the back waiting for a chance to be useful. The lighting finally stopped, revealing¡­ A barely hurt Serion. Adris said, sounding nervous. ¡­ Through the repeat of the method they used before, of stopping Serion with Leon, Reed and Adris attacking, Anna dealing a huge blow, and Sylfina healing Leon and Reed during their attack. Now¡­ Serion was tired and hurt beyond doubt, not to mention sprawled on the ground, but, on the other hand¡­ Reed, Leon and his team were hurt and tired as well. Sylfina had exhausted her mana, making healing impossible since a while ago, Anna as well couldn¡¯t fire anymore magic, Reed and Leon were already tired out and Adris exhausted his arrows and couldn¡¯t do anything from afar. Reed knew they were close to defeating Serion after many hours of battle, but they needed a new finishing blow now that Anna was out. Anything less powerful than that lightning would be disintegrated or blocked by Serion Reed tried to come up with some kind of plan to finish Serion, and came up with only one finishing blow he could use. During the battle against the dragon, he was infuriated so he didn¡¯t notice at the time, but he was several times stronger than normal. If he had a way of using that power once again, he could finish off Serion right now. The problem is, he didn¡¯t know how. And he couldn¡¯t take too long thinking unless he wanted to be killed by Serion. Serion started to get up, and Reed frantically tried to come up with something using his brain. Remembering the times Serion used to tell him about the ¡°organs¡± of the human body, Reed thought about one specific organ. The brain. The control center of the human body. The principal thing responsible for what we call ¡°thinking¡±. What if¡­ He enhanced such an organ with mana? What would happen? Left with no other option, Reed tried to send mana over to his brain and enhance it. He didn¡¯t know if enhancing worked on things other than muscles, but he had to try. He tried once and it failed. He tried twice and if failed. While he was trying, Serion was getting closer and closer from getting up from the ground. Reed tried and tried and tried, and when he was about to give up¡­ He finally succeeded. At once, Reed felt the surroundings get more and more slow, and he started to feel things inside his body moving and working. He could see each muscle moving on Serion¡¯s body. He could feel the mana flowing through his body much clearer. He could think at a speed beyond normal. Taking advantage of his speedy thinking and his heightned senses for mana, Reed decided to focus, and try find the font of the power he had displayed during his battle against the dragon. He focused more and more, trying to find something powerful that he didn¡¯t know he had inside his body. He came upon various things. But none of the what he wanted. Going through rivers and rivers of mana, Reed hit a rock inside those rivers. He had seen other rocks during his journey, but none quite like this. A gigantic rock made of the purest form of mana. Large and imposing, Reed could feel something hot and powerful coming out of it. Reed knew what this was. It was the dragon¡¯s ether. Reed tried touching the surface of the rock, and then¡­ A mysterious surge came upon his body. Reed couldn¡¯t describe it if he wanted. It was a surge of pain, power, pleasure and hate all at once. He remembered this feeling. He had felt the same at that time. Letting those emotions take hold of him, Reed let the surge flow through his body, mixing it with his rivers of mana, making a new kind of power go through his body. Reed¡¯s vision went Red. Shocked at the sudden scream, everyone present looked to Reed. Seemingly figuring something out, Serion paid close attention to Reed while he screamed. Together with his scream, a huge burst of mana came out of Reed. Reed¡¯s scream died out, and for a while, everything went quiet. The huge burst of mana coming out of Reed made everyone get shocked in place. Calmness reigned over the room, until¡­ Reed¡¯s figure disappeared, even faster than he was before. Suddenly, in that moment, Serion got throw back towards the entrance of the room. No one saw what happened. Serion tried to stop his fall by using magic, but when he tried, he felt something hit him in the head. He was then smashed against the ground. *CRUSH!* Making a hole in the tower floor, Serion tried to recover and get back up once again. But once more, he felt something hit him, this time on his back. Being throw over to the place he was originally at, Serion instead of panicking because he was being attacked by some unknown force, started laughing. Serion then lifted one of his hands up into the air, and let out a blow of mana towards nothing. But, in the place where there was nothing before, suddenly Reed¡¯s figure appeared. He then got blasted into the air, towards the roof. When Reed reached the roof, he positioned both his feet on the roof, and launched himself! *CRASH!* Reed threw himself towards the ground, going directly where Serion was, down on the ground. He went with with all, his speed and¡­ Punched him In the stomach. Serion felt an enormous pain in the center of his body, and started to vomit blood. But Reed wasn¡¯t done yet. He lifted his arm up high, accumulated energy into the arm, and launched another punch into Serion¡¯s stomach. *CRUSH!* The punch was so strong, it formed a crater on thee ground where Serion lays. But Reed still wasn¡¯t done. He lifted his arm and punched again, making the crater deeper with his punch. Reed was not satisfied. Once more lifting his arm up, he let it come down onto Serion¡¯s stomach, making the crater bigger and deeper. For the last time, Reed again lifted his arm. His arm came down onto Serion¡¯s stomach, but this time Reed felt some kind of mana barrier break, and his fist started to go down more than before. It went down. And down. And down. When Reed noticed his fist had gone through Serion¡¯s stomach. Reed¡¯s pulled his hand out dragging with him blood, entrails and organs out of Serion¡¯s body. Reed looked one last time at Serion¡¯s face¡­ And saw him smiling. Serion said, before calmly closing his eyes. And then he died. Chapter 11 - Afterwards Leon, looking down at the body of Serion, said in disbelief. Adris responded, just as surprised as him. Leon, as if mad, started to laugh out loud. Adris accompanied him in his laugh, sounding a bit forced. Sylfina, timid, laughed a bit too. Reed and Anna both stayed silent. Leon said, coming towards Reed. Reed looked over at him, and said: Reed tried to answer Leon, but he was feeling gloomy after what Serion said as he died. It was no surprise. That was the first time he had recognized him as his son. And it was right as he died to his son¡¯s hands. Mystified by this discovery, Reed tried to come up with an explanation, but came out empty handed. Leon didn¡¯t seem to worry too much about it, as he said: Reed didn¡¯t think he would get anything out of defeating Serion, or the ¡°demon lord¡± as they call him, but he wasn¡¯t going to pass up the chance to get a reward like that. He didn¡¯t want big amounts of money bad enough that he was going to ask for it, but he sure needed to get someplace to live in. not only that, but he also wanted to get somewhere where his wolves could live in tranquility. He thought about it, and reached a¡­ weird conclusion. Reed was never very normal. Leon looked expectantly at Reed, only to be stupefied by his answer:The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Reed had a few motives behind his decision. He was sure that if he lived here, close to the forest, he could take care of his wolves. He also wanted to get permission to explore the entirety of this tower, because, considering the cape he found on the second floor, there was bound to be many powerful artifacts around. More importantly, he wanted to check if his father had left any research or diaries behind. He was sure that after he got out of this tower, the king would claim the tower as his own, not only as an achievement, but also to research anything hi father left behind. At least, those were the assumptions Reed had made, considering the way Leon¡¯s group introduced themselves as heroes, and the way they reacted upon winning. Still, Reed wasn¡¯t sure his achievement was big enough to get this entire tower and its mysteries all to himself. Unexpectedly the one to answer wasn¡¯t Leon, but Anna. Reed didn¡¯t know what the ¡°magic confederation¡± was, but he thought it might have been a team of people bound on researching magic, he guessed. He already expected something like this to happen though, so he had a response ready: Anna, seemingly deep in thought, took awhile to answer, but eventually she said: This time, the entirety of Leon¡¯s team got surprised. Leon asked: Leon seemed shocked speechless, so Adris stepped forward: Anna started to talk in long sentences, seemingly out of character for her. Afterwards, Leon and Adris had nothing more to say, so they backed off, with Sylfina looking concerned from the side. Said both Reed and Anna, both making bored faces. With that, Leon and his group minus Anna went out, and Reed and Anna were left alone at the tower. And so, Reed and Anna¡¯s life at the tower started (for now, at least). Chapter 12 - Questions After searching the tower thoroughly, this is what Reed and Anna found out: There were a total of five floors with the ground one included, and four underground floors. The ground floor was, as they had seen, the entrance hall plus the throne room. The second floor contains an armory, a tailoring room and a blacksmith room. The third floor has a room specialized for magic rituals, and a room specialized for enchanting weapons and armor. The fourth floor contains all the chambers. The servant chambers (even though there were no servants), the guest chambers and the main chambers or royal chambers. The fifth and last floor contains an observatory, a terrarium with multiple types of plants and a research room for those with books about astrology and planting. The underground floors were below the ground one. The first floor contained a gigantic magic research room, with books about magic all over. Anna had a deadpan expression like normal, but Reed felt that she was happy upon seeing that room. The second floor contained a library and a research room full of medicine books. The third floor contained a dungeon and a¡­ surgery room, a proper one. Reed got reminded of his childhood, and grimaced. The fourth and last floor was the treasury. Piles of gold and some artifacts were strewn about. Reed was about to touch one of the artifacts, when: Seeing the logic in her statement, Reed decided it was better to avoid this room for now. He didn¡¯t want to be acused of embezzlement.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Done with the exploration for the day, both Reed and Anna found a room in the main chambers and slept in a comfortable bed. Next morning, Reed woke up early and went out to see his wolves. He forgot about them last night, with everything that was going on. The moment he left the tower, a group of twenty wolves appeared in front of him, at the ready. Reed decided to go hunting with wolves for a bit, until Anna woke up. He had some things he needed to ask her. After coming back to the castle in the afternoon, he went up to see if he could find Anna, only to see an empty room. Having a guess as to where she was, he went down to the magic research room. He found her, seated, reading a book she had found in there. He went up to her and said: She answered without looking at him. Looking up to his face this time, she seemed weirded out by the question. This time the one who got weirded out was Reed. After all, if she was right¡­ That would mean one hundred years had passed already. Reed tried to calm himself down, and thought. His confusion only grew the more he thought. He was sure it was 1080, but Anna told him it was 1180. There must be some kind of misunderstanding. Otherwise, he couldn¡¯t find an explanation as to why one hundred years had passed by without him aging one bit. However, there was plenty of evidence to support what Anna claimed, so he couldn¡¯t exactly deny it. Like the dragon skeleton, the ruins, and the wolf multiplication. That would mean¡­ He slept for a hundred years after the fight with the dragon. The first thing that came to mind was the ether he ate. Maybe because of that he was able to pull off such a feat? After all, not many humans can beat dragons, so it could be possible that no one knew about that. Only demonic beasts can eat ether and survive? If so¡­ How come he was still alive? Chapter 13 - Diary Reed tried to come up with some explanation, but there was nothing he could think of to justify this contradiction. Maybe Reed was a demonic beast? Wait, that makes no sense. Is there any way at all to explain this? Not being able to think, Reed decided to abandon the issue for now. He didn¡¯t trust Anna enough yet to question her about this. Reed went down one level to go into the library. He wanted to see if he could find out about his problem with the ether, but he also needed to verify if his father had left any records behind. Checking out the book titles on each bookcase, he noticed most books were about the history of Muros and its continents: Murland, Korland and Helland Not interested in history at the moment, Reed went around seeing if he could find any kind of book that could have been written by his father. Coming across some books with no titles, Reed went ahead and picked them up to read. Surprisingly enough, the first book he opened turned out to be written by his father. It contained his own personal history. It started off with Serion and Seiria meeting, and picked up from there. Describing the process of Seiria¡¯s treatment, it mentioned how Serion eventually fell in love with Seiria after having her stay at his house. On a certain day, Seiria gave birth to Reed. That¡¯s where the diary starts to get strange. Often, Serion mentions how he wishes he could love his son, but didn¡¯t have the heart to love the son Seiria had with another man. And, according to the what Seiria said, a man that probably raped her. Feeling frustrated, Serion started to build up stress, until¡­ The day Seiria died. Then Serion went mad. He first became depressed about her dying, but a plan had started to sprout on his head. A plan to revive Seiria. Reading up to this point, Reed started to feel nauseous, so he closed the diary and decided to read the rest of it tomorrow. Reed started to go up, planning to train a bit outside, but ended up bumping into Anna on the stairs. Thus, Reed and Anna both went outside. Reed started doing his basic exercises from the time he spent at the village, and the mana enhancing exercises he came up with on his own.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! While doing the mana enhancement, he noticed the wolves presence coming close to him, so he let them know they could come over. He wanted to let Anna know about the wolves, because he didn¡¯t want to hide them for four years like he did before, only to have them die. Upon seeing the wolves coming out, Anna started to get up and go ready to cast a spell, until she noticed the wolves weren¡¯t doing anything to them. She calmed down, and stared as the wolves started to surround Reed as he exercised. Anna looked deep in thought, while Reed continued to exercise. Eventually, he started to try and manipulate the mana around his body. Once he gotten into the rhythm of it, Reed decided he wanted to once more try and call forth that power which let him defeat a dragon and his father. He wanted to master that power. Concentrating his mana, Reed sent everything to his brain in order to enhance it. He then entered a focused state, where everything around him came in slow motion. Feeling the mana in his body, he eventually arrived at the river of mana, where countless rocks came towards him. Seeing the big rock he touched it, and feelings started to spread through his body. Pain, power, pleasure and hate. Letting these feelings take hold of him, Reed held back a scream that was about to come out of his mouth. The pain started to spread through his body, covering the others emotions and making them become small compared to it. However, Reed was used to pain, so he endured it. Nevertheless, the pain grew, and grew, and grew more and more until¡­ Every feeling in his body disappeared, and then rapidly returned, making him disoriented. Once Reed calmed down, he breathed out a sigh and relaxed. He had failed, for some reason. Even though he had been successful before. He did some more enhancing exercises, and went towards Anna, the wolves loyally following him all the while. Reed looked back at the wolves, communicating mentally that they could let her close, and said: Anna got close to the wolves, and extending her hand, eventually pet one. At first he was confused, but soon started to enjoy himself. Reed saw a slight smile come out of Anna¡¯s deadpan expression. The wolves started to crowd around Anna, all of them wanting to get pet. Anna and the wolves started to play around, and as Reed looked at that scene, he mumbled to himself: And started to play around with the wolves too While they played, Anna eventually asked Reed: Night came around, and then, after talking for a bit, Reed and Anna went back to sleep. Chapter 14 - After the Escape In the middle of training, Reed suddenly turned around and said so to Anna. Then, the both of them went out to hunt. After coming across an orc, Reed hid himself behind a tree and looked over at the orc¡¯s, thinking: ¡°Attack¡± When this thought crossed his head, suddenly four wolves came out together and ran towards the orc, biting its legs off and making him fall down to the ground. Reed came out of hiding and smashed open he orc¡¯s head, taking out his ether. Looking over at Anna, who peered curiosly at him, Reed said: After saying so, Reed lifted the ether over his mouth and... Ate it in front of Anna, making her speechless. Reed had decided after seeing Anna playing around with the wolves yesterday, that she could be trusted. Reed had an weird sense of trust after spending so much time with wolves. Anna looked dubious, but seeing that nothing was happening, she eventually sighed out loud: Mumbling the last part so that Reed couldn¡¯t hear her, Anna kept staring at Reed intensely. Reed looked curiously at Anna, and said: Reed hunted some orcs and tainted boars, and eventually he and Anna returned to the tower. While walking back, Reed and Anna tried to come up with some kind of answer to the mystery. When they arrived, Anna immediately went to the magic research room, and Reed went into the library, both doing their own things. Reed picked up the diary from yesterday, flipped the pages to where he left off, sat down and started reading:Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Serion planned on reviving Seiria. Coming up with a plan, he immediately started to put with into action. But first he would need a guinea pig, someone he could use to further his studies. He had found the perfect candidate in his son. When Reed was still young, Serion started performing experiments on him, hiding it from his village. He was going to compile the results of his studies in multiple books, and using that knowledge with healing magic, he was going to create the ultimate magic of the healing branch: A revival magic. Starting with small cuts and healing those, Serion¡¯s experiments grew more and more as time passed. After a while, Serion noticed something. His son was incredibly resistant. Even though he was going easy on the beginning, Reed would feel practically no pain from his first experiments. He only started screaming after he had gotten extreme. The first time Serion opened up his son¡¯s chest, that¡¯s when his first scream was. When he started screaming, Serion started to develop a pain-reducing drug and spell. He thought he had enough knowledge to do it. Succeeding, Serion then made sure that his son would not scream during the experiments by threatening him with death. But after some time it seemed his son decided to not scream of his own accord. Probably the despair had broken him. Everything was going well, until one day his experiments came to a halt. His son managed to flee from him, somehow. Considering he probably went through the forest, Serion thought he probably died to some demonic beast already. If so, Serion would need to come up with a new guinea pig for himself. Then, he came up with a great idea. What if he used his own body for the experiments? So began Serion¡¯s new batch of experiments. Putting himself at risk, Serion did a variety of things to his body, with spell and ritual ready to fire off when needed. After series and series of experiments, Serion eventually arrived at a multiple miracle formulas, all of which he decided to publish to magic confederation in order to get money, and further his research. The magic confederation was exhilarated. Someone had managed to further research on a difficult type of magic, healing magic. Praises upon praises came towards Serion. He got money, he got fame, he had multiple statues built for him across the nation. He was known as a saint. Eventually, The king, pressured by the magic confederation, built a research a station for him. It was a tower. It contained everything Serion needed to further his experiments. But Serion wasn¡¯t satisfied. There was one thing he couldn¡¯t do to his body, that he needed to do in order to advance his research even more. He needed to kill someone, and test his theories. Arriving at this point, Reed once again stopped reading. Night had already arrived, he needed to go sleep to wake up early tomorrow. Going up the stairs, Reed saw Anna reading a book, apparently not noticing what time it was. He called out to her: Getting up from her seat, Anna put the book back into place and went towards Reed. Reed looked down at Anna, noticing her diminutive stature for the first time. He looked back at her eyes that stared at him curiously, and¡­ Put his hand on her head. She wasn¡¯t wearing her wizard hat today. Reed then started stroking Anna¡¯s head. Anna¡¯s maintained her deadpan expression, but her cheeks blushed slightly. Feeling satisfied, Reed took his hand away from her head, and started to go up the stairs. Anna, followed him, saying: Reed and Anna then had something to eat, and went to sleep. Chapter 15 - End of Serion After morning training, Reed and Anna went hunting once more, and got back to eat. Going into the library, Reed started to read the diary once more: Serion wanted to kill someone in order to test his theories. But where would he find someone willing to become a sacrifice for research? Nowhere. So he decided to utilize unwillingly people instead. Picking up people from the village, he started experimenting with multiple people at once. Together with those people, he finally started experiments on demonic beasts as well. Of course, everyone in the village noticed something was going on. But the disappearances of many villagers got attributed to the fact they live so close to demonic beasts. And then it was already too late. Half the villagers had disappeared from their homes, and no one exactly why. Many started to leave the village, believing it was cursed. Only the most stubborn ones stayed behind. They were also used in Serion¡¯s research, leaving the village empty. Through the results of his research, Serion came across many other spells he revealed to the world. And some even he didn¡¯t dare reveal, keeping them for himself. Some of the spell he kept for himself were: The immortality ritual, and the Dissintegration spell. The diary contained the specifics and requirements to realize both. The immortality ritual, in particular, required quite the large amounts of sacrifice.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Sending over a letter to the magic confederation, Serion asked for a large group of volunteers who could help him further his experiments. Many a people came to him, and he managed the get the ritual to work without a hitch. After the volunteers didn¡¯t come back, that¡¯s when the king and the magic confederation noticed something was wrong with Marth village. Sending specialized scouts over, they managed to find out what happened what the village and what Serion was doing in his research. It was scandalous, reminding people of the incident that had happened during the Great War, where the magic confederation and the old king faced off against the demon kin, who were performing similar experiments on humankind. Of course Serion got reduced from his pedestal as a saint to the worst scum. He go labeled demon lord, inspired by the Great War, in an attempt to rile the masses against him. It worked. All his statues got destroyed, and the king, together with the confederation, sent over multiple warriors labeled ¡°heroes¡± in order to defeat the demon lord. But during the king¡¯s reign, they never managed to defeat him. All the heroes who lost were used in experimentation, and the king died of old age, giving place to another king. For one hundred years they never managed to defeat him. Until now. And that¡¯s the whole story behind the tragedy of the demon lord. Closing the diary for the last time, Reed sat down and got deep in thought. For a while, he just stood there, taking everything he had just read in. Then he got up, sighing: Still kind of disoriented, Reed got up the stairs, only to once again bump into Anna. Looking like a child talking about its newest toy, Anna told Reed all about the book she had read, eyes sparkling. Reed got taken aback at first, but after seeing her enthusiasm while talking, he eventually relaxed and started looking at her with warm eyes. Then, he placed his hand one top of her head, and started patting her. Once more, Anna kept her deadpan face but blushed red. After Reed finally decided to stop, they both went to eat something, had a conversation, and then got to sleep. Chapter 16 - Surprise! A few days passed by without anything particularly interesting happening. Reed trained in the mornings together with Anna, and then they went hunting. In the afternoon, Anna went to read magic books and Reed either read in the library any book he found or played around with the wolves. At night, they ate, talked and then slept. The days went by just like that, until one day¡­ One of the wolves disappeared. Reed was reading alone one morning when suddenly one presence disappeared, just like that. Reed, confused, started to go up the stairs when he suddenly bumped into Anna. Both going out of the tower, Reed and Anna got outside and called out for the wolves. Reed saw the multitude of wolves coming out of the forest and flooding the city, and once again got surprised at their numbers. If he is not mistaken, there should be a hundred wolves here. Together with Anna, they counted the wolves and came to a conclusion: There were only 99 wolves here. One of the wolves went missing. Reed immediately ordered the wolves to search through the forest for any signs of the one wolf that had gone missing. Something strange was going on. These wolves were not so weak that they would die just like that. They used to be driven by honor, but after meeting Reed they learned the importance of survival above all else. After considering that, Reed gave the order. He thought probably a strong demonic beast had appeared in the forest. A while of waiting later, one of the wolves came back. The wolf led Reed and Anna towards a clearing in a certain part of the forest. What Reed saw there shocked him. The wolf, entrails spilling, organs taken out methodically, with his paws extended out in a x position. Reed, seeing that, was sure that was not the work of a demonic beast. It was a human. And the only other human here beside him was¡­ Reed tried to rapidly turn around and face ¡°her¡±, but before he could, he heard heard a static sound and something hit him in the back.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. A numbing sensation spread through Reed, and his body got immobilized. Before him, stood a smiling Anna. Her sinister smile plastered her whole face, and holding her hands up, she started coming close. With a small glance, he saw the corpse of the wolf that came together with him, neck bent in a weird direction As Anna approached, magic circles appeared above her hands. Once she got close enough, she put both her hands against his chest, and then¡­ She started to, slowly, very slowly, push her fingers through his skin. Reed was trying frantically to communicate with his wolves, but to no avail. His telepathy seemed to not work due to her seal. Anna started to open his chest, little by little. Reed tried to send mana through his body, to whatever part he could. But nothing seemed to work. Reed had been resisting the pain until now, but it was slowly wearing away at his consciousness. Anna continued to open his chest, taking her time, seemingly enjoying the situation. Reed needed to do something and fast. His best shot would be using the weird energy that he used on the dragon and Serion fight, but he hadn¡¯t mastered it yet, and he couldn¡¯t do it without enhancing his brain to begin with. But there was no choice. If he wanted to survive, he needed to try it. As Reed as thinking, Anna finished opening his chest up, and peered at his organs. Anna laughed like mad as her hands stretched out to one of his organs. Reed tried to concentrate, and some feeling started to spread through him. An energy he was used to. Pain, pleasure and hate, all at once. However¡­ Before he could finish his preparations, Anna touched his heart. The pain made Reed flinch, and for a second he lost consciousness, making him stop the energy before it could flow through his body. All the pleasure and hate turned into pure pain. Reed was in a flickering state between consciousness and drowsiness, and he couldn¡¯t afford to focus on much of anything. He frantically tried to come up with a plan, even as Anna explored his innards. For some reason, Anna seemed keen on not killing him. That was his saving grace. One thought popped into his head, and he instantly put It into action. Taking all he had, Reed gathered air in his lungs, and¡­ Screamed. With all he had. The screaming startled Anna and made her jump back. Imps and birds could be seen flying out from the scare they received. But more importantly, another sound could be heard. The sound of multiple footsteps coming at once. It was the wolves. Hearing their leader scream they came to his rescue. Anna clicked her tongue, and tried to run away. But she got held at the knees. By Reed, crawling with his innards out. With his last forces, Reed tried to hold onto Anna for dear life, while she shook him around, trying to get him off. Once she did though, it was already too late. The wolves had arrived. Chapter 17 - Revival Anna shook Reed off and kicked him to the side. Reed groaned a bit in pain. While Anna turned around and stood at attention, Reed tried to concentrate while on the ground. He wanted to try to get to the state of absolute power again. Anna waited, and growls started to come all around her. Eyes looked at her from where she stood. A drop of sweat came off her head, showing her apprehension. But she wasn¡¯t part of the hero party for nothing. She was powerful a magician. A mere bunch of wolves couldn¡¯t hope to defeat her. She stood at the ready; her bloodied hands up in the air, sparks flying off her finger. For a moment, there was a stare down. Then, it happened. All at once, the wolves came towards her in a horde. They were furious. She had killed one of their kin for the sake of experimentation, killed another one of them and gravely injured their master. Anna hands went towards the direction the wolves were coming from. Lightning shot off her hands, attacking multiple wolves at once. She got 5, no, 10 of them in a single attack, bringing their numbers down to 88. But there were far too many. The wolves surrounded her, biting at every piece they could, riping off her clothes and clawing at her skin. Anna kept shooting lighting, determined to win this fight. She kept shooting and shooting, spinning around in order to hit all the wolves she could. It was like a dance. A dance of blood, electricity and hate. Wolves fell down electrocuted, but some came back up again. And then they joined the fray once more. Wolves kept falling, but Anna¡¯s resistance was falling just as well. Blood poured out of the countless wounds she had gotten, blood poured out of the countless wounds the wolves had gotten. The ground was stained pure red with their blood.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. When the wolves number had fallen down to a mere 30, suddenly every single wolf left the area at once, seemingly fleeing from something. Anna looked confused at their backs as they flew, but for a single instant, she felt relieved. Then, she felt a chill go down her spine. She tried to look back, only to see a pair of red eyes with vertical slits rapidly approaching her. When she noticed, her face was already being held against the ground by someone¡¯s hand, leaving her only the bare minimum space so she could breathe. She heard a voice coming right beside her ear, giving her the chills: A figure stood above her, holding her head in place. It was a figure with an open stomach, blood dripping down from his wound. Red eyes looked over her. It was Reed. Still holding Anna¡¯s head against the ground, Reed kept talking while breathing roughly from the pain. Saying so, Reed started to roughly and strongly rub Anna¡¯s face against the ground. Barely being able to scream, Anna¡¯s face got its skin and meat scraped off, making her into an unrecognizable mess. Stopping for a bit, Reed said: Before Anna could finish her sentence, Reed started to pound her head against the ground. Making loud sounds everytime her head got slammed, Anna eventually started to give up. Stopping his onslaught, Reed looked down at Anna. Her face had become disfigured beyond recognition. She was barely surviving. Reed let Anna get up, and then held her by the neck. Reed¡¯s dragon like eyes looked at Anna with a sharp gaze, seeing through what she was going to do. Anna put her hand over Reed¡¯s stomach and started an incantantion. When she finished, Reed¡¯s wound mostly closed off, but there was still an ugly scar left from where it used to be, dripping with a little blood and hurting badly. Judging by the time she took to do it, Anna seems to not be as good in healing as she is in attack magic. After that, Reed let Anna heal her own face. She mostly managed to heal everything, but an scar was left going from her forehead to her left cheek, crossing through her eye. Her eye was also whitened out, she was most likely blind from that eye now. Dragging Anna by the neck, Reed started on his way back to the tower. ¡°Grrrr¡­¡± Out of nowhere, growls came out from all around. And with that, Reed kept dragging Anna along with him. His vertical slit eyes shone a dangerous glint in the forest. Chapter 18 - Taming the Witch After arriving at the tower, Reed shoved Anna inside the tower and entered himself, cape floating in the wind. Anna, after being released, rubbed her neck and looked at Reed with sharp eyes. Reed had been feeling leakages of mana coming from Anna¡¯s room during the night, so he guessed she must have been doing something like that. Reed eyes shined, still dragonic like in appearance, meaning he still was in his most powerful state. Going down into the magic research room, Reed started searching for a book on slavery magic.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. While he did, Anna tried to escape, but before she could, Reed disappeared and reappeared in front of her. Continuing his search, Anna tried to escape multiple times, but every time she got blocked, until Reed found a book on rituals that contained the slavery ritual. Reed grabbed Anna by the scruff of her neck and dragged her towards the ritual room, on the third upper floor. Anna looked annoyed at the way she was being handled. Going inside the room, Reed got some incubus blood from one of the vials in the room, and started to draw a large circle in the center of the room, where there was a large empty space. While he was doing that, Anna kept trying to escape again, to no avail. Finished with the circle, Reed dragged Anna into the middle of it and put her there. Then he got outside the circle and said: Reed passed a piece of paper to Anna. Anna seemed deep in thought for a while, but eventually she sighed and and resigned herself to her fate. Chanting a long incantation, the circle Anna stood on started to shine while weird words were being recited. Reed stood by the side looking at the book on slavery rituals. He had to make sure she was doing it correctly. The circle¡¯s light started to die down, and Anna was finally finished with her chant. The circle disappeared, and then the ritual was done. Anna looked nervous as she asked Reed, and he answered Looking depressed, Anna hung her head low. Reed looked at her as if looking at trash. Anna and Reed then went up the stairs, and when they were about to enter their rooms, Reed suddenly said: Saying nothing, Reed then went towards Anna, put his hand on her head, and roughly pet her. Then, still in silence, he turned his back at her and entered his room. Anna stood there for a moment, looking confused. And then she blushed red. Screaming into the night, Anna entered her room and slammed the door shut. Reed, inside his room, thought to himself: ¡°Her head is really pettable¡°. And with that, Reed had acquired a magic slave for himself, and a contact with the magic confederation. Chapter 19 - Eneergy The next day, upon waking up, Reed noticed something. His eyes still had vertical slits. And he still could feel the energy from before flowing through his body. It didn¡¯t go away even after one day. Maybe it¡¯s because he managed to use the power without enhancing his brain? Reed wondered how long it would stay like that, but for now he went down into to the tower¡¯s courtyard. He wanted to check something. Coming into the courtyard, Reed called over his wolves. Upon their appearance, he started counting them. In total, there are only 30 wolves left now. 70 of the wolves died in the battle against Anna. When he finished checking the wolves numbers, Anna, looking sleepy, came down into the courtyard. Before Anna could say anything, Reed made a tendril from his cape and launched it at her, trying to attack her chest. Anna opened her eyes wide and quickly jumped back, making the tendril hit the ground where she stood on. Anna looked annoyed at Reed. She was being a lot more expressive since the fight they had. Reed glanced back at Anna for a moment, and said: Leading Anna behind him, Reed went towards the clearing were they had the fight yesterday. In there, the corpses of wolves were all scattered about, most of them charred from electricity. Reed and Anna arrived at the clearing, and then Reed looked at Anna and said: A dangerous glint appeared in Reed¡¯s eyes, and he made multiple tendrils appear from his cape. Sulking, Anna helped Reed carry back the corpses to the tower, Reed also used his tendrils to make the job easier, and after every corpse had been transported, Reed got some shovels out of the tower and made Anna dig holes together with him.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. When they were done with the digging, and all the corpses had been buried, Reed closed his eyes and stayed quiet for a minute. Anna looked over from the side, bored. Then, Reed decided to start the training for the day. Of course, the training went way differently than normal. After all, Reed was now strong enough to make holes in trees with the sheer air pressure from his punches, and fast enough to disappear while moving. Anna looked at Reed stupefied while he did basic training in a buffed state. Eventually Reed stopped, and started to do his mana enhancing training. Anna changed to a serious expression and started looking intensely at Reed. Reed was about to start enhancing his muscles, when he noticed a weird source of power besides his mana inside his body. If asked to describe it, Reed would say: ¡°Mana is like a river flowing through you, but that energy was like air flowing through you¡± Of course, no one besides Reed would understand that explanation. Anyways, Reed noticed this energy and tried to manipulate it, but it was impossible. Just like air, it flowed through Reed, but was impossible to touch and move around. It seemed it¡¯s only purpose was to be there and flow through Reed. Reed had a guess as to what the purpose of this ¡°energy¡± was. It was probably the source of the power he exhibits when his eyes become vertical slits. Looking at the way it flowed and did whatever it wanted, Reed labeled the power flowing through him ¡°energy¡±, something different from the ¡°mana¡± everybody uses. Reed then proceeded to try and test some things out. For example, what would happen if he enhanced his body while in this state? Would his powers grow even more? Reed then tried to use his usual method of enhancing body parts, by accumulating his mana in a specific part of his body. When he did, though¡­ An unimaginable pain started to flow through the entirety of his body, especially in the part where he had accumulated mana. The pain was so strong, Reed couldn¡¯t even scream properly. From the side, Anna looked intrigued by what was happening. It seemed she didn¡¯t plan on helping. Reed tried to remove the mana from the part where it was accumulated at, but that only served to make the mana start going wild inside of his body, increasing his pain. For a time that seemed longer than it was, Reed kept trying to endure the pain and control the mana wildly moving about inside his body. After many failed attempts and explosions of pain, he finally succeeded. Anna asked, more interested in the phenomenon than worried about Reed. Reed couldn¡¯t bother to answer her, as he was trying to recover. The wolves around Reed were looking worried as they approached him, after seeing he had calmed down. Reed patted their heads to let them know he was okay. After getting back enough energy to reply Anna, Reed said: Reed was too tired to continue training today or to go hunting, so he retired himself and went to read some books in the library. For a pretty long time, Anna followed him along and pestered him to tell her about the source of his power, but after seeing he wouldn¡¯t answer, she also picked a book from the library, sat beside Reed and started to read. After night came, Reed and Anna ate dinner, Reed pet Anna¡¯s head, annoying her, and the both of them went to sleep.