A different POV

A cold wind was blowing in the slums.

Step by step, a little girl was walking towards the light coming from the market area. Her hair was darker than black, her eyes were like small pieces of gold, her beautiful face was stained with mud and blood stains. Her body looked so frail that no one could imagine that she was already 7-year-old.

Step by step, she was getting closer to her goal.

She was hungry.

Silently, she has approached the marketplace. Many magic lanterns were illuminating the street. However, no matter how much light there was, nobody seemed to be able to see the little girl walking past them.

Finally, she found what she was looking for. Something to eat.

A smile full of white teeth appeared on her face.

She walked toward a corner of the marketplace, where the light was dim and sat there.

She waited. Minutes passed, until an hour or so went by.

Then, a man, with his clothes in complete disorder entered the corner where the little girl was. The man stank of alcohol and women’s fragrance. He was looking for a place where he could rearrange his composure before going back home.

However, as he was trying to condense mana to sooth his mind a bit, he could feel a tiny icy cold grip on his leg.

A chill ran down his spine as he quickly retreated by few steps before falling on his back. The cloudiness he felt earlier was completely cleared by the fear in his heart. The leg which had been touched earlier had become completely numb. He couldn’t feel anything past his hip.

His body was shaking uncontrollably while beads of sweats were rolling down his body.

“H-Help… Please… Stop….”

However, no one heard his plea. At least, no one who could come to help.

The little girl walked up to the man, her golden eyes still locked on his face, drool coming from her mouth. Her slender hand reached the other leg and in a flash, both legs of the man were paralyzed.

“Please… Spare me… If you want something please tell me! I’ll give you anything!”

The man had already lost his wits completely and was earnestly begging for his life.

The little girl tilted her head and started thinking.

Seeing this, a ray of hope flashed through the man’s eye.

“Can you… become tastier?”

Hearing her angelic voice, the man was first charmed before being thrown ruthlessly back to reality.

Ta… Tastier? She wants to eat me?!

“W-Wait! Is milady a vampire? If you want blood I know some people worthier of milady than me!”

“No… I am… not a vampire…”

The man thought that she belonged to those creatures which fed upon the blood of the living, that way he could maybe bargain his way out. However, when she contradicted his belief, the man became startled.

“W-why…”

Darkness invaded his mind, as his soul was being sucked dry by the little girl.

“Not really tasty…”

In front of the little girl, a mummified version of the man’s remains was left. Meanwhile, the black hair of the little girl started to glow before turning completely white. Her complexion became way better. Her frail body became more fitting for a girl of her age. She seemed to have recovered from a serious disease as if nothing ever happened.

Her eyes still fixated on the man in front of her, the little girl let out a small sigh.

“It didn’t taste good…”

//

It has been a year already since Lucifer met Syndra. He had grown slightly taller but still looked like the child he was. His innocent smile had become deadly for Syndra.

She had become more and more attached to Lucifer and Mephis.

Indeed, she was at first suspicious toward Lucifer when she found him talking to himself when he thought that he was alone. It was only when she heard Mephis’ name that she finally understood that Lucifer had some kind of split personality, and her beliefs were affirmed by Vel since he too noticed that depending on his eyes color, and the shape of the cross on his forehead, his abilities were different.

This, only made her feel even more pity for him. She decided to adopt him first because he possessed the blood of one of her kin, but mostly because she didn’t want to see a child run toward his death. The latter was mainly due to her motherly instinct which became more rampant since her child would soon be born. She thought that she couldn’t let her child let himself be blinded by his feeling and try something reckless.

Thus, she intended to stop Lucifer when she saw him leaving the cave at night on the day they met. But she decided to just follow him and intervene only if he was in danger. And when he was fighting the vicious coyotes she also refrained herself from helping him, she wanted him to experience his own foolishness. She wouldn’t have done if she didn’t have the means to heal him afterward. But when she saw that he somehow managed to kill all of the vicious coyotes and partially heal himself with the gray mist. She was thoroughly shocked at that moment. Although she had witnessed the same thing earlier that day, she had just thought that it was related to some kind of treasure he held on him, not something which could be activated every time he wished for it. A child like him possessing such strong a self-regeneration ability made her mouth twitch for a while before she brought him back home.

Since then, she decided that she should just scold and punish for that night matters and not let him endanger himself again recklessly. However, she hadn’t expected that the very next day, Vel would send the child in the forest as an errand boy. And no matter what she said to persuade him to not do it again, Vel just promised her that nothing would happen to him while he was here. So, she just gave up and let him did his things. However, after two weeks, nearly all the monsters in the forest knew about a human shaped child who has had the smell of a dragon and was being protected by two powerful snakes. Thus, they started to ignore him when they saw him roaming around as long as he didn’t harbor any malicious feeling toward them.

This news was like a blessing for Lucifer, he nearly cried a tear of joy when he noticed that they didn’t want to chase him to the end of the earth again. However, Vel didn’t like that news one bit. Thus, he decided to switch his ‘training’ regiment.

That was the excuse he gave to Lucifer for what he did.

‘During those past two weeks, you may not have gained any stats but you familiarized yourself with your body by and now you know your limits.’

When Lucifer heard this, he bit Vel’s thigh with all his might. He needed to vent out his anger on Vel for playing with his life when he could have achieved his goal in a safer way.

However, he soon wished for those days to come back again.

Since Vel couldn’t have fun looking at him risk his life for his errands, he decided to directly start his training. Although he gave Lucifer a staff to fight, he didn’t teach him anything at all, because he was too lazy to think about it. But, the main reason was that he found it way more fun for him to ask him an impossible task. Thus, since sending him in the forest couldn’t entertain him anymore, he decided to take Lucifer’s training seriously.

He divided Lucifer’s daily routine in multiple segments.

In the morning, Lucifer will have ‘body tempering’. Since Lucifer’s body was a bit special, Vel just used that fact as an excuse to explain his ‘righteous’ methods. In few words, he overextends each muscle of Lucifer’s body until the latter couldn’t move. Afterward, he’d wait for him to recover before following up with the ‘speed test’. This ‘test’ was basically Vel firing spells at Lucifer and the latter needed to run in order to dodge them. For that, he chose to use water balls.

When Lucifer saw that they were as big as a peanut, he wanted to laugh at Vel since water balls were renown for not having too much firepower. Until the latter shattered the ground next to him with it. Since then, Lucifer didn’t dare look down on any kind of magic anymore. At least, when Vel was the one casting the spell, it was too ridiculous for him.

The ‘body tempering’ and the ‘speed test’ were there to ‘lightly’ start the day. Those words were spoken by Vel, and of course, no one believed it. Even the System which was silent about it for a long time, reacted when it heard those words.

System Host should stay far away from this creature named Vel. Safety will be increased by three folds.

Lucifer wanted to flee when he saw that message, but how could he while Vel had his gaze locked on him? So he could only endure and suffer.

After the ‘warm up’ was done. It was time for martial art.

Martial arts… I always wished I could learn some but father didn’t know any. Hum… And from what I’ve heard before, it should not be dangerous as long as I don’t try some moves which are out of my reach.

Those were Lucifer’s last good thoughts on martial arts.

The best way to learn how to fight with a staff is to feel your shortcomings with your body and compensate them with your staff. Be it in offense, defense, counters or preemptive strikes, you can use a staff for every of those things. And Vel taught that to Lucifer the hard way, by making him fight him for every single day.

His goal was simple. Make him stronger and use to fighting someone stronger than him.

However, his means were ruthless. In their first fight, let alone attacking with his staff, Lucifer couldn’t even keep it in his hand. Each time Vel struck, he’d try to defend to avoid being it at full force but he would lose his grip on his staff afterward while being blasted away. And this went on for few days before he could keep his staff while being blasted away.

This was basically what Lucifer’s morning was about. After a year, this training allowed him to unlock many things. Such as the title {Masochist}.

Masochist Pain has thoroughly enshrined itself in your body. Pain has become something you can find pleasure in.

Tears have been spilled the day Lucifer unlocked this. He felt as if he had lost something important. At least, besides that title, he had unlocked many useful things. Among his aptitudes, he unlocked {Resilient Body}, {Minute Subtlety}, {One With The Staff}, {Undying Will}.

Resilient Body The User’s body has been through something which his on the edge of sanity but his body has become stronger in the process. Strength +7 Endurance +7 Minute Subtlety The User has reached a state where he has perfect control over every move of his body. Dexterity +5 Agility+5 Perception +2 Undying Will Despite the rashness of what he experienced, the user never gave up. Intelligence +1 Wisdom +1 One With The Staff Your staff has become an extension of your body. Skills related to it will have a faster growth.

As for skills, Lucifer had to admit that, in a very crooked point of view, Vel was a good teacher. Since Vel didn’t make him follow any kind of technique and let him develop himself by creating his own moves in order to ‘fight back’, Lucifer unlocked {Fallen Star Style}. Unlike most skills, martial arts-related skills were composed of ‘volumes’. At grade 10, the user would have access to the knowledge for a move related to that martial art, and he will unlock more moves as his proficiency, thus grade, goes up.

Fallen Star Style grade 10 The Devil’s own style to shake his world and crave a crimson path towards his goal.

-Limbo’s Touch: Use your mana to make your strikes impossible to defend against.

-???

The first thing Lucifer thought when he saw this was: overpowered. However, when he tried it for the first time, let alone the 150 mana points he needed to consume were enough to frighten him, with his current strength he could even leave a single scratch on Vel even if the latter was letting himself get hit.

However, this year worth of morning practice was definitely worth for him. And thankfully, Mephis also benefited from it. Sine Vel changed their daily routine and his stats distribution were more mana management oriented, he couldn’t survive through the living hell in the morning.

At noon, Syndra would take care of him and bring some food. She also decided to take on a human shape in order to try to cook for him. Since she was used to eating what she hunted raw in her snake form, her culinary skills were another type of challenge for Lucifer. Enough of a challenge to upgrade his {Low Poison Resistance} in {Medium Poison Resistance}. But, since she made all these efforts in order to make him something good to eat, Lucifer would always show a satisfied smile when he was eating, though his {Masochist} helped him a lot from the moment he got it.

The afternoon was dedicated to magic practice. This was Mephis’ turn to take over the body.

Vel offered to Mephis the possibility to learn other types of magic as long as Mephis could manage. Since possessing two different elements was already considered quite good in the outside world, he didn’t know to what extent he could teach him. However, since he was his ‘son’ he didn’t doubt about his proficiency in magic. However, as always, his teaching style was one to be feared.

Since Maphis could already use wind and earth magic, in order to increase his control over those elements he gave him multiple ‘minor’ tasks.

For instance, he had to use his wind magic to cut, polish and transport large quantities of rocks. Then, he had to rely on his earth magic to shape each rock in specific objects which were previously chosen by Vel. And he had to do as many as possible without wasting any mana.

Using both elements successively many times in a row took a huge toll on Mephis psyche but this allowed to familiarize himself with multiple casting.

With time, his control became better and both magic ranked up to grade 8 by the end of the year. However, it was Mephis wishful thinking if he thought that things would stop here.

When Vel offered to him to unlock fire and lightning magic, Mephis had stars in his eyes as he very wished to learn those.

“The best way is to feel them.”

The smile on Vel’s face was as friendly as a smile could be, but the meaning behind his words made Mephis had a shiver run down his spine, while Lucifer was shutting down his senses, too afraid to see what will happen next.

Mephis tried to escape, before being struck down by a lightning bolt, multiple times, while Vel was asking him if he was feeling the depth of the lightning element.

Syndra was alarmed when she saw those lightning strikes coming down one after another. Vel had told her earlier that day that he’d use the most efficient method since his time was limited, but she didn’t expect that it’d be to that extent. However, she restrained herself and didn’t act, thinking that it was for Lucifer’s wellbeing.

It took a whole week of consecutive electrocution for Mephis to unlock {Lightning Magic} and another week of burning hell to unlock {Fire Magic}. Vel offered his help for other types of magic but Mephis flat out refused. He was starting to lose it with the {Masochist} title.

Then, this was the daily life of Mephis and Lucifer for a year. Both lightning and fire magic ranked up and became grade 9, and they were also available for Lucifer. Whereas wind and earth magic weren’t.

Today was the day. Vel will leave and Lucifer would start his journey.

At first, he didn’t want to leave yet. He was having a good life with Syndra, and his little sister was about to be born. But Vel insisted that he had to leave and explore the world, broaden his horizon and do what he wished to do. These words reminded him, his origins and why he wished for strength. He had never forgotten and never would, but during this year, he set it aside, focusing himself on what was happening around him. However, he couldn’t stay idle anymore, he needed to leave and start his vengeance.

Vel taught him about the current state of the world. It had evolved in way too many ways. The power of the churches was even more frightening than before and was growing stronger with time. If he wished to kill all those who stand between him and the gods, he didn’t have any more time to waste.

Thus, after convincing Syndra that he needed to leave, he decided to prepare for his trip. And he needed only one thing: clothes. Simply put, he was butt naked for a year already. At first, he found it strange but quickly grew accustomed to it. However, if he were to meet with the members of the races while being naked, it might be bad.

Vel brought him some nice clothes. Black boots, red pants, black belt, white shirt and a black vest. Those were ordinary clothes, but altogether, they looked a bit strange on a 7-year-old boy.

“Luc, you need to come back at least once a year, okay?”

Syndra was intently looking at Lucifer eyes, making the latter advert his gaze in embarrassment.

“Yes… I will! I still need to see my little sister!”

“Humpf! At least you know what’s good for you. If I don’t see you in a year’s time, I’ll come for you and spank your ass in public and in front of your little sister!”

A wry smile appeared on Lucifer’s face.

I can’t feel pain anymore…

A shiver ran down his spine as he didn’t dare to think any further.

“Luc, before I leave, I’ll give you something.”

Vel handed a little bottle with a red liquid in it to Lucifer.

“What is it?”

“My blood. You can use blood skills, right? Well, if you run in a dire situation, I think my blood will be of a great help to you. Although I don’t know to what extent, at least I think you should be able to make something out of it.”

“Thanks, uncle!”

Lucifer received the bottle and with a wide smile, while Vel was crying in his heart.

I am not your uncle! But your dad! You ungrateful brat! At least recognize me!

Vel wished to tell him the truth about him, but it would only bring him trouble, no, it would the reason of his death with his current strength.