-Vol 5: A New Life-

-Chapter 223-

The red light was like water that broke from a dam, it gushed out of his body and flooded the whole area, covering everything in a red hue. The benches, the leaves, even individual sands in the sandbox, everything was surrounded in this red hue, forming a membrane around them.

The curious thing was that despite it flooding the whole area and illuminating it; there was not a single person present to marvel them. It's like they all suddenly vanished from the area on their own accord. And Kenshin was still in a state of nothingness while the red light gushing out of his body and pillared to the sky.

But, although no normal people saw that, didn’t mean hunters of certain power didn’t see it too. In Mito, there are not many hunters who had surpassed level 50. Despite it being a capital of a prefecture, Mito’s lack of high-level dungeon means that it didn’t have powerful hunters of its own. Those few who were within Mito dropped whatever they were doing and focus on the pillar of red light that was visible from somewhere within the Mito. Their faces held complicated looks like they couldn't decide whether they should be happy or prepare for some form of disaster.

Low-level hunters might not know this, but those who had surpassed level 50 knew what this red light implied. It was a signal, a prelude to the appearance of a special individual.

The unique one.

First came the WIL, then came the Intent. But this Intent has many evolutionary paths that it could follow, for example, a person striving to become a skilled marksman could evolve their intent into that direction. Making him very skilled in marksmanship, similarly, a swordsman could evolve their Intent to become a skilled and deadly swordsman. Whatever their skill set may be, their Intent will make that powerful and evolve to another degree. But, many others could also achieve that kind of Intent, so there was no lack of evolved Intent users in this world.

But these Unique ones were a little different. The skill sets they develop and evolve due to their Intent will never be achieved by anyone else ever, be it present or future. Due to this unique property of their evolved Intents, it gives an edge to them over everyone else, even among other unique ones.

In gaming terms, It was like having a rare, unique class that one received after a special event. Except for their person, no one else would have that class ever as long as the game runs.

Not knowing wheater the person was a friend or foe, the high-class hunters felt a pressure weighing them down from the appearance of this unknown unique one.

XXX

Kenshin was in a special state of mind, like how he was when he awakened the skill Opposites. This time, instead of observing a world dying and reviving, again and again, he saw something strange. It’s an umbrella. That’s right, it’s a folded umbrella floating in front of him. It looked old and worn out, he could even see patches here and there sewen all over the black cloth. It’s handle though, it didn’t bend in a ‘J’ shape but ended with a tsuba(guard) of a katana completed with a cylindrical handle. A blue colored ribbon was tied to the end of the handle, that floated in the air like it had its own mind.

“This! What the hell is it now? It’s a sword or an umbrella?” Kenshin wondered out loud, but except for his voice echoing back to him, he got nothing else. Sighing again, he reached out an arm towards the umbrella's handle, but the blue ribbon suddenly floated in front and wrapped around his hand, preventing him from advancing.

“Huh! What the hell?” Kenshin applied force, but his hand didn’t budge at all. Getting frustrated, he extended his left hand, but another blue ribbon emerged and stopped his hand from further advancing.

“Hmm! What the…!” he applied even more force, but he could neither push forward nor could pull back. The frail-looking ribbons completely immobilized him. A vein popped in his head, flexing the muscles all over his body, he exerted 500+ strength to pull back. But no matter how much force he uses, he couldn’t even budge the ribbons, let alone pull back his hands. And soon enough he felt tired and ultimately gave up. Just when he loosened his hands, the ribbons also loosened, freeing his hands.

“This is! What’s going on here?” not understanding the meaning behind, he looked dumbly at the floating ribbons. Curiously, he repeated his actions and stopped by the ribbons again. This continued for quite a while until Kenshin deduced that the more he wanted to grab the umbrella, the more it resists. But if he chooses to loosen his grip and not to grab it, the ribbons losses themselves, freeing his hands. It fascinated him greatly.

By now he had already understood that this umbrella was no ordinary thing and it was no dream. Before coming here, he vaguely remembered something snapping inside him, something changing…almost like he gained something from an existing source. He already guessed that the feeling has something to do with this umbrella and him arriving here.

Ultimately he gave up on thinking over it anymore. He knew too little of what happened, and he didn’t want to waste his time here thinking when he can use it on something more productive like finding a way to exiting this mentalscape he was now. How he knew this was a mentalscape? Well, that’s because it's not his first time coming here. Including this time, it's already his 3rd time coming here. Once was when he first obtained Opposites, second when he was consumed by that ??? thing in his status, and finally, today when suddenly out of nowhere he was here, standing before this old fashioned umbrella.

“Sigh! Really? Now what? What the hell happened? Did that ??? increased again? But I am not in any distress or done anything to provoke that ??? to increase, why the hell this happened?” Kenshin sighed in distress, he couldn’t believe this happened even while he was relaxing on a bench. He has such bad luck! What the 200+ LUK it's all fake after all.

What he wanted to know the most after how to return outside was why he was here again. It's just so sudden. Sighing in misery, he looked around him. Just dark and gloomy, the only source of light was this umbrella that was glowing red. He inspected everywhere around but even after, what he assumed to be an hour, he found nothing.

“Sigh! Okay, that’s it. I give up!” Kenshin gave up finally and sat down in front of the floating umbrella at the same time staring at it intently. At that instant, a change occurred on the object. It started to rotate at a very high speed, the red light surrounding it scattered around like it was water stuck on it. Then it rapidly began shrinking until it reduced to the size of a human palm.

Streaking across the dark place, it entered into Kenshin's chest and threw him back from the force it came. Before Kenshin could even scream, he was already lost his consciousness, at the same time a phrase etched into his mind.

“The more you force me, The more I resist!!”