“Mother! Mother!”

My head hurts. I can’t think straight. Who am I?

“Why is it that you only look at him?”

My body feels weak and sluggish. I lost control over it. Where am I?

“Mom look! I learned the same sword style as big brother!”

What is this feeling? I hate it.

“Why is it that you only smile at him?”

Dark energy keeps flowing through me. It’s making me stronger.

“Mother! I...”

I stabbed my mother. I smiled. I laughed. I felt relieved. The vision scatters.

“Haha…”

Everything is over. It’s over. The thing I’ve been carrying all along. I feel great.

“Hahahahahahahahaha…”

So this is how it feels. It feels great. Power. Strength. My whole body is overflowing with it. No one will stand in my way.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

In this world, power is everything. If you’re weak, you won’t last long. If you’re weak, no one will love you. If you’re weak… you’re nothing.

“If I kill all the strong, even though I’m weak, I’ll be the strongest.”

Then I’ll rebuild this world. With this power, I’m going to make a world where everyone's the same. Everything I hate will vanish. Everyone that looked down upon me, will die.

“I hate this world.”

***

I transformed back into my human form. Dark energy kept oozing out of my body. Currently, the mark on my chest already covered almost my whole body. The only thing that isn’t covered is the head. Though that is the case, the mark is slowly crawling upwards, devouring all in its way.

I stood up, my side took some serious damage from Lance from the exchange earlier. Thanks to the dark energy, the wound is slowly recovering and the pain is easing up. I tried using the dark energy to make the pain in my head ease up as well but it doesn’t work and it actually made it worse.

With Lance in his berserk state, he completely lost his sanity. He was rampaging around the vicinity, attacking all that is in its way. With Bel pushed out of the way, she was laying on the ground at the side of the area. She was safe for now but with Lance rampaging around, sooner or later, she will get caught up with all the commotion going around.

She seems to be in pain as well. I didn’t really hold my strength back when I shoved her to the side because everything happened so fast. Since Bel received a full force of my tackle, she cannot get up and run away but I couldn’t care less. Right now, there’s only one thing I have in mind. And that is ‘to kill’. I want to kill the stronger ones, I want to know the limit of what I can achieve with this power.

I smiled. I don’t know what kind of smile is on my face right now. I figured it was an evil smile but I couldn’t care less. I don’t know why but I’m feeling better when I’m having these thoughts. The pain in my head recedes a bit as well. I wonder if it will be gone if I kill a couple of people here.

I laughed. Power is truly marvelous!

I shadowed travel towards Lance. In an instant, I traveled a couple of meters and arrived at the back of Lance. I immediately punched his sides and he got blown away. So much for being the second strongest in the pack. I immediately looked for another opponent. Unfortunately, there’s no one worthy around.

Just as I was thinking of going to a different location, I sensed a slight movement towards my rear. I reacted to the small movement and dodged the attack. Lance shadowed travel as I did earlier. I guess his body is overflowing with energy especially in a full moon so I guess he won’t be taken down easily. Good! Small fries won’t give me the fun that I wanted.

With Lance going on a full rampage, his attacks can be easily read. There are no techniques behind it, only brute strength. He thought that he will win with strength alone but I’m here to shatter his thoughts! After I sidestepped his attack, I countered with another punch, this time, I aimed it towards his jaw.

Having received my attack, Lance once again flew away for a couple of meters. Even with the huge buff in power, if he cannot wield it properly, it will become useless. The Lance right now isn’t in a condition where he can manage his newly found powers properly.

Unfortunately, I cannot belittle the power received from the Gods above. Lance stood once again and all the wounds he received from my attacks earlier slowly healed. Though it’s not as fast as the regenerative properties of the dark energy, it’s still pretty decent.

Thus, I needed to end this fight before it drags on. I shadowed travel to his location once again before he healed his wounds. I punched his sides once more and followed up with a kick towards his temple. The power exerted through this exchange is simply amazing! I laughed towards the punching bag I’m facing right now.

“What’s up, Lance? Aren’t you the second strongest? What’s wrong? Why can’t you fight back?” The feeling I’m having in my heart is awesome. Being toyed around for so long, I can finally vent my anger towards my younger brother that bullied me. I laughed and laughed while keeping my barrage of attacks.

After a while, my body is covered with blood, though it’s not mine but Lance’s. He was laying in front of me, finally unconscious. With the moon’s powers, Lance is still slowly regenerating but I concluded that once he regained his consciousness, his berserk state will be long gone, and the power boost will be disabled as well. Such, there is no more reason to stay here.

I looked around and I saw Bel. She somehow recovered from the incident earlier and was now standing while supporting herself with a tree branch. She was staring at me, frightened. I smiled. She shivered. Yes, the Kane she knew is gone. I now have the power to change everything. I laughed and I continued to walk towards the deeper parts of the mountains, hoping to encounter more clansmen.

“Master, wait!” Seeing me leaving, Bel tried to call out to me. She was confused, she wanted an explanation to all of this. I turned around and stared at her. Since she has done a lot for me, I won’t harm her but if she tried to stop me, I won’t hesitate to retaliate.

“You’re not Master Kane, what have you done to him?” Bel was crying, she cannot accept the fact that I’m the master she cared for so much. Her master was now standing in front of him, covered with both blood and dark energy while having an evil look on his face. She cannot accept what she’s seeing at the moment and I don’t care.

“What do you mean? I’m Kane. It’s just that… I’ve finally awakened.” After I said that, I turned around going deeper in the forest. No matter what Bel shouted, I didn’t turn back. I don’t have time for this. I finally obtained the power I wanted. It’s a waste not to use it.

I sighed. “What do you want?” I turned around once more and I saw Bel shadowed travel towards my rear. I didn’t evade since I doubt she will do anything to me. After she materialized, she tackled me and hugged me.

“Master, wake up! Don’t let the dark energy devour you!” She was crying while holding me tight. My head suddenly felt a sharp pain. After she touched me, something resonated inside of me, and it gave an unpleasant feeling. I don’t like it.

“Let go of me!” I tried to shove her away once more but she firmly held onto me. My head is about to burst so I used more strength to push her away from me. Being weak because of the incident earlier, Bel finally let go after facing a huge amount of pressure coming from me.

The pain in my head is gradually getting worse. I need to kill more. The stronger they are, the better. Or else, I’m starting to get insane. My eyes got darker and when I was about to leave, I felt a strong presence arriving.

At that moment, I knew that this is it. If I defeat this person, my head will be fine, everything will be fine. I can’t stand back to this. This is what I’ve been finding.

I turned around and looked towards the direction of the approaching presence. It was slowly approaching the area and it was giving a huge amount of pressure to whoever faced it. I smiled. I knew who this person was.

There was only one person that can give this kind of strong aura, my eldest brother. The alpha. If I defeat this person, then my mother… NO! I’m not the same Kane anymore. I don’t care about my mother. I don’t care about anyone.

After suppressing the feeling inside me, I looked towards my prey. He slowly walked towards the vicinity. After a while, he scanned the area and saw Lance unconscious on the side. His brows slightly twitched and he turned his vision towards my position.

“Kane, did you do this?” Seemingly noticing the oozing dark energy revolving around my body, his face darkened further. I’m sure that he received a call or something to suppress Lance since he went berserk, probably from the butler earlier since he was nowhere to be seen at the moment.

“Yeah, what about it?” I provoked him further. I wanted to get on a fight with him.

“I see. Then, I guess there are no rooms for words then?” His face was serious, I knew that when I fight him, the chances of me winning was close to none. However, that was when I was a weakling. Right now, I have this power that can change the world and I’m going to start with him.

I laughed. Then he disappeared. He’s fast but I activated my own shadow travel as well and transported into a different location.

The fight finally started.