The group of thugs charged in, armed with knives and bats aimed at the fragile boy. Jack was known to lose every fight he participated in due to his weak body. Even when he tried to get stronger, he would only break down due to exhaustion. It was unbearable for him.

Until now.

Screams of the thugs could be heard as he burnt down half of them with his flame slash as he calls it; a power provided to him by his Guardian. He no longer needed to worry about his weak body after signing the contract with him. Not only was he stronger, but also faster and tougher. His heart beat rapidly as he smiled with passion.

He ran towards the group of his enemies, wielding his Resecon Glade—He did not know what it meant, but felt it was a great name—that he used to shoot out the soaring horizontal slash constructed out of fire. He then thrusted the blade of it into the shoulder of one of the thugs, but the skull grabbed his weapon in response to that, holding it down so it would not pull out.

“I’ll give you a chance to surrender if you lead me to your boss. I can probably help your friends over there,” Jack offered, ridding himself of his smile.

“Kill him!”

The others tried stabbing and clubbing him, but it had no effect whatsoever. It pained him to take a life, but if he recalled properly, if someone refused to surrender during a battle, he was allowed to kill…

Get rid of those thoughts, kid.

Yeah, you’re right.

Jack let go of his weapon, letting the thug fall. He gripped the face of one of them and threw him into two others. Then, he sliced off one of the thug’s arms cleanly. He screamed in pain as he lost his arm, blood dripping from the missing body part.

He picked up the thug’s dismembered arm. He smiled as he crushed the arms to pieces with ease. The remaining skulls ran away, fearing their lives would be stolen from them by this demon. Yet he had not killed anyone yet. It disappointed him when he was told that his fire technique lacked the power to last long enough to burn the enemies to death. At best, it only caused breathing problems to the user to knock them unconscious.

You’re the child of a doctor. You’re not supposed to take life.

Jack ignored him and continued on his way. So what if his father was a doctor? He was finally able to win a fight for once, yet… he felt nothing from it. He could see a few more thugs in the distance, but fighting them all would be… pointless.

“I, Jack Ashwood, of the inner city, challenge your leader to a deathmatch! Winner gets control of the town and a sum of one million heri!” he shouted for all to hear.

All he could feel after were gazes from the poor. Watching in awe as he casually called out a large sum of money. With that money, one could easily bribe the guards to forget they saw them, so a criminal gang leader would definitely come out. He waited a long time, yawning as he stood outside alone.

He was just about ready to leave. That was, until suddenly, a disgustingly rotting hand had grabbed onto his leg. Jack stabbed the hand to pull out his foot. His weapon was covered in rotting green blood—slowly dripping off of it. Not a second later, a walking corpse quickly popped out of the ground. Five more just like it slowly dug their bodies out of the ground to surround the boy.

“What the hell are you?” he asked the dead pieces of meat.

Ghouls. Can’t you tell?

“Huh? Does that mean there’s a necromancer nearby?”

Yes, find him and kill him.

"Good to know the rumours' were real at least."

One of the corpses charged at the young redhead, yet he easily melted off its head with the tip of his Resecon Glade. Heat up as it was called was a simpler ability that just allowed him to heat up his weapon or body enough to cut through metal. His power concentrated at the blade of it. With this, he cut through the ghouls as if they were cheese.

The last remaining one took the hit at its heart to hold his weapon in place there. It used that moment to take a bite at him, with its rotting teeth. Jack’s scream sounded through the whole block or all to hear.

I recognize that pain. Kid, a word of advice, if you value your life, don’t get involved with them.

Jack grabbed its skull to rip its head off of the body, tearing out some of his skin along with it. He smashed the head against the ground and crushed it to bits with his foot. Its blood splattered all over his lower body.

“What the fuck are these things?”

Summons from a creation skill. Don’t bother using your left arm, kid.

His left arm laid motionless as the blood drained out of it. The ghoul’s grey saliva covered his wound. It was disgusting. He ripped off a piece of the sleeve from his jacket to bandage the bite mark—he struggled greatly to do so.

He searched the area to find the summoner of the ghouls, but they were nowhere to be found. He could only assume they were hiding and waiting patiently while he was slowly dying from their minions. He could not stand that thought. Cowards hiding while letting the weaker ones handle their responsibility. Manipulative bastards using others to do their work? It made him sick.

Kid… I don’t want you to die here, so I’ll break a rule for your sake. Don’t tell anyone you learnt this from me.

“Huh?”

Can you smell it?

“I have no idea what you’re…”

He stopped talking after noticing something he did not before. The air smelled differently to him. It was a fiendish smell that polluted it. It took a while for him to notice a strong amount of this spell coming from within one of the shitty-made houses.

It was sour. He did not care about the necromancer anymore. He just wanted to get rid of that smell. He charged toward it, he cared not that he was at a disadvantage without his arm. All that matters was to get rid of the current annoyance.

The Guardian cared for his health. He was grateful for that and maybe he would already have known this would happen, but even then, he truly cared enough to help him. Going as far as breaking a rule of some kind, it sounded serious if he was not allowed to tell anyone. Jack however would never back down from a fight. Not until either he or his opponent falls. That’s just how he is.

“Come out necromancer! Let me rid you of that sour smell!” he yelled.

To his surprise, the necromancer actually comes out. He looked confused. Understandable, he probably would not have predicted himself getting caught out so soon. Especially when he could easily just do nothing while his monsters fight. He looked no different than the rest of them, so he should be no stronger than them either.

“Vello hal deor ambucrums!” The skull boss commanded nervously in a language Jack could not understand.

Just as Jack was about to reach the necromancer, four rotting hands grabbed onto his legs. This led to him falling face down into the ground. The ghouls popped up from the ground, eager to take a bite out of him. Even without his left arm, he easily reaped their heads off with one swing.

The skull used that as a distraction to gain some distance away from Jack who did not waste a second after taking care of the rotten corpses. More had come out to bite him, but he outran those before they could get to him.

“Stop running and fight me like a warrior.”

The necromancer responded by waving his hand over the dirt ground. Seconds after he did that, two ghouls dug themselves out of the ground to block Jack’s path. He kept moving. When he reached them, he slid between both of them, barely avoiding the reach of their arms.

The skull necromancer repeated this process with him over and over, as he raised the number of ghouls each time he did it. Nevertheless, Jack would continue to stay moving, until five of them blocked him.

This is getting repetitive. Kid, your weapon should be overloaded with heat right now. Aim for the summoner.

Jack charged his Resecon Glade’s blade with a powerful amount of heat, so much so that it was even able to shoot out the flames that were melting the metal. He released a large flame slash moving quickly towards the summoner. It disintegrated the ghouls in half with ease, leaving the necromancer alone.

He ducked down to avoid it, allowing for Jack to catch up to him, who used his Resecon Glade to stab the necromancer's foot. Although, his weapon’s blade had melted, so he was using the hot metal to pin the skull’s foot to the ground. He could hear his enemy’s scream loud and clear.

“Va amplos milicrum, ise advocus yul!” He cried out in that same word language as before.

What is that language? Jack asked.

It… belongs to my race.

“What?”

Before he could ask him more about it, a hand equipped in swamp green armour grabbed his foot. Jack struggled as much as he could, but he could not even move an inch. The metal gauntlet easily crushed his right foot. Jack wailed a loud and painful wail. It thankfully let him go as he fell down.

The thing that had destroyed his foot burst out of the ground. A knight in a full suit of green armour. Just like the ones in his fairytales. He couldn’t believe it. Yet it was right in front of him, so he had no choice but to believe. And right now, this one stood in his way against the necromancer.

He could not stand up to it. His arm was still motionless and now one of his feet was rendered useless. His weapon had lost its blade and he had no way to combat this enemy. He noticed that the knight did not bother chasing him yet, so he used this opportunity to crawl away before it would change its mind.

“Occide hal!”

The knight chased down his slow moving body to what he could predict would mean the death of him. It was over for him. He should not have let his guard down for a second. He let the powers get to his head. Now all that awaited him was death.

I’ll accept this fate.

You don’t have…

Enough. You helped more than you needed to. Don’t break any more rules for my weak self.

He waited for his death to come. He waited. Yet he wasn’t dead. He quickly turned around to see the knight fading away to dust, as if it was never human in the first place. Why had it stopped? Did the necromancer die?

He looked to the necromancer and saw the body missing a head. It dropped to the floor lifelessly. He had died, but not by his hands. On the wall, there was a metal disk covered in blood. Jack recognized it. It was Revan’s disk. He was saved by the slum kid.

“Hey Revan! I’m here!.”

Revan popped his head out of the corner to see him. He was confused at first, but then noticed the wounds Jack suffered. The poor kid rushed to his aid.

“You look like shit.”

“I can’t move my left arm or my right leg. Can you give me a hand here?”

“Sure, but where are we gonna go to fix you?”

“To the inner city. I’m sure you always wanted to go inside there?”

“What?”