“Why are you so poor? Isn't your mother the minister of power?” Miles looked at the orbs on the ground with disdain.

“You bastard!” Howled the captive, one-armed Takeji.

“Speak!” Miles commanded.

“I will say nothing, you scum. Vermin, you worthless piece of sh—”

SLAP!

Miles slapped his face. He fell to the ground with a bloody mouth and missing teeth.

“What is your aim? What do you want from me?” Takeji said with a wronged face. “Just kill me!”

“Tell my friends what have you done with the two girls,” Miles said calmly as he looked at Xavic and Zall. Both were sitting and staring at the ground spiritlessly.

“What will you do after that?” He looked at Miles with a self-mocking smile. “Will you let me go?”

“What do you think?” Miles looked at him with an emotionless face. “I killed your sister and cut off your arm. What would your mother do to me if I were to let you go?”

“She would kill you.” He said but Miles's face wasn’t panicked at all.

“Could she?” Miles snickered. “I hate to use my last name to scare people off, but I will let you know before you die.”

“My name is Miles Cross.”

Takeji looked at Miles with his eyes wide open. Fine sweat started to form on his forehead.

“You can’t be!” He shook his head vigorously. “I know all the Cross! You can’t be one of them.”

“That doesn’t matter anyway. You will die, I will live. Your mother will not suspect me at all, so she will not be able to test her power on Cross Family.”

“Why do you have so little orbs?” Miles asked again.

“We detonated most of them, about twenty of them to keep our distances with the centipedes.”

“What happened to two girls?”

“We tied them to a tree and filled their bags with orbs. When the mons— when the monsters were close, we de— detonated them with the monsters!”

As soon as Zall and Xavic heard this, their faces gained spirit again. Xavic rose to his feet and approached the tied teen. With a kick, he knocked the bastard out.

“I am sorry, both of you, but I had to do this.” Miles apologized sincerely. He wouldn’t want to taint his two friends, but if they were to keep on hunting, they had to wake up.

“Bro — Miles,” Zall started, but looked ashamed. “I know what you want to do, and I understand it is important. Sorry, I doubted you and thought you were a cruel person, and I would continue thinking so if I didn’t hear him confessing.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Miles. Without you, we would trust three of them and maybe die.” Xavic chimed in.

“It is fine as long as you understand.” Miles sighed and looked at Zall, “I know you are not comfortable with injuring any creature, and I respect that. You have the power to act as you wish, but it will not always be like this. In the F-Circle, there are many different powers, and people there can do crazy things. I don’t want you guys to change, and I sincerely believe that you two are a rare bunch among humans, but I also don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Thanks, Bro Miles!” Zall said while looking at Takeji. “What are we gonna do about him?”

“We can’t have him die easily,” Xavic said with his teeth gnashed. He walked up to the bound teen and stepped on his fingers. With a cracking voice, screams reverberated in the opening. Miles looked at Xavic with surprise. He was hesitant to kill a person a while back, but now he was torturing another one. It wasn’t that bizarre, in Miles's point of view, but Miles wasn’t like Zall or Xavic. Even since he was born, his family taught him how and why he should kill people crossing their family.

But it was understandable too. In Miles's opinion, humans were no different from animals or monsters. From the beginning of his life, many animals were killed for him. For being eaten, to be used for clothes or other purposes, and many humans died to secure his survival, to provide him more opportunities, so on and so forth. Even Miles killed people to save himself from pain or death and had no qualms about it so far.

From Zall’s looks, Miles could say he was the same. Be it humans, plants, monsters, and even the smallest insects. He was against hurting any of them, but he also knew the necessity of doing so, thus had no problem with coping afterward. Since monsters died, he would eat them, since humans died, he would loot them. Why waste things because he was against the idea?

But Xavic was different. His pure mind was shaped by the concept of sanctity of human life. He never thought of taking another person’s life, and would never do so if it wasn’t for Miles. It was naive, very much so, but it was his worldview, which may be the cause of his superpower. His will in life was so strong, his superpowers manifested as incapacitating and healing his adversaries. He, unwillingly, awakened a superpower that would prevent him from killing his targets.

But the same person, as soon as he heard the dark side of this same enemy, started to torture him. Which baffled Miles greatly. ‘Humans shouldn’t be this complex right?’

‘He probably doesn’t see him as a human being anymore. As soon as he heard what he did to two girls, he stopped seeing him as a human. But it isn’t a pretext to deceive himself. He isn’t aware of his train of thoughts. It all happens emotionally. In his heart, killing people who had harmed innocents is just.

Then what am I? I don’t kill innocents, but my idea of innocence is different from Xavic’s. All people staying away from my way are innocent, and I don’t have any lust for their blood, but any man who would aim to harm me would be the most sinful person on the globe, and I wouldn’t stop until he was dead. Do I think I am wrong? Not at all. Do I have any guilt? Again, not at all. I just reached this enlightenment earlier than Zall and Xavic.