Main Character’s POV:

“Hmm…?” My eyes slid open slowly as a waking feline. Before I could properly grasp my surrounding, a surge of pain stimulated great hurt within me. My bones were chafed, not to mention my torn muscle fibres.

“Shit---” Although I was in pain, a part of me was glad that I was still among the living as well as confused as to why this was.

“Weren’t those Smokepires on top of me?” I wondered. “What the hell happened?”

To garner more knowledge of the situation, I tried lifting my head to look around. I was lying on a pile of rubble in what remained of the mansion while the full brunt of the sun hit me directly through the large orifice in the roof.

“So bright.” I immediately cover my eyes to prevent excessive rays from damaging my ocular nerves. At the same time, I heard Razi calling me while coming over with a bucket in her hand. Her feeble arms were struggling to lift the damn thing.

“Smoke Pac, you’re awake.” She rested the bucket beside my head then took a deep breath before saying, “You had me scared for a while.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her, gazing nonchalantly.

“I almost died because of you.” She held her bosom and explained. “This thing you put in my chest seems to be linked with you deeper than I thought. Last night when those monsters beat you up pretty badly, my heart almost stop and I wasn’t the one getting beat. After you scared them away with that ugly transformation, I had to quickly gather up all the blood I could find to bring you back. I figured it would help and it did. I even fed you some of my blood just to be sure. This bucket here contains the last batch of what I’ve gathered from the corpses.”

“Hmm?” Listening to what Razi spoke of, I directed my eyes to the bucket. She picked it up and brought it over my open chest where she started pouring in all the blood.

“Wow--” I could feel my chest responding joyously to be washed with raw essence. The original Rubik’s Cube absorbed everything until my Blood Bank had been replenished to 26%.

My passive skillset derived from my cumulative Titles was taking effect in the background. Due to their active influence, my Blood Bank was slowly increasing. I reckoned my health would be in tip-top condition in a few hours max.

“How are you feeling now, Smoke Pac?” Razi saw my chest closing on its own after she finished pouring in the blood and became concerned.

“I feel much better now. Thank you.” I stared at Razi and told her how much I appreciated her help. Truly, she had saved my ass in a tough situation. While sitting up straight, I further complimented her, “It was wise of me to not kill you early, but instead keep you enlisted as my slave. Your future might be promising if you stick by me.”

“Seriously?” Razi looked pissed off by what I said. “Is that how you properly thank a lady for nursing you back to good health? You don’t have a bone of respect inside of you, do you?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” I didn’t even waste my breath prolonging the nonsensical argument. Putting full pressure on both legs, I climbed out of the rubble then gave my environment a more intricate view.

“Goddamn, this place is a fucking mess.” What my eyes came across in further detail was the gruesome aftermath of the events that occurred prior to that day. Large chunks of concrete which came from the broken parts of the mansion were scattered all about. Additionally, these concrete placements were painted in a disgusted format by the bloody entrails and burnt guts of the deceased Smokepires that rose from the dead to claim my life.

“I still can’t believe such a thing happened last night.”

Razi overheard me talking to myself and questioned, “What were those monsters, Smoke Pac? In some ways, they were very similar to you. While you were out cold, I took the liberty to inspect what remained of the corpses. I discovered that they all had a broken Rubik’s Cube in their chests, but theirs were clearer.” After pausing for a while, Razi continued to ask, “Were they your alien subordinates?”

“My what?” Razi was swinging the hammer way off the head of the nail. Based on the Smokepires’ similar appearance to me, she automatically assumed that they and I were alien buddies.

I turned to Razi and told her, “It is nothing like what you think.”

“Then please enlightened me.” She demanded answers with her arms folded beneath her breasts.

Giving her what she wanted, I simply said to her, “Those goddamn disgusting creatures are mutated versions of the many assholes that I’ve slain in the recent days of awakening my powers.”

Hearing my brief story, Razi stared at me dumbfounded. “That doesn’t make any sense. Are you telling me that those aliens were once real people—people that you’ve killed?”

“That’s right,” I affirmed.

“If what you’re saying is true then how did the dead come back to life?”

I grasp my chest and responded, “It’s all thanks to this contraption in my chest. It brought back all the assholes that I’ve killed and whose Rubik’s Cubes I forgot to claim after their death.” Razi wasn’t understanding me clearly, so I gave her further insight into the Rubik’s System. She deserved to know at least the bare minimum so I didn’t sound like a complete fool whenever I explain something of value to her.

“Oh—I get it now.” Taking a moment to process all that I’ve told her, Razi voiced a concerning question. “So when you say that all of them have come back to life to claim your power, does that mean like every single one? Just how many persons are on that list? Last night there were a lot of monsters wreaking havoc here. Could they be more than those who came after you?”

“Hmm? That is…” What Razi said got me thinking. I began to reflect deeply on the events that transpired a couple of hours ago. “The System explicitly stated that all Unclaimed Souls rise from the dead on the night of each full moon cycle. Which means that Himeko might have also come back to life. I don’t quite remember if I see her among the horde last night.”

“Who is, Himeko?” Razi noticed how my expression changed when I mentioned this name and called it out. “Is that the name of a chick you also killed?”

“It’s nothing like that. Himeko didn’t explicitly die by my hands, but a part of my power did rend her life from her body. There was an unfinished manifested Rubik’s Cube in her chest. So does this mean that she might have resurrected with the others?”

“I have to clarify something,” I told Razi that I was going to step outside for a bit to curate my thoughts and cool my head.

She protested like a spoiled brat, “What am I supposed to do while you are away?”

I gestured to the environment and said, “Look around you. This place needs repairing, so get to it. You own your father’s inheritance now, so it shouldn’t be a problem.” I also added, “I expect this place to be under construction by the time I get back.”

“And what if I refuse?” Razi asked sternly with a smidge of rebellious appeal.

I didn’t bother to answer her question because she knew full well that she would suffer the consequences of the Rubik’s System if she were to disobey a direct order.

“Oh shit.” On my way down the stair which led to the driveway, I accidentally stepped into somebody’s brain marrow. One of Bensen’s men perhaps. “This shitty smell is going to follow me everywhere. I should clean up first before I set out.”

Realizing just how abysmal my appearance had been, I decided to clean up first. Luckily there were other villas on the estate where I could wash up. After showering and donning a fresh set of clothing, I stepped outside looking gangster. My appearance was now fresh as morning dew.

My first goal was to retrieve one of the cars from the garage for it would make my trip to where I wanted to go a lot faster. I chose another car aside from the Chevrolet Corvette that Razi and I drove to Prime Head the other day. The car I chose this time around was more low-key but still had that elegant appeal.

“Time to do some investigating.” I set out on the road toward a particular destination. Where I was going was the place where I had buried my biggest fan girl, Himeko. The Asian pussycat that I didn’t mean to kill.

I arrived at her burial spot an hour after setting out from the estate. It was a secluded spot in the park where people hardly travel. Just as expected, her grave was dug up and completely empty. This could only mean one thing—Himeko was among the living again, albeit, in monster form.

“There has to be a way to get through to her somehow.” I started thinking of ways to save her. “If I can find her and bring her back to normal then that would be a huge burden off my chest. So far, she is the only person I regret killing whether it was indirectly or not. I considered Himeko a valued associate on my friends' list. Where do I even start?”

I was completely at a loss. How was I to approach this messed up situation in a way of fixing the damage that I’ve caused?

“By now, those resurrected Smokepires are probably hibernating until the next full moon comes around to bite me in the ass. Never again will I allow myself to be overrun like that. Never a-fucking-gain.”

I stilled my determination in strengthening my arsenal of power for the second wave of assault from the vicious Smokepires. One thing was for certain, I could no longer be careless with the persons that I’ve killed.

To mitigate the possibility of creating another Unclaimed Soul, careful steps had to be taken to make sure that the manifested Rubik’s Cubes were retrieved. In light of this idea, I reckon a sort of team might be the best choice to retrieve what I failed to collect or in other words, not interested in collecting. For sure, I wasn’t at the end of my killing spree; more bodies would be dropping like flies pretty soon.