Chapter 2 — Halfway

Chapter 2 — Halfway

 

House of Zehel — Back Entrance 4

 

Four boys suddenly teleported at the entrance with a lot of wounds which sent the servants in commotion. Shika and Sadou, the first pair were still trembling remembering the image of a dragon in the cave. The next pair, Souma and Shindou were bloodied from their torso down to their feet. The servants thought they've got a wound in the feet but it realized it wasn't their blood. While they were tending the four in the medical section of the house, one of the personal servants of Shuunin asked the four.

 

“Young masters, I haven't seen Shuunin-bochama. Could it be he isn't with you four?”

 

The moment that he asked that, Shindou's eyes dimmed and he screamed in horror. Noting how he left behind his stepbrother and even went as much as to cut his arms, it haunted his memory and is guilt stricken.

 

“Shindou!”

 

His brothers turned to him, his face paled and tears went pass his cheeks. It was his fault—no, it's all their fault why Shuunin have to die.

 

“He... Shu-Shuunin!! He's dead!”

 

Everyone in the room was silenced. Only the personal servants of Shuunin reacted so badly, one of them kneeled in the floor sobbing.

 

“My Shuu... Shuu?”

 

A beautiful woman with long curly hair appears at the door. Her face was loosing color as he hears Shindou's words. It was Shuunin's mother, Shana staring blankly at the door. After receiving the news that his son is missing along with the four boys, she thought they were merely playing somewhere in the forest but to think they would find a dungeon that not even their most elite guard couldn't find they concluded it must be a high ranked dungeon. However, when he arrived at the medical ward, her son, Shuunin is dead?

 

“How... How did my son... Why... NO!”

 

With a thud on the floor, Shana fell unconscious. The servants tended her paling face. While the four youths are to be taken care of, Shana's condition is far important due to her pregnancy. Meanwhile, back to the medical ward, the four boys were dead silence though Shindou is silent, his habit of biting his nails resurfaced and has caused his hands to bleed. The house was in turmoil due to the sequencing incidents at the house of Zehel.

 

The next day, the four boys learned of the death of their father, the current head of the Zehel clan. An assassination occurred during one of the meetings of the 13 Pillar clans which took the heads of the Lee Clan, Fukuo Clan, Zhang and of course the Zehel Clan. Five of these Clan heads died and so the master of the clan's, Elder Louvain ordered the clans to fill the head right away. Thus, creating a fissure inside the clan. The Souma, Shika, Sadou and Shindou were still internalising the news. Shana, the mother of Shuunin was not told about the news to alleviate the stress on her pregnancy.

 

“Shoutaro, is he still on the 13 Pillar Clan's meeting? Usually the meeting would end for just 3 days but it's already the 2 weeks since he had gone.”

 

Shana asked at a servant, who felt troubled at her question. She tells her that there must be an important matter that he won't be able to come back right away.

 

“No, Shoutarou won't lie—he doesn't lie!”

 

“Calm down, Shana-san.”

 

An old woman suddenly appears before the servant who was stupefied to see the mother of their Clan head. With a gesture from the said person, she left the room and went back to the medical ward.

 

“Touka-okasama, what brings you here?”

 

“Shana-san, I heard Shuunin was killed. Is that true?”

 

“E.. Eh? That's not possible, he was just here a while ago!”

 

“Shana!”

 

Touka shouted, and slapped Shana

 

“Shana, Shuunin is dead!”

 

A painful realisation hits Shana as tears won't stop falling. Suddenly, she remembers why there's no bouquet of Iris anymore. She then remembers how she had never looked at him that clearly since he entered the house of Zehel.

 

“Shuunin is dead...”

 

The woman removes her hand which is strangling Shana. Seeing her sobbing, the latter felt loneliness too. Of all the children her son had, Shuunin was the only one whom she bonded with. Her cold heart never opened for any of his grandchildren but Shuunin was different. He was being left behind and he hat fighting. Frail but intelligent, that was her favourite grandson. Leaving Shana's room, Touka wipes her teary eyes and four people appeared before her.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Touka-sama, we have found little information about the dungeon in the northeastern of the Kkam Forest.”

 

“The rank?”

 

She coldly uttered and walked to her private room. Handing her an envelop, her eyes went sharp at the details of the papers.

 

“No rank was given on it's description however, basing on the dungeon name it could be ranked SSS.”

 

Touka read the paper in a minute and let out a sigh.

 

“Ancient Dragon's Cave, huh?”

 

Ancient Dragon's Cave — ??th floor

 

As the 13 Pillar Clans were thrown into an array, deep in the Kkam Forest there lays the 100 floor Ancient Dragon's Dungeon. In a certain room located in the middle of 99th and 100th floor, a large grey door stands. Since this dungeon has never once been cleared, the information about a secret room has never been told to anyone. Loud footsteps walked towards the door, it was the dragon whom ate Shuunin. The door automatically opened and the dragon entered then stops in the middle of the room. It suddenly made a gagging sound and spits out Shuunin's body, pale and missing arms. Then, the dragon's body glowed and it's figure changed from being a dragon into a human body. His gray hair flutters on the air as he descended on the ground and his scales turned into a kimono.

 

With a sigh, he looked down at the boy before him who's face in kissing the ground. Kicking his body, it surprised him to see the boy without a left eye, as if it has been forcefully took out from it's face, a large whole has been carve on his face. It made him wonder but then, he thinks it's a perfect situation for the boy, with a dark heart it's easier for him to kill anyone who gets on his way.

 

“Genius, you are genius Rahel!”

 

The man shouted as he laugh just thinking of his long awaited revenge for humans. Rahel is from an Ancient Clan of Dragons who practice alchemy and as of now, only one was left, Rahel who stands as the 22nd Clan leader. Rahel is supposed to be an immortal dragon however, due to a curse made by a Human and a Slyph, his pregnant wife died along with his little brother. That ignited the darkness in his heart and killed a lot of humans and sylphs in his rage before hiding in this dungeon for 410 years. Each day he is growing weaker and weaker and when he suddenly felt the movement of the dungeon, a miracle happened! Humans went inside the dungeon which has never been stepped upon by other living creatures. At first Rahel was enraged but an idea came to him.

 

What if he posses one of the boys? Rahel wanted to slowly control the body and not destroy it so he decided to modify it first which leads him back to nest, the secret room.

 

“Too bad, I want that one with a good killing intent. Oh well, let's start the experiment.”

 

Throwing the body on the table, Rahel searches for a ref chest with a  large lock. Melting the lock in a hurry, he took out seven orbs from the chest he's been holding. These seven orbs were not ordinary orbs as they represents the seven race of their world. Orbs are the container of the mana inside the body and for each race, there is a corresponding color which differentiate one from another. The red is for human race, black is for demons, blue is from sylph race, green is for elves, yellow is for dragons, violet is for beastmen and gray is for the angel race. These seven orbs were obtained by Rahel through countless melee battles and planned to give it to his child however the unfortunate happen. According to the experiment he had before, a human's body cannot absorb the orbs of another creature unless it's level is higher than the owner of the orb. Using his Analze skill, Rahel sees Shuunin's level.

 

Name : Zehel Shuunin

Level：１18

ＨＰ：1806

ＭＰ：601

ATK：194

DEF：385

AGI：302

LUCK：２８

 

Seeing the status of Shuunin, Rahel was in thoughts for a little, seeing how low the defence of the boy, he can forsee it's body exploding the moment it could come contact with the orbs.

 

“Can't be helped, this body will be mine anyways so I'll just improve it for a bit.”

 

Rahel closed his eyes and focused his mana towards his left eye then, dug his claws on his left eye then put it to Shuunin's opened socket. Like a magnet being attracted to the skin, the eyes merged perfectly towards the opening and successfully filled it with skin. As if there was no wound there in the first place, the left part of the face went clear and Rahel can tell that the young boy has a good features. He then again analyze Shuunin's status and it somewhat bothered him.

 

 

Name : Zehel Shuunin

Level：１18

ＨＰ：15830 (+14,024)

ＭＰ：53008 (+52,407)

ATK：24185 (+23,991)

DEF：21313 (+20,928)

AGI：13376 (+13,074)

LUCK：２８

 

The luck has never changed!

 

Due to his situation, there were no luck added to Shuunin and Rahel understood this because he had been cursed and that Shuunin is half dead. Seeing as the MP increased due to his great magic powers, this gave Rahel the idea that he should first put the orb which have a great ramification towards the body's immunity towards attacks. Starting with the green orb, Rahel puts the orb in the stomach area where the mana cultivation occurs. As the orb of dwarf sinks in, Shuunin's body glows. It stimulated Rahel and with a weak bloodied face wore a smirk of satisfaction which didn't last for long. The moment the light died out, the orb disappeared and the body of Shuunin only displayed a spur of power.

 

“No... No! This can't be a failure, the body earlier reacted—ah, his body must be cultivating now the mana. That's it! Rahel you didn't fail! Now then...”

 

Unable to see flaws to his plan, Rahel continued and put the next orb of the elf race. A sudden light came out again and the body returned to normal. Rahel was stupefied, did he miscalculated the orbs power or is it the time lapse that deteriorated it's mana?

 

“No! I cannot fail now! Since it has come to this—”

 

Putting the rest of the orbs inside the body, light again surrounded Shuunin and like the ones before, the body would stabilise.

 

Thud.

 

“Ha... Haha...”

 

Rahel began to laugh as he looked at the weak body of Shuunin. Before he took Shuunin's body he already felt his pulse slowly deteriorating but even when he had drained his body with blood, he was still beating. Just now, although he would look almost healthy with his eyes and the seven orbs, why is the pulse dying? He can't believe it—how unlucky can he get, his wife and child died and now even his perfect plan suddenly fails?!

 

“The-the body! I can still posses it, even if the body is weak I can still move it! Yes!”

 

The orbs he harvested from different honchos in his merry melees may have turned into a waste, nonetheless he can still use the body and look for another strong body to posses. Sprinting towards Shuunin's body, he had prepared his [Body Possession] skill and from the mouth, a yellowish mana escaped. The [Body Possession] is a skill unique to the Dragon race and Beastmen race, which allows them to possess another body via mana concentration of which they unify their soul and mana. This skill has a strong rebound, amounting to the death of the caster if he failed to do the possession. As he was in the middle of moving his mana, a hand pierces through his stomach. Rahel's mana vanished on the air at the time his body fell on the ground and turned back to it's original form.

 

 

“Who.... are you?”