Splash!

‘Where… am I?’

Lucien mumbled as he tried to open his eyes. A sharp pain ran through his face, only then did he realize that the water poured on him was salt water.

“Argh!”, cried Lucien.

He felt like his face was burning, however he couldn’t move. His body was shackled by chains, not on the floor, but on something hard as steel sticking vertically from the ground.

“It’s time to wake up, kid” A sinister voice entered his ears.

Lucien now remembered that he had been caught.

“Let go of me!”

Clink!

He tried to struggle but it was all in vain. Moreover, he still couldn’t open his eyes as his face was burning.

“Hey, hey! Look at what situation you are in. Oh right, you can’t open your eyes. Let me help you then!”

Hearing the same voice, Lucien struggled harder. He could feel a rough hand touching his face as it forcefully opened his closed eyes.

Enduring the pain, he tried to look around. The sky was already dark and he was still in the forest. In front of him was one of the guys who he was fleeing from.

Behind the guy was a bonfire with another three people of the same outfit sitting around. They all looked at him coldly.

“You’re really good, huh, kid. Killing two of our men and still thinking of running away.”

The man in front of him said as he spinning a dagger around in the hand. It was a dagger from the latest guy he killed.

“What do you mean? You guys were chasing me with bad intention. What do you want me to do? Offer my ass? Ptui!” Lucien spitted at the man’s face. He knew that trying to act pitiful wouldn’t work anymore as they already knew he killed their men.

There was no way for him to escape. Misleading couldn’t do shit as his real body was shackled. Even if it was not, he was sure these guys could definitely see through his low level Concealment.

He really didn’t know what he could do but venting.

‘There should be a plot armor to let me escape from this situation, right? I haven’t started my own legend yet. Ah, I hope a beautiful angel will come and save me.’ He could only thought of some nonsenses to hold on to his mentality.

One might not see, but since he had come to this world, he had not been able to relax at all. The mental stress from this cruel world was really killing him. And now he was caught by bad guys. He would have gone mad already if it wasn’t for his strong mentality. Well, maybe he was already mad? No one knows.

“That mouth of yours is quite good, huh? Don’t worry, kid, you will have to use it a lot...” The man gave him a vicious smile. “..screaming”

Clap~ Clap~

“Guys, it’s time to take revenge for our brothers! We still have a week to play with this kid! As long as he’s not dead, boss won’t scold us, alright?” Turning back to face his comrades, the man laughed coldly. “Let’s make sure this kid will have a happy time, laughing in joy, guys!”

The three other men got up from their seats and walked towards Lucien.

One of the guys said, “You guys can have some fun. I will make sure he won’t die with my healing.”

Another guy said, “Don’t worry about the noise. I’ve already block the sound and laid a concealment formation here.”

The last one said, “Everyone here has a Torture skill, right? We will minimize the damage inflicting as less as possible while increase the pain as much, hehe.”

“No! What are you going to do to me?” Tears started flowing from Lucien’s eyes. This time, he was truly terrified. Although he knew this world was full of bad people, he thought no matter what, he would be fine. He was just a kid after all. There should be a limit in treating him, right?

However, the coldness in the eyes in front of him broke his fantasy. The look he got were not one used to look at human, but animal. To be more precise, an animal that was about to die…

“No, No, No! I’m sorry! I’ll do anything- Arghhhh! Please! I’m sorry! Arghhhhhhhhhhh”

The wailing of a child could be heard throughout the plains.

Only after three days did the voice stop, however, the torture wasn’t.

---------------------------------------------------

Seven days had passed.

In the middle of the plain in the East Panam forest, a child and four big men could be seen.

The child was shackled to a copper cross from the ground. The cross was bright red with heat from the sun situated in the middle of the sky, melting the kid’s body. However, there was no cry from the kid, not even weeping.

The kid was struck naked, looking into the horizon with his hollow eyes. Blood and scars covered his entire body. There was not a single hair left on his body as it was all burned.

His face was so ugly that anyone would want to puke upon seeing it. No one could have connected him to a bright cute little kid from a week ago.

This kid was Lucien Santosa.

‘Why am I still not dead?’

‘Just let me die already.’

‘What’s the point of living anymore?’

Those three sentences kept cycling through his mind as he looked into nothing. One of his eyes was already blind and blood kept flowing from every parts of his body.

The pain and torture he had been through was unimaginable. He had been burned alive numerous times. His limbs had been cut and attached in an infinite loops. His skin was peeled layers after layers until he could see every of his internal organs, including his beating heart. His bones were taken in and out of his body like legos.

Even with the healing magics one of the guys kept casting on him and his vitality and endurance, his body couldn’t heal enough, leaving uncountable scars and burns.

The four guys took turn in torturing him 24 hours a day. He was not able to sleep at all. The pains he had been through was too much that he couldn’t feel his entire body anymore, which could be considered lucky.

He also screamed till his larynx, his voice box, was broken.

Right, those guys took out his larynx for him to see and even introduced it to him.

Only five minutes ago did the guys decided to stop. Not because they were bored but they had to send him to their boss. And that was also why they healed his larynx as their boss might want to interrogate him after all.

‘Huh? They stopped?’ Only when the chains were untied and he fell on the ground did Lucien came back to himself.

As the torture ceased, his body started healing itself. The first to be healed was his nerves, making him grunted from the pain, the pain that could never get used to.

One of the man carried him on the shoulder. They didn’t bother to shackle him.

Lucien was still, carried by the guy. His face was blank like someone who suffered from mental breakdown, no, he was suffering a mental breakdown himself.

Those four guys walked in leisure. With their speed, they would reach the town in a day. One of them had already sent the message to their boss a week ago telling him they were going to play with the kid.

As they expected, the boss agreed and just told them to return on time.

When they thought everything was going smoothly, two cloaked figures suddenly appeared in front of them, blocking their way.

“Who are you?” One of the guys said, unsheathing his weapon.

Woosh~

However, those two didn’t say anything as they charged straight at the group.

The one carrying Lucien just threw him away, pulling out his weapon and went into the fight.

Although the fight was two versus four, the side of two was much stronger turning the fight into stalemate.

Just when Lucien was thrown to the ground, a sign of live started to form in his sole right eye.

‘I…’ He struggled in his mind, feeling pain all over his body. ‘I can’t die. I have to live. Yeah, I HAVE TO LIVE!’

From his instinct, he knew this might be his only chance. He calmed himself down and his brain started spinning, analyzing the situation.

When he opened his eyes, logs of system notifications greeted him.

Congratulations! With an unyielding mind and your resolute willpower to survive, your title ‘Will of Survivor’ has given you a skill, Relentless Heart.

Relentless Heart (Unranked)(No Level) : As your wills exists, nothing would be able to shake your mind. Every Indomitable stat you receive will be doubled.

Congratulations! Your Luck Path has been influenced by your wills, giving you a bonus path, Hope Path 0/1.

Lucien had more than enough PP to complete his Luck Path, so he did it straight away.

Congratulations! You have received a random reward, +15 all regens!

Congratulations! You have received a random reward, +5 Intelligent, wisdom and control!

Congratulations! You have completed Luck Path! The randomness of luck contains both good and bad lucks. As you tread on this path, you realize whether it’s good or bad luck, it depended on how you look at them. So, you alter your every encounters into a good one.

Congratulations! Luck stat is now opened to you, starting with 10. Luck will influence your critical rate, monster drop, production stats etc. However, it can’t change people’s fate. +1 Luck per level.

Note : Luck stat can’t be assigned with free stat point.

Although he knew luck wouldn’t help him in this situation, at least it lifted his mood up a bit.

Bloody eyes of hell stare at you within a deep abyss, and you stare back with a bright smile. +15 health, +2 vitality and +2 perception

The world around you are filled with blood and bones, you look at the scene in a complete stillness. +8 stat points

Stillness of a chilling breeze then kicked in, granting him so many stats. After allocating points,he then assigned 1 PP into Hope Path 0/1, hoping it would really give him hope.

Congratulations! You have received +5 to all stats!

Congratulations! You have completed Hope Path! Even in the darkest period of your life, full of despair and desperation, you would stand up and fight for hope! You have received a skill, Epiphany (S).

An arrow has been formed to lead you to your last hope.

Epiphany (S) (No Level) : Consuming all mana, the next skill you cast will be able to accomplish a feat vastly beyond the limit of ranks, skill levels and mana pool. After casting, the skill will be unavailable for 7 days and your mana won’t be able to recover for 24 hours.

Congratulations! Through a baptism of blood and bones, your Fighting Aura lv1 has been upgraded to Killing Intent ® lv1!

After seeing the skill detail, a cold glint flashed across his eye.

‘Epiphany! Concealment!’

Then, his body vanished into thin air.

The fight had been going on for half an hour. There were only two people left and both of them were covered in blood.

One guy had both arms broken, hanging. The another was kneeling on the ground holding his sword.

The one standing was one of the guy who torture Lucien. His friend sacrificed himself to land a killing blow to the mysterious figures, killing one of them but the other one was still barely alive.

He walked to the kneeling guy slowly to land a finishing blow. Suddenly, a sharp pain ran through his neck as his world turned upside down.

Thud!

His head hit the ground.

Behind him appeared an ugly boy full of blood and scars, holding a blood soaked black sword with 3 fingers on his hand.

The kneeling guy was shocked at the sight. He thought he would be killed for sure, however he wasn’t, so he was delight. “Thank y-”

Thud!

Before he could show his gratitude, his head rolled on the ground.

With a Black Line sword in his hand, Lucien stood there with a cold face, both of his enemy’s and his blood dripping on the ground

He knew that the reason the two mysterious guys fought the gang was obviously to take him. They should be from another organisation which was looking for him as well. Moreover, he now hated this world to the core, including its people.

‘One day… One day, I will turn the whole Abyss into ashes, especially that guy summoning me here. You guys want me, right? Fine. Just you wait!’ A murderous intent conjured in this blood red eye.

Lucien picked up a cloak to cover himself with a sword hanging of his waist. He couldn’t find any potions as they were all used in the fight.

With a headache from emptied mana pool and pains all over his body, he walked slowly, only leaving a trail of blood behind.

In front of him, an arrow led him forward, to where his asylum lies…

Toward his last hope...