Somewhere within the Amazon rainforest, in the basement of a ruined castle, a naked person could be seen drawing weird letters on the floor using a mixture of animal and human blood.
Given how horrifyingly covered he was in blood and skin tissues, anyone seeing this man now would undoubtedly be so horrified that they would urinate. Still, they would be wholly taken aback if they had even the slightest chance of knowing him.
Why?
Because the individual in question was none other Ray warner, world 9th richest man the biggest share holder of mines limited a company which mined rare earth minerals.
But why was this place hosting a man of his stature?
He was preparing for a ritual, to be more accurate, a reincarnation ritual.
Just as he finished his preparation, a cold yet alluring female voice entered his head.
[It's done, but before you go forward with it...think again because I won't be able to help you, and your new life would be so gruesome that you might beg me to end you from your misery.]
He disregarded the voice's warnings and continued walking toward the middle of the letters he had drawn. As he reached it, he bit his index finger until blood spurted out and dropped it to the floor. The letters glowed, and in a few seconds, he vanished from his position.
However, before vanishing, he did say, "Ness, for the sake of my promise, I'm prepared to take the risk."
....
The smell of something thick, heavy, and sickly sweet, like a mix of charred meat and melting plastic, filled my lungs. Coughing, I opened my eyes only to find myself trapped beneath a pile of burning dead bodies.
If it were me from a few days ago, I would have screamed for help by now, but in the last two days or so, I had become accustomed enough to the bodies of the dead that the current situation didn't affect my mind or body in any way.
But the same couldn't be said for the fire. It wasn't reaching me yet, but pretty soon, it would.
I could already feel it roasting my skin like a marshmallow over a campfire.
I tried to get out, but the strength I had wasn't enough. I felt trapped beneath a fully loaded truck, and as time passed, my body was losing strength.
With no time to prepare, this world was making its first attempt to kill me. Just like ness had said, this new world despised my existence; however, I wouldn't give up.
It would have been great if Ness had been here to tell me what to do, like always, but she wasn't, and at least I wouldn't ask for her help so soon.
I started to rack my brain for any possible solution, and while thinking, the solution itself came to me.
I could hear the sound of people talking outside. The sound was faint, barely audible, but definitely, people were out there.
"I am trapped down here; help."
I shouted.
"Help, I'm here."
"Here!!!"
"Hey, do you hear that?"
Thankfully, the other party heard my voice.
....
Three groups of five mid red color knights were sent out hastily after they received an emergency help signal.
Leading them, John Hills, a peek orange color rune knight, asked as he looked at the burning village.
"Any survivors?"
He knew it was futile. In his three years of service, he has only encountered a handful of Survivors, and all of them were from big cities. the chance of survivors in a remote village near the southeast corner of the human empire was practically zero.
Demons were inherently vicious, they killed for enjoyment and amusement.
But even then, he hoped for survivors as a fellow human being, and he was surprisingly not let down today, according to one of the knights.
"Yes, there's one. A young man maybe 19 years old, although half of his body is burned, he will survive."
"What?... w-where is he now?"
Choking on his words, John spoke.
He could not believe what he heard and wanted to confirm it with his own eyes.
The knight guided john, and after some time, John's eyes fell upon the half-burnt body of the boy.
The burns were no problem; they would heal immediately after taking him to a healer, but the rune engraved on his cheek was.
He was shaken after seeing the rune on the boy's cheek.
If john was right about the rune meaning, then a storm would soon hit the human empire.
And if not handled carefully, it might become the root of human extinction.
.....
I felt light and cold. This feeling was strange. Just a moment ago, I was trapped beneath a pile of dead bodies, a few minutes away from burning alive; however, currently, I was feeling the opposite of my previous conditions.
As this realization dawned on me, my eyes shot open.
This time, I found myself in another peculiar situation. I was inside some kind of dark space.
Even though the space was dark, I could see nearby things thanks to the purple hue the fog beneath my feet emitted.
The fog was mysterious, so I tried to touch it, but I regretted my decision the next instant since three rotting flesh hands came out and grabbed my hand before pulling me downward.
The nature of the fog changed, and it started behaving like a liquid.
In less than a minute, I was deep within the lake of fog, in front of three rotting dead bodies.
Their faces! Somehow, they felt familiar, although I couldn't figure out how.
In synchrony, they spoke.
"Traitor."
"Traitor."
"Traitor."
Their words triggered something within me, causing my body to tremble.
Unintentionally, both of my hands grabbed the rotting neck of the person in the middle, and I was just a second away from snapping his neck when suddenly a force pulled me backward.
...
Metra (the city of hope)
In the mansion of renowned deep violet color rune knight Charles White.
It was nighttime.
As Ray opened his eyes from his sleep, he found himself a second away from choking the life out of the maid who came to change his bedding, but thankfully, he took a step back at the right time and released his grip from her neck.
The maid, feeling completely overwhelmed by fear, jumped at the first chance to get away. She locked the door from the outside, and that simple action brought him a sense of calm.
The maid's behavior confirmed that he was not in any immediate danger.
"Arraah."
However, the calmness was Short lived , as a sudden pain struck him in the back of his head. In a few seconds, the pain disappeared, but it left fragments of memories behind.
Ray took a while to understand that the memories he got were not complete; moreover, calling them memories would be a mistake. they were just dialogues exchanged between the body owner and the three corpses he encountered earlier.
But it was enough for him to understand what had transpired before he woke up in this new world.
They were performing a ritual art, something similar to what Ray had done for his reincarnation, the only difference being they were trying to make a god happy and gain some unknown power from him.
God, it was something known but at the same time unknown for Ray, and before he could think more about it, the sudden clanking of the door interrupted his thoughts.
The door opened, and the maid returned with a new person by her side.
A black-haired man with sky-blue eyes, he was the owner of the house, the lord of Metra city, a deep violet color rune knight. The one who holds the title of humanity's 14th strongest.
From the look of it, the man came directly from a battlefield, as he was covered in blood and mud from head to toe.
His presence was suffocating; however, Ray somehow at the moment felt no threat from him.
"Tell me how you survived."
Wiping his face with a handkerchief, the man asked his voice stern as he sat on the chair the maid positioned for him.
"A demon attacked us, and before we knew it, we were killing each other in a frenzy. It must have possessed some kind of mind-related power. I was fortunate enough to become the last man standing, so he allowed me to live."
Ray said it was a lie that was taught to nearly everyone in the village a few months prior to the ritual.
Everything was planned, and it would have worked out if this body's previous owner didn't get scared at the last moment.
It was because of this reason the three dead bodies called Ray a traitor.
Hearing Ray's explanation and observing his body language, the man nodded.
"Hmm.... good enough I guess"
After pondering for a few seconds, the man spoke, or more like announced Ray's verdict.
"Louise, tell john I will buy this boy and prepare some food for him. He looks skinny."
the man ordered and left the room just as fast as he had come.
As the man left, the maid named Louise suddenly got a sudden chill on her back, jumping like a scared cat, she took a few steps back.
It was a right decision on her part, as she could see Ray standing where she was a second ago with a candle holder.
Had she not moved from there, then definitely a dent would formed on her head.
The moment Ray heard the word 'buy,' he knew he will become a slave, if he didn't move fast.
He couldn't let that happen, his mind raced and the only solution he could come up with was to kill the maid and flee, So he did just that or at least tried to.
However at his failure his fate was sealed. As he could see small orbs of light dancing around the maid, getting brighter by the second.
Ray's eyes grew bigger; he failed to comprehend what was going on. This maid was the same girl who ran away from him in fear a few minutes ago but now that same person was casting a spell powerful enough to kill him.
Did he failed to read her?
The orbs glowed, as they aimed at him.
"Wha...t wai...?"
Ray tried to speak, but it was too late. The maid's index finger fell in a downward motion and from the orbs light beamed at Ray, causing a hole the size of a grown up fist to open on his chest.
The attack was too fast for him to even see.
Ray fell to the ground, gasping, and it took him a few seconds to realize what had happened.
"Aaaaaargh!"
As he realized it, a soul-wrenching scream left his mouth. Ray was used to pain, but not on the level he was now feeling.
Coughing blood from the mouth, tears welled up in his eyes as he stared blankly. In the span of mere seconds, Ray became such a disturbing site that even watching him now was hard.
As time passed, the pain intensified.
Fortunately for him, he also lost enough blood that eventually he lost consciousness.
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Two Day After
The streets of the city of hope Metra were crowded, just like usual. But today, one particular road the one that led to Champion Arena was the busiest compared to all other combines.
People were heading to the arena like a colony of ants.
And if you asked any of these people why they were going there, most would have no idea. They only knew that their Lord Charles white had asked them to come.
And it's an unwritten rule of this world that if a well regarded noble speaks, they the commoners must obey.
It was the first time the Lord had given such an order, so they were curious as well.
As the crowd streamed through the grand iron gates, the stands filled with eager spectators, their chatter and excitement growing louder. By the time the clock's hands reached 10 O'clock a bell rang, signaling the start of the show.
The lord Charles white voice echoed across the arena as he slowly walked in on the arena ground. He spoke through a device similar to Ray's world mic.
"Welcome, people of Metra. I thank you for coming on such short notice."
At his presence every person in the stand stood up and bowed their heads to him only stopping when a gentle breeze of air hit them indicating that it was enough.
"This matter is urgent, and I need your presence to make an example out of it."
Without wasting his time he spoke and gestured toward the center of the arena. A large object was covered with curtains.
At his signal, the curtain were removed. As the last one fell, the crowd was left startled because a young man was lashed like a animal inside a cage and yes this man was Ray.
He was alive but not in the right state of mind, in the past two days he had gone through a lifetime of tortures from getting nails hammered in his body to cutting his limb off, he had experienced it all in such a brief period of time that it had left his mind in a broken state, where he had the lost the courage to fight.
The attention of the entire arena was now fixed on him.
The Lord continued,
"The child you see here is a devil's spawn. Look for yourself, at his cheek the engraved rune is in the language of gods, an act that was forbidden by the union, but he and the people of his village still tried to harness its power."
"Obviously they failed in the process but we can't overlook what they were trying to achieve hence he will be disposed of in the dungeon of the dweller of eternal hunger."
At the mention of the dungeon's name in the stands people had two kinds of reaction one was of confusion and other was of shock, only a minority of the people present today knew about the dungeon and even amongst them most felt that it was to harsh of a death penalty to give someone but alas there lord orders was absolute.
"Now that you are all aware of his crime, I ask you to witness his punishment and help me spread word of this incident to those who couldn't attend and those who are unaware,"
He declared and snapped his fingers, signaling the mages to activate the portal.
From the underground chamber beneath the arena ground three 5 star mages at Charles signal used mana to activate a rune already embedded in the ground above.
As the runes began to glow, the people felt a disorienting shift as if the earth beneath and the sky above had swapped places.
This sensation lasted only a few seconds but was enough to make many of them vomit. This reaction was expected, as the portal was a unique-level rune that only a knight of mid-orange color rank or a mage above 3-star could handle without side effects.
Within moments, the rune shone so brightly that it temporarily blinded everyone. Immediately after, a massive pillar of light, large enough to engulf the entire arena ground, struck Ray, transporting him to the dungeon of the dwellers of eternal hunger.