Ascension of the last Celestial

Arthur moved through the camp between the tents as silently as he could; while he didn’t have a darkness affinity that could help with stealth, he used his wind to dampen the sound of his boots. But then he remembered the lesson Valerian gave him.

’Let’s try this with my bloodline. It should be easier.’

Arthur channeled his mana while envisioning the shadows to take shape and move; immediately he saw the result: a tiny movement. While it wasn’t anything big, it still felt amazing to him, being able to use an element he didn’t have an affinity for.

’But what does that (Unbound) next to my affinities mean? Can I get more when I’m around them?’

It was a question he would need to get the answer to later; now he continued to move through the camp, with his wind and the light dampening of the shadow making his steps silent.

Weaving through the tents, he carefully peeked inside them to see if there was someone.

The first tent turned up empty, only filled with bunk beds, rations, and spare armor and weapons laying beside the beds.

Arthur moved to the second tent, and like before, nothing, completely empty. Now he got nervous, because if all of the soldiers were awake, that meant that taking them out one by one would be even harder, if not impossible, since he would need to separate them from the group.

But in the third tent, he got lucky, but only a little bit. Because in the tent filled with multiple bunk beds was a single soldier. It was a beastman with black wolf ears and a black tail poking from underneath him; his hair was also black and cut short. He had a flushed face, probably from drinking too much alcohol, and then he passed out and was carried here.

Arthur moved slowly and carefully towards the sleeping beastman; his heart began to beat faster and harder the closer he got. His palms became sweaty and his breath strained.

When he finally stood before the sleeping soldier, Arthur could think of only one thing.

He was about to kill someone.

He was about to kill a sleeping person with his daggers. He probably had a family, people waiting for him back home, a wife that loved him, children that looked up to him and idolized him for fighting for their nation, friends who had known him for years, who he grew up with, who saw him as a child, later met his wife, and saw the expression of the happiest person on the planet when his first child was born.

And Arthur was about to take that away, take him away.

He couldn’t breathe; his heart was beating so loud he was afraid the whole camp could hear it, and his mind raced. Maybe there was a way he didn’t have to kill him. Maybe he could just knock him out and restrain him.

His hands became so sweaty and shaky that the daggers were about to fall out of them.

He didn’t want to do it.

There was something deep within him that found the idea of killing someone, even if he wasn’t a human, repulsive. He felt nauseous thinking about taking away all these years of happiness the soldier had.

Arthur took a step back, his resolve wavering, but fate had a different path for him. Because as he backed away, he stepped on a sword that lay beside the bed belonging to the soldier.

It made a sharp ring when Arthur unintentionally kicked it, and his already fast-beating heart became even faster; if not for his stronger body, he would be nearing a heart attack.

The wolf ears on the beastman’s head twitched at the sound of the sword sliding on the floor, and his hazy, slitted amber eyes opened in confusion. In his still-drunk state, without standing up, he looked to the side in the direction of the sound; there he saw the figure of Arthur holding two daggers, dressed in the black combat suit he got from Valerian. But that wasn’t what the beastman looked at, it was the earless head of a human.

"What? A human?"

Hearing the voice of the drunk soldier, Arthur’s mind went into complete overdrive; he thought of a thousand ways to get out of the situation, but all of them ended in the thing he wanted to do the least in the world.

But the soldier didn’t care what Arthur was thinking, and his trained mind, even in a drunk state, realized what was going on and why Arthur was standing in front of his bed with daggers in his hands.

He moved as fast as he could muster, grabbing behind the bed and pulling out a steel dagger, fully intending to defend himself and kill Arthur.

Seeing the dagger of the soldier appear, Arthur’s mind didn’t turn into a cold and efficient killing machine like he read in the novels back on Earth, even if that would have made what was about to happen so much easier.

In desperation, Arthur moved forward and stabbed the dagger in his right hand towards the soldier’s abdomen. It pierced right through, since he was only wearing the cloth underneath the armor that was taken off by the others before bringing him to bed.

The soldier winced in pain at the stab, but he didn’t stop his attack.

With his own dagger, he went for a straight hit to Arthur’s neck; having been trained, he knew where to attack, unlike the panicking Arthur.

To Arthur, the world slowed down to a crawl as the dagger approached. He was much stronger than the soldier; even though they were both in the S- rank, Arthur had his bloodline that rebuilt his entire body.

If he were in a normal state of mind, he could have evaded the attack flawlessly, but he wasn’t. His mind wasn’t on the incoming attack that could kill him; it was on his own dagger that was still sticking in the guts of another person.

His hand, which was still on the hilt of the dagger, felt the warmth of the blood that leaked from the wound. The smell of iron filled his nose, making him feel sick. The red of the blood filled his vision.

But his survival instinct kicked in at the last moment, prompting him to move his neck away. Twisting, he barely made it out of the attack, but it still hit him, opening a cut on the side of his neck.

With pure panic and reluctance, Arthur raised his other dagger and stabbed into the throat of the still-lying soldier.

The blade went straight into his throat without resistance, only stopping once it met the hard wood of the bed.

The eyes of the soldier widened, and a soft gurgling escaped his lips.

Blood began to flow down onto the bed, his hands went limp, but Arthur didn’t stop.

He raised his dagger again and brought it down on the throat, spraying more and more blood on his hands, clothes, and face.

He didn’t stop; he couldn’t stop. His mind stopped working. Somewhere deep within, he knew that the soldier was long dead, but that thought didn’t reach him. He just kept going, too lost in the fear and disgust of the act he was doing.

Arthur didn’t know how often he stabbed, but when he came to himself again, the throat of the soldier was basically non-existent, reduced to a mesh of flesh and blood, the same blood that stained his hands, clothes, and face crimson.

He looked at his hands holding the daggers; losing strength, he let go of them, and they fell to the ground. Arthur lost the strength in his legs and he too fell to the ground, kneeling in front of the bed, holding the soldier he just murdered.

He couldn’t even look up at the gruesome killing he just did, his gaze hypnotized on his hands. They were completely stained red, not showing even a single piece of his skin underneath.

Drops began to fall on the red hands, like they were trying to wash away the blood and guilt.

Single drops turned into many as Arthur broke down in tears at the act of murder. He could feel something inside breaking, something that would never be the same again, perhaps the only thing he had left from his previous life:

His humanity.

Living in this new world with a new name and face, Arthur had gotten used to it. This new world also had magic; Arthur got more than used to it, he loved it! Killing another person with his bare hands until the only thing remaining was a pile of mush? He had to get used to it.

No matter how much he hated himself for it, no matter how disgusting he felt right now, he had to do it, and he would have to do it again in the future.

If he wanted to live, if he wanted the people he cared about to live, he had to kill again; he had no other choice.

But he would never lose his humanity fully; he swore that to himself.

Together with the oath, a conviction burned within him. It didn’t make the person he just killed feel meaningless; it made him feel like the meaning the soldier had was so that Arthur could live, so that Valerian could live, and that gave him meaning.

Arthur stood up with shaky but unbreakably steady legs. He looked at his hands, but now, instead of the eyes of a crying child, he looked at them with the conviction to protect.

Channeling his mana, he washed off all the blood on his hands, face, clothes, and daggers. With a thought, warm air dried the wet clothes.

Arthur looked back at the bed one last time and moved to the next tent.

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