In the previous timeline a few days before the second Cataclysm…
"WILLIAM LET ME IN!!!!" I was furious as I shouted at William and glared at him with my bloodshot eyes and half broken body which had almost reached its limit.
"You don't belong here, kid. Leave or else I will have no choice but to kill you," William spoke without any emotions in his words as he looked down on me.
"WHY?!! EXACTLY WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!!" I shouted with pure hatred in my voice. I failed to understand why William was stopping me from going inside that castle.
"It's the King's order. I can never defy it," William spoke, finally answering me after 3 days of ignorance.
"Huh?!" My eyes blanked for a bit before I asked,"Which one?"
William… belongs to the human faction. And currently he was guarding the… Vampire King's Castle.
Heck… he was the second son of the King of Western Continent. The moment he stopped me from entering the castle, I knew the Kings of the human faction and Vampire faction had something going on in between them.
So the question was…
"Which king ordered you to do that?" I asked again as my rage slowly returned and I wondered whether it was really the Kings having some kind of deal or was it William betraying the human King but…
"Both of them," answered William in a nonchalant manner as he sighed before speaking," Look kid, something big is going to happen in the next few days and I have been tasked with guarding the gate to stop anyone weaker than me from getting in. If you are worried for Lucia, then she is safe-"
"Those fuckers… they dragged Lucia by her hair forcefully against her wishes. You think I would fucking believe that she is safe within the confines of those castle walls?!? Are you crazy?!" I interrupted William from speaking as anger took over me once more. My veins were bulging red in my skin and I looked nothing short of a monster standing in front of him.
"There were some complications," spoke William as he observed the wide open field behind me. His golden eyes and blonde hair screamed that he did not belong to the red dyed atmosphere of this place.
Someone like him shouldn't be here, but yet he was standing in front of me. I close my eyes for a few moments before muttering," if it's someone stronger that you want, then I'll fucking become stronger than you and then get inside that castle to get my Lucia back." And then I opened my dark red eyes…
I take out my black sword and then look at William, who also began preparing to block my attack.
I saw his moves before…I had seen the King's swordsmanship too… so if I have to defeat him.
'I will need to create a swordsmanship that will destroy him…' I thought before proceeding to take a stance that I had never before taken in my life.
Before this I had always learnt other people's style, trying to make it my own. It was one of my specialities or perhaps a weakness…
-Dash
I dashed towards him and as soon as I reached closer to him; I saw his sword coming from the left.
Just as I saw the sword almost touching me…"Vanish," I muttered before my body teleports 2 metres to the other side of the sword and my attack reaches at the neck of William Laurentz.
-Clang
However, my attack bounced back before I was kicked away from him as he looked at me with a glare.
"What-
-Clang
I vanished again, reaching behind him immediately. However, he succeeded in blocking my attack again.
This was the first time I went out of my way to create a style of my own rather than copying someone else's.
And thus began the learning phase of my own first style.
I created it on my own.
I created it in order to repel it.
I created it in order to defeat him.
I created it to save my love.
It took time, but I managed to forge a foundation on which my very first style was based.
And since I was going to ellipse, the sun in front of me… I named my own style as…
"Shadow Style" before vanishing again and then confronting him from an angle where he would be the least guarded.
It had errors, but I kept correcting it. I kept clearing my errors one by one and slowly and slowly I began improving in every little aspect. Using blood sacrifice, I could barely keep up with that monster in front of me. The fact that I lacked any proper battle magic made things more complicated for me than it already was.
Still… I managed to keep myself barely standing as I kept attacking that monster over and over.
"My name is William Laurentz," William spoke as he observed my movements and began getting accustomed to it too as time passed. I saw him getting better with his blocks with every third move I was making. I felt bitter, as I knew that if I didn't do anything immediately, I won't be able to defeat him. I needed a miracle.
"I was born as the second son of the Laurentz Family, the current ruler of the Western Continent and also the leading family of humankind," he said as he looked at me with calm eyes as he kept blocking my attacks with more and more ease.
It wasn't that I wasn't trying, but it was that he was trying even harder than I was… why? Why? Why? Why was he doing this? Just why do you have to be so fixated on not letting me in…
"Even though I was the second son, I wasn't provided any privilege which I should have received. Instead, I was made to serve the Scarlet Family in order to prove my worth…" he spoke and my steps halted as my eyes opened up wide and I looked at that guy standing still like a sage in front of me.
"It wasn't that bad, to be honest. At first there were some complications with me being captured by the very organisation whom I had to protect but after sometime, when I was rescued, I was brought back to my old conditions to resume my work…" William spoke as if he was recalling back a bitter past as a sad expression forms on his face.
"Did Lucia know about you being her caretaker?" I tried to understand this situation, and he shook his head as he spoke,"Lucia and I have known each other for a long time. When I was being assigned to protect Lucia, I had signed a mana contract with her that I will protect her at any cost. And you know… she was the one who saved me from that organisation after finding out about me being captured for experiments."
"So then why are you…." I asked with a confused yet worried expression, but before I could complete my sentence, he spoke again,"Why am I still helping the Vampire King who captured Lucia? Well… honestly, you should not worry about that girl. I did say just now, I signed a mana contract with Lucia. Want to take a look at it?"
I looked at his seemingly familiar expression… he looked like he was looking at someone he knew when he looked at me and I wondered what that expression was about. I then nodded and a mana contract came in front of me with both the prints of Lucia and William on it.
I read the mana contract through and through, and what I found made me feel goosebumps all over my body. It wasn't just a simple mana contract but a f*cking slavery contract. I observed that guy standing in front of me wondering just who in their right mind would sign on something like this.
Taking the mana contract back, he looked at me and spoke,"Lucia is fine. Trust the contract if you can't trust me. You see… I had a wife whom I believed to have died but later I got to know she was alive, until a few months back. She was captured by a monster and then was kept as her plaything all over the years. It wasn't until I went there to kill that monster that I coincidentally found my wife there, I realised how much of a weak person I am. All that I have left is a son that I want to raise properly. He should be about your age, Reaper, perhaps a bit older than you. The Scarlet family promised his protection in return for my power. You understand what that means, right?"
I looked at that guy with a slightly blank expression as he smiled at me as he threw a coin and spoke once again.
"Go to the human camp and show them this coin. They will let you in. Try reaching there tomorrow by dawn, or else you might never see the sun again… you can meet Lucia, if you can survive this, kid."
I looked at him and, after contemplating over everything, I nodded at him before running away from there as William watched me until I finally vanished from his sight.
'I wonder what my son is upto right now?' he thought before moving inside the castle.
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