Even Cermin seemed to be shocked by this. In a panic, he went to ask his system.
“Hey, Kai….. My new skill said that it only brings damage by purifying the evil energy. Why did he evaporate? Did I misunderstand something about the skill?”
Kai did not answer him, and instead said.
[The Slashing Ray does purify evil energy… by burning it with the power of the sun.]
Cermin’s eyes widened in panic. “I… I killed him?”
No response. His hands shook, and he looked at it as rain fell on them.
There it was again. Someone laying on the floor, bleeding.
Ronin could not read his thoughts because they were out of his mind-reading range, and he could only communicate with Zeuxis through Espinella.
He looked everywhere, but there was no sign of his brother. Only steam.
He turned to see Cermin’s reaction to what he had done. The terror on his face was palpable. He was shaking vehemently, then covered his mouth as if he would vomit.
If only Ronin could read his mind right now, he could have seen the images of the man laying on the floor and bleeding in the dark.
Cermin’s mind was in overdrive, and he had collapsed completely on the floor. Losing consciousness.
Cermin had fallen deep into slumber from so much fear, his heart feeling like it was being squeezed by a large hand until every single drop of blood was wrung out.
It was so painful that he could only pass out.
——————————-
“What’s wrong, Min Cheng? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
A concerned female classmate asked him, and only then did he snap out of it.
“A-Ah, no… It’s nothing. Besides, there’s no ghost, they don’t exist.” He smiled nervously. “Especially ghosts of crows.”
But he had to wipe a bead of sweat on his forehead.
He had been doing well so far. Yet the sight of that dead bird that hit itself on their window brought it back.
“Poor birdie….. Look at how much its skull was crushed. How did it even hit itself on our window?” A woman bravely held it in her hands.
“It must be blinded by something. Look at its eyes. It’s burnt.” Someone noticed.
“I think the people above us are conducting a magnifying glass experiment. They must have accidentally hit the crow with the ray of sunlight that they deflected.”
Min Cheng could not take it anymore. The more he looked at the bird…
“Excuse me— URK!” He rushed out of the room, holding his mouth.
He ran out and rushed to the bathroom. There goes his lunch.
He continued to retch on the sink and turned on the faucet as he did. He spat out one last time, tasting the sour bile in his mouth. It was so awful that he wanted to vomit all over again.
He then washed his mouth and face, gargling water and then spitting it out. As he looked at the mirror.
Someone else’s face met him.
“Ahhhhh!!!” He fell backward.
That dark, smiling face. It follows him everywhere like a shadow.
Bleeding and bleeding like that bird.
He closed his eyes. “It’s not real….. He’s not there….. Ghosts don’t exist…..”
When he opened his eyes once more…
It really was gone. He sighed in relief.
After that, he continued his day as usual. Putting on a happy face as always.
He smiled at the people who waved at him as he passed by. Everyone in this school knew him. He was generally well-liked.
That’s because he knows to keep smiling and not show any signs of what he had done.
But if they only knew…..
Would they still smile and wave back at him?
Min Cheng followed everything his parents told him all his life. He did not pursue botany. He pursued business management, so he can get into his family’s company after he graduate.
His whole life, there’s always been someone to tell him what to say, how to act, what to wear… what to be.
And he needs to be a certain way in front of everyone else.
He can’t show them at all this fear in him.
This fear of death.
Ever since that person’s death… He can’t look at corpses in movies the same way.
He made excuses when his friends invited him to watch horror movies. He distracted himself with light-hearted harem animes.
Because what better way to distract yourself than perversion?
But after all the beating and beating, he would lay down on his bed with the tissue papers all around him…
And his ghost would watch him as he sleep.
Because of that, even when Min Cheng knew he had to defeat villains as a hero, he did his best to avoid killing them.
He already had enough ghosts in this life.
The ghost of his gege kept on smiling at him in the shadows.
“So this is how I die, eh? Ah-Cheng.”
Min Cheng would close his eyes like a child, thinking that if he ignore it, the monster by his bed would go away.
But he never went away when night comes. Min Cheng was stuck with him standing and smiling with such a happy face by his bedside.
“I never thought I’d die because of you. So much for a friend.”
———————————-
“Cermin!” Ronin rushed towards the fallen hero.
And as he ran….
“Whoah, what happened to him?” A light chuckle came behind him after a flash.
Zeuxis was still alive after all, but there was fire on his right shoulder where the Obsidian was.
“You’re still alive after all.” Ronin picked up the unconscious Cermin. “He got scared by the thought of killing you.”
Zeuxis tried to douse off the fire with his electricity, but the fire somehow managed to eat the lightning.
“Pesky little golden turd. I can feel this fire weakening me.” Zeuxis cursed as he stumbled while walking.
“Must be part of his skill. It’s a powerful one indeed.” Ronin noticed.
He went over to hover his hand towards the flame, and tried to imagine a rune as he did.
“What are you doing?” Zeuxis asked.
“Trying to absorb it.”
Ronin drew the rune of ‘absorb’, but it was not effective. He then tried something else….
And opened his mouth.
Zeuxis blinked, but eventually…
Ronin did manage to eat the fire from the sun.
“Problem solved. Next, we kill Zeriav now that he’s asleep.” Ronin said.
Zeuxis nodded, and rotate his shoulder back and forth as he dashed back to the front of the inn.
Zeriav was laying there on the floor surrounded by the protective shield. He still could not speak, and he could not see either because he was still under the effect of Blinding Darkness.
Ronin frowned at the shield. “Can you put all your lightning to break that shield?”
His elder brother did his best, but it was to no avail. Zeriav realized he was being attacked by the loud thunders, and summoned strong surges of rain and wind in retaliation.
“It will disappear eventually.” Ronin frowned. “Once it does, you’re free to kill him.”
Zeuxis clapped. “Hah! That would be my greatest pleasure, prune.”
As Ronin left his brother to take care of the priest for him, he then noticed something on the ground. Bits of Zeriav’s hair.
He picked them up, and pocketed them for later. For now…
He went to the inn full of people he hypnotized to stay still and be polite to him. Their happy faces were full of beads of sweat from standing there for hours.
Their jaws hurt from smiling to much, and they struggled to move but couldn’t.
Ronin simply carried Cermin all the way to the bed. He too was exhausted from this long day, and felt like he could just sleep forever.
As he laid the hero in the bed, he watched them sleep for a while.
Just standing by his bedside, watching and watching,
After that, he went to his own bed to sleep.
Little did he know that Cermin had woken up a little when he put him to bed, and when he almost opened his eyes…..
He closed it again in fright after seeing a dark man watching him sleep.
He was so scared that he had to pretend to sleep until Ronin went to bed. Only when he did that Cermin realized it was just his friend, feeling relieved.
“So much for a friend.”
Those words rang out, and he had stressed himself out to sleep again.
When morning came, Ronin woke up first. He realized that Zeuxis was staying on one of the rooms in the inn, the people working still stuck like statues and internally terrified.
He went to that room, peeking a bit…..
Then slammed the door close when he realized what Zeuxis was hugging close to him as he slept.
Zeuxis grumbled sleepily inside. “By the gods, prune. Yawn….. Can’t I sleep with a corpse peacefully here?”
“Learn to lock the door next time, then! Ah, this psychopathic asshole!” Ronin cursed, kicking the door.
“Hurry up before Cermin wakes up, I have something to do to you so you can join us.”
“Join you? To where?” Zeuxis frowned, nuzzling a decapitated head close to him.
Ronin smirked at Zeriav’s hair that he had kept in his pocket. “We’re going to act like a bunch of good guys just helping a hero save innocent people from now on.”
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