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POV Kevin
I collapsed onto the wolf's body, out of breath, and started laughing. On my own, pushing myself to my very limits, I had managed to finish the dungeon. I had come close to death, sure, but the most important thing was that I was alive.
I also thought back to my last attack, which had caused an explosion. I had thought that by injecting more power into it, my blade would simply cut deeper. But, poorly controlled, the flow of energy had exploded. I didn't dare imagine what would have happened if I hadn't reacted fast enough to finish off the wolf before it came to its senses, when I had no mana left. Or if the energy had exploded in my hand, which would also have been the end of me. This time, I had been incredibly lucky. I still had poor control over my abilities, but this failure had given me a variant of my technique; for now, that was for the best. All I had left to do was perfect it so it wouldn't explode in my hands.
I finally turned back and shuddered when I heard cries behind me.
"Oh, shit!"
I started running as fast as I could. I had actually stumbled onto the boss by chance and had managed to avoid certain chambers. In reality, I hadn't really finished the dungeon, and overall, I had been very lucky. I finally came out exhausted before picking up my bag, which I had left at the entrance to the portal. Fortunately, I had thought to collect the monsters' cores so I could sell them.
I finally took out my phone and saw multiple missed calls, all from my mother. So I decided to call her right away.
"Hello."
"Where are you?" she asked, slightly worried.
"I'm at Arthur's. His father offered to let me sleep over. Sorry, I forgot to tell you."
"You'd better make sure this doesn't happen again!" she declared firmly.
"Ha ha, yes, Mom!" I answered after being scolded.
Then I looked at the pitiful state I was in: my clothes torn and my body battered and covered in blood.
There was no way I could show up at the hospital covered in blood without being asked a thousand questions. I put on the spare T-shirt I kept in my bag, then went to a hotel, where I was greeted by a receptionist who was visibly surprised by my state, and especially by my smell. I went upstairs to take a shower.
Once I had washed and changed, I left the hotel to go to the hospital, since I was injured.
When I got to the hospital, I asked to see the doctor who had been treating me since we arrived in French Guiana, Dr. Cadmus. A tall, calm Black man who had always spoken to me as if I were an adult.
He saw me a few minutes later, with the same smile as always. We talked briefly before he began examining me.
"You have four broken ribs. I'm going to bandage you up and prescribe painkillers so it hurts less."
Cadmus also noticed the bites and claw marks on my body, but he said nothing about them.
"Thank you."
"Kevin, does your mother know?"
"No, that's why I'm asking you to keep it a secret, and I'll probably come back to see you."
"Very well, as you wish, but go easy on your mother, OK?"
"Yes, and thank you."
"You're welcome."
After leaving the hospital, I went back to the hotel to rest and recover. When I entered my room, I felt relieved to finally be able to relax after that eventful day.
Knowing that my body needed rest, I took off my T-shirt and lay down on the bed, bare-chested, covered in bandages.
"Classes start again in two days. I'll barely have time to recover," I thought.
The next day, I managed to sell what I had obtained for 10,800 euros, but I regretted not having been able to earn more, kicking myself for not having brought a bigger bag.
Time had flown by faster than I had expected, and I realized that classes would start again tomorrow and, above all:
"I have scores to settle!"
Monday
On the morning school resumed, I found myself at the entrance to the high school, where Arthur joined me.
"So, Arthur, how was the little break?"
"I geeked out as usual, but what happened to you in a month? Have you been working out?"
"I think I can thank my awakening."
"I wish I had an awakening like that. We'll get to see the results in the very first class, since it's training!"
Taking our time, we went to the gym's training room, where we were the last to arrive.
"There will also be a…" Professor Henry stopped.
There was a certain silence when we arrived: those who had abandoned me to my fate instinctively lowered their eyes and stopped talking. The teacher whose arm I had broken looked at me with apprehension. It was obvious he was remembering the incident and that traces of fear still lingered in him; I could feel it.
"Excuse us, sir."
"Er, yes… Fine, take your seats," he coughed.
We then calmly sat down while the teacher resumed his speech.
"I hope everyone has recovered from that more than regrettable incident in which we lost classmates. And I want to congratulate all of you, because you showed great courage and an exemplary fighting spirit. For those of you aiming for the top awakened schools, it will give you experience. Now, before we resume, as I was saying before the latecomers arrived, there will be a minute of silence throughout the school for your classmates who tragically passed away."
A bell rang, marking the start of the minute of silence. Some bowed their heads. Others looked at their feet. Or at me.
Then a second bell rang, signaling the end of the minute of silence, and the teacher spoke again:
"Now, to get back into things, today we're going to have duels. So, who wants to fight first?"
"Me."
At first, my classmates' guilt-ridden looks quickly turned into teasing mockery. Stifled laughter broke out around me, but I simply let it pass without caring. After all, apart from the teacher and Arthur, no one knew about my real awakening. So I decided to provoke them directly: if they wanted to laugh, we would laugh together. However, in the end, I would be the only one laughing.
"You're laughing like little monkeys, but nobody has raised a hand yet? Well, are you afraid to fight a poor non-awakened, the one you abandoned like the cowards you are?"
A heavy silence fell, but the hook had been cast, with that barely veiled threat. And the right fish soon bit like an idiot.
"Fine, I accept, then."
It was Adam, the main architect of that betrayal, the one who had stabbed me in the back. We came down from the bleachers, him with a very relaxed stride, then took our places in the center of the arena, where he shot me arrogant looks.
"You must be feeling pretty full of yourself, Kevin," Adam declared.
"Says the guy who shit himself so badly he abandoned a classmate. Behind your bad-boy act, you're just a little coward."
"You'd better shut your mouth!"
"Oh, you're almost scary, but you must feel pretty lonely without your two friends, don't you? I'd advise you to bring them in to help you."
"I don't need them against a loser like you!" he replied, a vein appearing on his forehead.
"I insist, sir, I'm requesting a 3-on-1."
"That's not…"
I turned to the teacher, putting heavy pressure on him: he met a murderous glint in my eyes.
"Have you forgotten what happened to your arm?"
A drop of sweat rolled down his forehead; he hesitated for a moment, then gave in:
"Onil, Karminia, join Adam," Professor Henry ordered, under duress.
POV Adam
"That poor non-awakened. I don't know how he got out alive, but he hasn't said anything about what we did to him. I'm going to teach him a lesson so he never talks!"
"Fine, I accept."
"I insist, sir, I'm requesting a 3-on-1."
"A three-on-one, when he's not even awakened! No, maybe he did awaken, and that's how he escaped death? Pff, whatever, he can't win three against one, even if he did become powerful. But then why are cold sweats running down my body?"
"Have you forgotten what happened to your arm?"
"What? The teacher's arm—what is he talking about…"
An uneasiness was growing in me, and I couldn't shake it off.
The teacher agreed, avoiding my gaze. And Kevin was smiling. A smile I had never seen on him before.
"Begin!" Professor Henry announced.
My friends and I got into position, ready to fight, yet Kevin just stood there, relaxed, still wearing that smile. That was when he began to speak:
"Tell me, do you know what it feels like to have your arm torn off?"
"You… You… You're delirious, you poor thing."
"To have a leg torn off, to bleed like a pig and wait, wait for death to come for you! To be in the most complete darkness, where even your shadow disappears, and to know you'll never see your family again."
The more he spoke, the more disturbing his story became, as the words came out of his mouth and the smile on his face grew wider. Every sentence seemed tinged with a growing darkness, conjuring dark and disturbing images. The tone of his voice became more and more sinister, almost hypnotic, while shivers ran through me.
"To see the depths of the abyss, to suffocate, to burn, to see things that break your mind and keep you from sleeping a wink! To feel them creep insidiously into the depths of your being and swarm there like cockroaches!"
The words describing that experience froze my blood, carrying my mind to dark and unexplored places. The depths of the abyss seemed to evoke an unfathomable depth, a place where darkness was sovereign. The suffocation, the burning sensation—all of it created an unbearable feeling of smothering.
The nightmarish images seemed to come to life before my eyes, invading my consciousness in a disturbing way. My mind struggled to tell the line between the real and the imaginary, as if a parallel reality were unfolding in front of me. Terror seized my senses, and my whole body began to tremble involuntarily, caught in a state of intense fear.
I felt trapped in a waking nightmare, confronted with visions that seemed straight out of my worst fears. The power of those images was so strong that it shook my emotional stability, leaving me helpless in their grip.
My heart was pounding, hammering against my chest as if looking for an escape from this disconcerting reality. My hands were trembling, searching for support, for a grip on tangible reality to reassure me, but everything seemed to waver under the hold of those nightmarish visions.
How could words do that?
"Attack him… Attack him!" I shouted to my classmates.
And yet my two friends hadn't moved; turning toward them, I saw that they were trembling, sweat running down their faces. I understood where the discomfort I had felt from the start came from: it was fear!
"Wait, let me show you!"
At those words, a terrifying aura exploded, enveloping the entire gym in a suffocating heaviness.
"What is this oppressive energy?"
I couldn't breathe anymore. He was walking toward me, and behind him, his darkness was advancing too. It was taking shape: an immense silhouette, with arms, a head, a smile.
Warmth ran down my leg. I had wet myself in front of the whole class.
I backed away. There was nowhere to go.
The distorted silhouette seemed to toy with my vulnerability. I could feel its breath on my face, along with its smile.
Before I could see him move, he was in front of me and had seized both my arms in a powerful grip. With a diabolical smile, the entity laughed, and I felt a pain so atrocious that I thought death itself had come for me.
Then I heard screams, horrible screams, and those howls I was hearing, those heartrending screams, were my own. It seemed almost surreal: I was both the actor and the spectator of this scene of horror, wondering if I could ever escape this living hell.
I understood why I was screaming: the monster had completely twisted both my arms in several unnatural directions, torturing every joint and every muscle in a symphony of pain. It reveled in my pain with a demonic smile, a reflection of the cruelty it took pleasure in inflicting. The seconds seemed to stretch into an eternity, and I found myself trapped in that nightmarish moment.
I screamed, heartrending screams that seemed to echo throughout the room, while cold sweat flooded my body. Every second seemed to go on forever, and I prayed for this horror to end. But the pain persisted, relentless, as if time itself had frozen to prolong my torture.
"Ahhhhh!"
POV Kevin
I took both of Adam's arms and broke every bit of bone and muscle in them, which gave way to cries of agony. He sounded like a piglet being slaughtered, screaming as if he were bleeding out. But the most wonderful thing was all the terrified looks from my other classmates in the bleachers. They were plunged into a heavy silence, broken only by some people's stifled cries and others' murmurs. Their faces, marked by worry and anguish, reflected horror and disgust at the atrocious spectacle unfolding before their eyes. Some, their hands clenched on the edge of their seats, their faces livid and their eyes wide, stared at the scene with frightening intensity. Others looked away, covering their eyes with their hands to escape the sight. Still others were unable to tear their eyes away from the scene, both horrible and repugnant.
It was a truly magnificent spectacle, and I didn't miss a single moment of it. Then I sent Adam, unconscious and with his arms crushed, slamming into one of the gym walls.
Then I gave Onil exactly the same treatment, before turning to Karminia. She was paralyzed with fear, unable to move an inch, while I approached her to whisper in her ear.
"Listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you. I only show mercy once. Next time, pray. Pray that your torment ends quickly, because what awaits you will make you regret ever setting foot on this earth. Because next time, I will rape you, making sure to break every part of your miserable body. You will scream in pain, you will pray for someone to end your miserable existence. And at that moment, you will beg me to kill you, but you will only die when I decide."
Her wide eyes reflected the fear that had taken hold of her at my words. I could hear her heart beating. I had chosen every word so that she would never forget them.
Then I slapped her, sending her flying to join her two unconscious companions, embedded in the wall. My murderous intent and my mana then exploded as I addressed the rest of the class.
"All of you here are the ones who betrayed me, and today I promise you that if it ever happens again, you will all be treated to a long ceremony of agony, praying for death to deliver you. Because, after all, the most beautiful ceremony of our lives is also the last!"
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