Chapter 45: Let It Slide?
As Ark heard this, he smirked a little and put his spear down for a second. Seeing this, the girl and Lucius both put down their guards a little, and let out a sigh of relief. They made one miscalculation, Ark never said that he would let him go. The spear that was originally put down suddenly shot out at a speed that would be impossible for most to react to.
Puchi!
A rain of scarlet blood spread across the air as Lucius was penetrated straight through his heart. The spear didn't stop there though, and it kept going at the same speed as before, killing Lucius was as easy as slicing up a piece of paper, and this was a holy spear, of course, it wouldn't stop at that.
But Ark didn't want to implicate anyone else and dissolved the spear before it could hit anything or anyone else.
An expression of fear, confusion, and despair was spread across Lucius' face as his body slumped down onto the ground in a pool of his own blood. The young girl was also astonished by this and frightened out of her mind. She never expected something like this to happen on her trip. This was her first ever trip in this world, and she never thought that something like this would happen.
Truth be told, this young girl was called Leah, and she wasn't from this world, she was summoned here a while ago, and this was her first time leaving the capital of the kingdom.
She was supposed to go to the holy church for training since the battle against the demons had almost begun, and if she didn't get strong in time, she would surely just die. She never wanted to go to this world, some of her old classmates loved this new life, but she hated it. She didn't like the fact that she was summoned here against her will as a weapon.
Everyone told her the demons were evil existences, but Leah didn't really believe them if they were truly that evil, how had they managed to build an empire?
Building an empire wasn't something easy, and to do it, you needed support from the general populace. A country that didn't care for its inhabitants wouldn't last long. And if all demons were evil, how could they agree to live underneath the ruling of someone else? Wouldn't their empire just be a constant battlefield for power, with bloodshed everywhere?
And if that were the case, would the demons be a threat? The answer to that question was a definitive no.
Demons were in fact not that different from humans, the biggest difference was how they looked, and how powerful they inherently were.
Their bloodlust may be stronger than humans, but most demons could suppress it to the same level as a human, therefore making it almost stupid to use that as an argument.
"W-wh-why did you kill him?" Leah stuttered as she started to slowly back away from Ark.
"People kill monsters all the time right? What difference is there between killing him and a monster? At least the monster wouldn't spout nonsense."
Ark was still mad, and he would never just let him go. The matter wouldn't end if he did anyway since this mongrel would just keep looking for trouble, and he would surely find help in doing so. At least that's what Ark thought, and he was confident in his understanding of humans.
Maybe killing him seemed like a rash decision, but Ark didn't really care, it wasn't like he would enter human cities often anyway, at least not right now. Maybe this would bring him problems in the future, or well it most definitely would, but Ark would be stronger in the future, and he would be able to deal with it when the time came.
Leah was scared out of her mind right now, and she was surprised by the mindset of this youth in front of her, they seemed to be the same age, how could he be so calm after killing someone? In reality, Ark's [Mental Fortitude] skill took action. Without it, he would probably be a bit thrown off, maybe even a bit sick at the thought of ending someone's life.
The feeling of taking someone's life away was in reality pretty sickening, but Ark couldn't feel that kind of feeling, which could be seen as either a good thing or a bad thing. In some people's eyes, it would probably seem a little psychotic to not feel anything, but to some others, it would just be a convenience. And Ark was the latter, not that he thought that much about it.
Ark was about to leave again, but he was once again interrupted. A terrifying aura emanated from the carriage just a moment after Lucius died. Ark noticed it right away, but he still tried to leave.
"You dare kill a member of my holy church? And you think you can get away with it?" Think again, kid!"
As Ark heard this, he was a bit annoyed since he needed to deal with another nuisance before getting to heal his friend and to be honest, he didn't have an infinite amount of time in this form. From the carriage, a very old man with a head full of disheveled white hair emerged.
The old man was clad in white, golden-embroidered robes and his grey beard was almost half a meter long as it fluttered in the wind. His eyes were similar to the young man before him, but his golden colour was a bit duller, he was old after all.
This old man didn't spout as much nonsense, instead, he instantly went on the offensive, the little hair he had left started to flutter about on its own as he started to shine in a radiant white light. After accumulating his power for a while, he created a large sphere of magical power that he hurled towards Ark.
Ark scoffed as he saw this, [What a crude way of using magic] was all he thought as he once again called upon the power of [Dawn] to deal with this foe. The spear was hurled out at an intense speed, and it twisted the air as forced its way forward. The sphere wasn't able to stop the spear at all, and it just went straight through it, as the sphere exploded into a big shockwave off light Mana.
The shockwave worked out in the old man's favor though as he was blasted out of the spears course. Instead of hitting the old man, the spear landed on the ground about 10 meters away. The spear exploded into a large golden blast, that spanned for about 50 meters in a circular form.
Fortunately, the people in the surroundings had long since retreated to a safe distance, otherwise, they would have all been destroyed by this blast. The old man wasn't as lucky though, and he was enveloped by the blast.
He managed to twist his way out of most of it, but he still couldn't help but lose an arm in the explosion. It took about a second for him to even feel the pain, and notice that his arm was missing.
"AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH"
The scream was heart-wrenching, and it even made Ark feel a little bad, fortunately, he had his [Mental Fortitude] and he managed to stay clear-headed throughout the ordeal. The old man was currently kneeling on the ground, hugging the stump where his arm had just been, as the blood poured out all over the place.
As tears were streaming down his face from the pain, an icicle suddenly penetrated straight through his head, splashing brain matter and blood all over the place.
This painted a pretty cruel-looking scene, and Ark looked very heartless to the surrounding people, but Ark killing the old man in one clean shot to the head was also a form of mercy, since he put him out of his suffering, even if it was induced by Ark in the first place.