The Path of Ruin

"Huh?"

He should have been surprised, but he was not the one who made that sound. On the contrary, what he found in front of him... was a flesh and blood human being like himself. A real one, not a monstrous one.

He was dressed in the servant\'s clothes of the palace. He looked to be in his mid-twenties. He had a skinny body, unkempt black hair, and beard.

He seemed surprised to find Kael. Kael was the same way, of course.

"W- what are you doing here? Ah, fuck! RUN!"

Kael\'s eyes widened. This man had rushed into the room, and now he was telling him to run.

He didn\'t have to wait long to confirm his suspicions. Within seconds of the man\'s words, a shadow appeared in the doorway, and... two eyes, glowing red as always.

Kael was already thinking before he even saw the creature.

Could he reach for his bag? No, the creature was too fast.

Could he somehow use the knife in his hand? Same thing, the creature was too fast. And... he didn\'t trust himself.

Could he escape? It was clearly impossible.

The creature was probably extending its claw towards them when he looked momentarily at the man in front of him, and saw the terror on his face. He wasn\'t even looking at himself, his eyes were on the shadow looming in the doorway. His expression was as if his life was passing before his eyes.

So... Kael made a decision that he would probably never make faster in his life.

"I... am sorry."

He put his hands on the back of the man whose back was turned towards him, pushing him into the creature\'s claws. The creature\'s claw sliced through the man\'s abdomen at the same time. The man\'s blood splattered on Kael, but he didn\'t even think about it.

The thrust of the man\'s body had knocked the creature slightly off balance, and thanks to that same body, it now had a blind spot on its left side.

Kael quickly passed through this blind spot with his small body and was out of the room in an instant. He didn\'t look back, he didn\'t think about what he might find in front of him. He just ran, without stopping... completely ignoring the fatigue and the pain. He prayed that the creature would be preoccupied with that man,

After a while, whether he wanted to or not, things started to catch his eye.

The corridors of the palace were quite wide. But... empty as well. Empty for the \'living\', at least. As he ran and ran, he could see so many corpses of people and creatures. The walls and even the ceiling were splattered with blood in some places. The palace... it literally had become a bloodbath.

But what he found strange... was that he could see hardly anyone alive.

Were they hiding? Were most of them already dead? Most of the bodies he saw out of the corner of his eye in the corridors were human. Servants, soldiers, unknown people and so on.

But there were also bodies of creatures. So someone had fought these creatures and managed to kill them.

Exactly how long after the events had started had he woken up and the palace was already like this?

Kael swallowed, took one last look around, and then he saw a room with no trace of blood at the entrance. There was also no one alive around him, at least not that he could see.

He swallowed again, ran into the room, and opened the door without thinking. He only glanced inside briefly, but could not see any creatures. It was a small room anyway.

He quickly closed the door, distanced himself as far away from it as possible... and then just collapsed where he was.

He was panting again, his heart beating too fast. Was this the third time? It was becoming... tragicomic, frankly. If he found himself like this one more time, maybe he could laugh.

Unless... he dies.

He paused with that last thought. He squinted, just staring at the ground.

It was strange. Everything was so strange. Yes, he suspected an attack by the Empire, but it didn\'t change the fact that it was still very strange. He didn\'t understand anything.

\'Could I be... dreaming or something?\'

That was the first thing that came to his mind. What he had been going through for the last hour... was too fantastic for a slave like him. But then he quickly pushed the thought out of his mind.

\'No, it can\'t be a dream.\'

The way he was breathing, the way it hurt, the way his muscles ached... everything was too real. And he couldn\'t remember ever being so lucid in a dream.

He waited again in silence.

Why was he trying so hard to stay alive? He had stopped expecting anything from life a long time ago, the only reason he had ever strived was for an empty goal that he didn\'t even believe he could achieve; he only used it as an excuse to move forward. But... what was the point of a goal when the palace was like this?

He thought of the man he had pushed to his death a few minutes ago. He hadn\'t even thought twice, he had thrown someone who had no idea who he was into the claws of a creature. He had done it to survive.

His already slightly squinted eyes narrowed even more. He heard a voice slowly rising from the depths of his mind, a sweet memory from years ago... a short sentence.

\'Everything so I can live, huh...\'

He took a deep breath. He closed his eyes, waited for a while... then opened them again. His lungs and heart had calmed down.

He lifted his head. For the first time in absolute silence, he looked carefully into the room.

It was certainly bigger than the room full of servants\' clothes. But... it was not much different. At least in terms of the number of wardrobes. Apart from that, there was a table, an armchair, and a bed. It was as if it was the room of someone who lived in this palace.

Kael paused, and for a moment, a terrible thought entered his mind.

\'I... I haven\'t been in the prince\'s room, have I?\'

He quickly surveyed the room again. Then he heaved a deep sigh.

\'No, it\'s too... austere for a prince\'s room. I heard the prince was a snob.\'

He stood up slowly, his eyes lingering on one of the wardrobes.

\'I suppose the best way to find out is to look at the clothes?\'

After all, the better the quality of the clothes, the more important was the person who wore them.

So, he approached the wardrobe and calmly opened the door without thinking too much about it. But then... his eyes widened again at the sight before him.

The wardrobe was not empty. And no, he wasn\'t talking about clothes. Inside... there was a person. A living person. And when the door of the wardrobe he was in was opened, he didn\'t just... stand still.

Kael saw something glowing faintly in front of his eyes, then a... sword aimed right at his chest.

\'Hol-\'

The person in the wardrobe was fast, and he did not expect to find himself in such a situation. He believed he was alone in the room! But he wasn\'t!

He saw the sword approaching his chest, he was watching in slow motion what was happening... but he couldn\'t move.

\'After all that, am I going to die because of someone who doesn\'t even look at who is in front of him...?\'

Wasn\'t such a death... too funny? Even for him?

However, just as he was thinking this... the sword suddenly stopped. Kael\'s eyes slowly left the sword as a deep silence fell over the room again, finally getting a chance to look properly at the person inside the wardrobe.

Before him stood a man in his late forties. His neatly coiffed orangish hair was gray in places, and his face had visible, if not obvious, wrinkles. His light brown eyes stared at Kael in surprise.

\'Is this... a nobleman?\'

Kael jumped to that conclusion as soon as he saw the man. He couldn\'t believe that someone with such neat and well-groomed hair could be a normal person. And the clothes he was wearing... they were exactly what a noble would wear. He was wearing a simple tunic with a light pattern that matched his hair color. His brown pants were of good quality fabric, and the boots he was wearing looked like leather.

"Ah, a h- human...?"

When the old nobleman stuttered, Kael froze in place for a moment.

Meeting a nobleman was not a good thing for him!

The old noble\'s eyes roamed over Kael\'s body as he thought about it. But soon, he stopped at his neck, staring for a moment at the mark on that very spot. Then... the surprise in his eyes disappeared in an instant.

"A... slave?"

Kael cursed his luck again. Of all the things that could have happened, he had met a nobleman!