"Heavy Breathing""What just happened?"
As Dasmiond looked around himself in confusion, the only thing he saw was pitch black.
"Ugh, what's this smell? Wait, didn't I d—"
He suddenly touched his neck with his right hand. He was both surprised and confused to see his head still intact.He was pretty sure what happened in the ceremony was not a dream. He definitely felt the pain, even if it was for a slight moment.
He started looking around himself for answers, but obviously, he could not see anything. But there was some seriously disgusting smell there. He covered his nose with his left hand and started walking while keeping his right hand straight for navigation.
"What is thi—"
He suddenly fell, hitting his face on the ground."Ugh… sssss..."
As he realized he had tripped over something, he looked at it subconsciously in fear, fright, and hurry. There was definitely something there, but he could not see it clearly due to the dark—at least it was not moving.
He crawled forward and touched that thing with his hand. At first, he felt something soft, and after that, he felt something wet. As his face frightened and he crawled back, he said in a fearful voice,"DEAD BODY..."
He suddenly stopped making any noise for a moment and stayed still.
"Is there a monster here?"he whispered.
After some time of staying still and realizing there was not some kind of danger around, he slowly crawled back to the body and started inspecting it. After some time, he realized it was not a monster's wounds, but instead the scars were human-made.Or to be more precise, the body was headless and both its arms were cut off. It was an execution method his Arsmond family used.
And worst of all, as his eyesight adjusted to the darkness, he realized whose body it was.
He was not completely sure, as there was no head, but it was most likely the dead body of one of the traitor soldiers of the Arsmond family. He had been executed around a month ago as he was caught sharing vital family information with one of their neighboring families, which was also a rival family.
As Dasmiond realized where he was, there was a slight look of tension on his face."So I'm in the Grotto of the Faithless..."
Apparently, this was a big cave his family used to throw traitors in, to make a living example of them.Some of the lucky men, like the guy in front of him, were beheaded as a sign of mercy. While most prisoners had their limbs cut off and were left here to starve to death.
As Dasmiond realized where he was, his expression turned to anger.He—the second son of the family—was now called a traitor.He didn't know how his aura turned red, and that too with so much density that it was almost completely pure, but he definitely didn't make any contact with a devil. He was most definitely set up for this.
"My brothers, uncles, or someone else…"
He might not have been the heir, but he was still second in line for it, and naturally, that attracted a lot of attention.He had spent all his life—from the moment he was born—serving his family, even if he didn't like it at all. And for his family to throw him away without a second thought, let alone give him a moment to explain himself, filled him with extreme rage.
But he could not do anything about it now. He started to think of different ways to survive this situation, as that was what he was taught from the very beginning of his life.He might not have had much experience, but he was definitely heavily trained for these kinds of situations.
After some time, he came to a conclusion.There was good news and bad news about this situation.The good news was there were no monsters in this cave.The bad news was there was no other way to escape this cave than to climb hundreds of meters to the entrance, with the risk of also being caught.Even if the entrance of the cave was almost at the very border of his family mansion, it was still in his family's domain.
And he knew better than anyone that as one of the 11 most prestigious families in the world in terms of swordsmanship, his family was not to be underestimated.
After all, the only other powers in the entire world that were equal to these 11 families were the 8 major families of magic, called the Union of Nature, and a single major family of beast taming—even if it was far to the north and didn't like to intervene in worldly affairs.
The cave was vast and there was nothing proper to measure time, but his training paid off. He didn't panic and stayed calm.
But even after a whole day of looking around, he still could not find anything that could help him escape.But after a while, he had a thought that could help him escape. He had already awakened his aura. Of course, he still didn't know what properties his aura had, and it was also a devil's aura—but Dasmiond didn't really care about that kind of thing.He was already punished for it, and he hadn't made any deal with a devil. And most of all, his will to live was much greater than his will to die—not to mention in this kind of disgusting place.
He sat down and started to meditate, to control his aura as much as he could. There were different kinds of aura, and each one had different properties. Some provided excellent defense, some made you much more agile, and of course, there were some with unique properties—but one thing they all had in common was that aura gave you basic physical boosts like strength, stamina, agility, etc.
But one thing about demonic—or red—aura was that its properties were much more unique, or sometimes completely different from normal aura properties.
After some time, Dasmiond started extracting his aura from its properties. It was not the ideal thing to do, because in this case, you were not using most of the aura. But because he was not used to his aura, and most importantly didn't know the properties of his aura, it had to do.
Because the density of his aura was almost completely pure, he suddenly felt strength surging all across his body. He could move easier, his body felt much lighter, and most importantly, he could see much clearer in the dark now.But even after a lot of time practicing with his aura, he still could not figure out its properties.
"It's just as I thought..."
He realized that the properties of his aura were of a unique type.Their family was not trained to control, let alone taught, anything about red aura.The only information he knew was from his old butler.
So he decided to go back to basics.He decided to exert his aura on stones around him at first, but there was no difference.After that, he exerted his aura on a small, rotten patch of grass nearby, but it didn't change either.But at that moment, he noticed something.
"Is that... blood?"
He noticed that small drops of blood near the grass were moving.
He then walked back to the body of the first soldier he found in the cave. After exploring the cave for the last whole day, he had also found a lot of other dead bodies, but most of them were completely rotten.
After he reached the dead soldier's body, he started exerting his aura on the body.
Suddenly, the blood and the rest of the flesh started moving.They lifted up from his body and started gathering at the top of it.After some time, only the soldier's skeleton was left.
It was not what he imagined the properties of his aura to be, but at the top of the soldier's skeleton, there was a floating, disgusting ball of flesh and blood, which slowly started to change its shape.
It was still disgusting, but it almost looked like a...a womb.