Chapter 2. Hell Hound (2)
'Where am I?'
Vikir checked over his body.
No mana. No strength.
Not a trace of the aura he had forged through countless brushes with death, bled out and rebuilt over decades.
'Did I fall into hell?'
No—that wasn't it.
This place was too barren, too desolate to even be called hell.
A place so cruel that even the underworld would weep in shame.
The Baskerville clan.
After living as their hound for more than thirty years, there was no way he could mistake it.
The stench of blood. Of pus. Of everything that had died miserably here.
Vikir Van Baskerville realized instinctively.
He had regressed—returned to the time shortly after his birth.
'So… what now?'
In a body only a hundred days old, he could do little.
At best, roll over and signal the wet nurse for milk.
Just then—
"No one here looks usable."
A voice he knew all too well.
Hugo Le Baskerville, head of the clan, stood in the center of the nursery.
The sound of that voice almost made Vikir drop to his knees and bow, as habit demanded.
But thankfully, as an infant, his body refused.
Grit—
The sight of the man who had framed him and ordered his execution made his jaw clench.
But with no teeth yet, there was no sound.
'Calm down.'
He remembered the humiliation of his former life—
struggling to be acknowledged by his father,
to cast off the stain of being a bastard,
to earn a place in the family.
No more.
This time would be different.
He would not live as a hound, boiled and discarded once the rabbit hunt was over.
And then Hugo spoke again—
"Move the children to the Cradle of Blades."
As the wet nurse carried him away, Vikir thought:
'The first rite of passage?'
The Cradle of Blades—a path coiling around a hill, leading to the River Styx.
Only by plunging into its waters could a Baskerville child be reborn as a warrior.
But the river's blessing was never equal.
The strong took more, the weak less.
Survival of the fittest—unchanged since birth.
The sooner, and the longer, one bathed in the Styx, the greater the advantage.
So the moment Vikir was thrown into the center of the Cradle of Blades—he moved.
…Crrk!
Tiny hands pressed against knives.
Children of noble houses might grasp charms or tools for their future at their first birthday.
Baskerville children grasped blades that promised only pain.
Slash—rip—stab—tear—
Steel shredded his infant body.
Every push through the razor path seared him.
But he did not falter.
Pain had long ago become his companion.
Every fight, every kill in his former life had carved this sensation into him.
And he knew—
the deeper the wound, the better the Styx would seep in.
Vikir knew the clan's secrets, myths, and forbidden truths.
He knew exactly how to seize this chance.
Crawl… crawl… crawl…
The infant's soft body moved with the grit of a hound's hardened soul.
A trail of blood rolled down the slope, marking the straightest path forward.
Soon, he reached the clan's sacred ground.
The River Styx, winding through the marsh.
Submerging here would harden flesh like steel and sharpen the soul like a blade.
Vikir curled into a fetal position and plunged in.
…Splash!
Heavy. Agonizing. Like falling into molten iron.
The water boiled, steam rising, searing every open cut across his body.
But he endured.
Slash by slash, the water seeped into him, into bone and viscera, reshaping all of him.
'So this is what it truly means.'
His past body had been wiry and skilled, but frail, limited.
Now, from the very start, the Styx reforged him.
Thicker bones. Stronger flesh. A larger mana vessel.
This time, he would not lag behind.
He clenched his teeth as betrayal filled his mind—
his life stolen, his merits claimed by others,
framed and executed to cover Hugo's sins.
His only crime: knowing too much.
Crack—
New teeth pierced his gums, grinding.
The Styx surged with his fury, swelling his frame, burning with pain.
He welcomed it, gulping down the river itself to fortify his insides.
He recalled the old legend—
a warrior so strong that no blade could harm him.
Yet he died from a poisoned arrow to the heel—
because as an infant, his heels had never been dipped.
'That will not be me.'
Vikir twisted and writhed, forcing every part of his body to soak.
Even as wounds split open wider, he embraced it, letting the water seep deeper.
Bubbles rose. Blood flowed. His mind blurred.
He wanted to breathe. To surface.
But he knew—once you left the river, it never took you back.
So he clung to a stone at the riverbed, shaking his arms to let the current touch every part of him.
Voices echoed faintly above.
"Young master! You must come out!"
"You'll die if you stay down any longer!"
"Good heavens! Pull him out!"
Even Hugo's voice rang clear:
"My son. That is enough. Rise."
But that only fueled Vikir's defiance.
He rose from the depths—
but not before swallowing mouthfuls of the Styx to the very last drop.
Then—
"Pwah—!"
He burst through the surface, gasping, devouring the air.
Hugo watched him. And, for once, the clan head smiled.
"Hahaha! Look at this one. Already growing teeth, are you?"
The hunting dog, boiled in the Styx, bared his fangs at last.
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