CHAPTER 23: KILL!

The cavern reeked of blood.

Astrael stood alone, surrounded by a field of corpses. The previous snarling, shrieking, murderous now lay lifeless in the heaps. Green blood soaked the stone beneath his feet.

His hands trembled. Knuckle white around his sword hilt. The blade drips with greenish blood.

[You have levelled up and reached level 13]

[You get 2 status points to distribute freely]

The system notification chimed in his mind.

The words flashed across his vision. It was superimposed over the snarling hobgoblin swinging the spiked club. Astrael didn’t think. After countless kills, the instincts he honed in this crucible slaughter took over. The status points slammed into his attributes.

Attributes:

- Strength: 18--32

- Agility: 29--44

- Intelligence: 10--25

- Endurance: 8

- Vitality: 7--13

- Charm: 5

- Soul: 100 (LOCKED)

- SP: 10--0

***

Astrael’s body jerked as if something had given him a high dosage of a drug. He felt a surge of power in his tiny body.

It surged through his limbs like fire. His breath hitched. The world slowed. His small, fragile frame began to swell—muscles twitching, tightening, expanding. The veins on his arms bulged, pulsing with glowing blue mana that wrapped around him like a living aura.

He could feel it. Every thread of it. The mana wasn’t just swirling around him—it was seeping into his bones, burrowing under his skin like a second bloodstream. The change was violent.

His vision sharpened to an unnatural degree.

He saw every minute detail.

Astrael didn’t think. There was no room for that anymore.

His mind collapsed into something primal. Detached. Cold.

His heart beat rhythmically, but his body moved after that ever, as if... as if he had done this before. As if his mind was ingrained with all the battle skills.

His fingers twitched, and then he was gone—nothing but a blur of rage.

His mind was consumed by the bloodlust. It’s like he is a machine made to kill. Fear didn’t exist within him.

Only one command pulsed in his brain:

KILL!

...

Gorthak’s instincts screamed louder than his thoughts.

Gorthak had fought monsters, warlocks, and beasts born in this hell. But right now, as his eyes locked onto Astrael, his gut twisted into a knot of pure dread.

"That aura..."

Gorthak felt that if he waited any second, he would die a gruesome death.

He didn’t hesitate.

"Bone Prison!" Gorthak roared, his voice cracking with fury and desperation.

Man surged from him, ripping through the earth beneath his feet. Jagged bone spikes burst from the ground; they twisted around Astrael in a spiral, sealing him inside a cage made of bone.

Dust and debris exploded into the air.

Gorthak exhaled sharply, sweat slick on his brow. "That should hold him..."

But he knew better. Even before the words left his mouth-

Inside the bone prison, Astrael moved.

No fear. No hesitation.

His eyes glowed faintly, their colour warped by the mana flaring beneath his skin. He lifted one arm, fingers curled around a blade he hadn’t consciously drawn.

With a single motion—quick, effortless—he slashed.

CRACK.

The bone cage, as if meeting with a butcher knife, split like tofu. Shattered like a fragile vase.

Astrael stepped forward from the ruin. His face was blank, calm.

His voice, when it came, was quiet. Too quiet.

"Is that all?"

Gorthak’s mouth went dry.

His legs shifted backwards, unconsciously.

He hesitated—not because he lacked strength or confidence—but because something was wrong in a way he couldn’t explain. His instincts screamed at him, but his mind was failing.

He reached out with his skill, Mind Reading. It had never failed him before. Not once.

But now...

Nothing.

No thoughts. No fear. No surface emotion to exploit. Astrael’s mind was silent—eerily silent. Like staring into a blank, white void.

It wasn’t blocked.

It wasn’t shielded.

It was simply... gone.

What the hell is he?

Gorthak’s jaw clenched. Cold sweat trailed down his spine.

He had faced dozens of hunters, beasts. And he had crushed them—because he was clever, adaptable, always five moves ahead.

He had survived as a beast not because of brute strength alone, but because of his mind. A predator that knew when to strike, when to retreat, when to exploit weakness.

Gorthak may be a beast, but not foolish.

But now? He couldn’t even see the battlefield. Couldn’t read the opponent. It was like trying to fight with his eyes sewn shut.

Astrael took one step forward.

Just one.

But to Gorthak, it felt like the swing of a guillotine.

Corpses carpeted the cavern floor like discarded dolls.

Dozens of goblins lay broken and twisted, their limbs bent at unnatural angles, eyes wide in frozen horror. The stench of blood and burnt flesh thickened the air. The greenish blood-soaked stone gleamed beneath the torchlight, as if the cavern itself was bleeding.

It was hell.

And in the middle of it all walked Astrael.

Silent. Unhurried. Blade dragging behind him with a dull sound.

SHHHHK!

Echoed like metal on bone. Not a word. Not a twitch of emotion. Just that same steady gait, like the massacre hadn’t ended yet.

"Speak," Gorthak muttered, voice dry. "What are you...?"

Still, no answer.

Astrael didn’t even look up.

He’s not human, Gorthak thought. He can’t be.

The fear that had gripped him earlier had changed. It had morphed into something worse: anguish. Regret. Regret that he hadn’t acted sooner.

If he had acted sooner...

If he had taken the boy seriously from the beginning...

Maybe this wouldn’t be happening.

His grip tightened around his obsidian staff, eyes flashing with cruelty.

"Spirit Pulse!" Gorthak bellowed.

He slammed his staff. A pulse of dark energy burst forward in a straight line, distorting the air around it as it shot toward Astrael.

The cavern trembled under its pressure. Corpses twitched as the malevolent force passed over them.

Astrael didn’t flinch.

He raised his blade with one hand, almost lazily.

And slashed.

One clean stroke.

The malevolent dark energy collapsed into nothing.

Extinguished. Like a candle snuffed out by the wind.

The light in Gorthak’s eyes faltered. It was his most potent spell. The attack had taken the lives of many and reduced them to ash.

But now... it didn’t even slow the boy down.

Astrael didn’t speak. He just kept walking forward, closing the gap.

Gorthak took a step back.

Then another.

And for the first time in years, he realised he was about to die.

Gorthak stumbled back, tripping over the edge of the ground, landing hard on his backside. His staff clattered beside him. Its glow flickered once... and then faded.

He stared up, his blue-fire eyes wide with horror, reflecting the blood-soaked, expressionless face of the child-monster looming over him. Telling his impending doom.

"P-please..." he croaked at last, voice barely audible. His hands reached out just to beg. "I... I can give you power... artifacts... knowledge..." Gorthak whimpered, the mighty shaman reduced to a terrified husk.

He trembled.

"Mercy..."

Astrael didn’t blink.

He stepped forward, closing the final distance. The blade in his hand gleamed, etched with runes faintly pulsing blue. Blood dripped from the edge.

He raised it.

In Astrael’s face, there was no rage, no triumph, no pity. Only one word.

KILL!

The blade descended. A simple, brutally downward chop. It cleaved through the shaman’s scrawny neck.

SHHK

SLASH

THUD!

Gorthak’s blue eyes flared once, with disbelief and terror, then dimmed to nothing.

His body spasmed once. Then twice.

And then—nothing.

The severed head tumbled sideways and hit the stone with a muffled thud. The eyes stared blankly, the fire within already fading.

Blood gushed from the stump like a fountain, painting the ground in green. The bone charms dangling from his robes jingled once, then fell still—silent, as if mourning him.

His body twitched once, then gave up. Even in death, it was clear: he hadn’t been able to move. Not in front of this child. No—this monster.

Astrael stood over the corpse, the blood on his sword now mingled with more blood. The eerie blue glow along the runes flickered... then dimmed, as if the weapon had finally fed its fill.

He stared at the headless body.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t breathe heavily. He just stared at the body with that same expressionless gaze.

Then, his fingers slipped.

The sword clattered to the ground.

His knees gave out.

Astrael collapsed forward, face hitting the blood-slick stone with a dull thud.

Then, as if the emergency button had been turned off, his body fainted on the ground. As if all the fatigue, exhaustion came at once, drowning him with tiredness.

Around him, the corpses of the goblins stared back in deathly silence.

And Astrael’s eyes, half-open, caught a glimpse of the carnage, just before they slid shut.

And finally, he slept, unaware of the system chime.

[Ding!]

[You have acquired the soul energy of a level 19 Goblin Shaman - Gorthak ]

[+9900 exp]

[You have levelled up and reached level 14]

[You get 2 status points to distribute freely]

[You have levelled up and reached level 15]

[You get 2 status points to distribute freely]

[You have levelled up and reached level 16]

[You get 2 status points to distribute freely]

[Ding!]

[Congratulations! Host for conquering the first floor of the Sundered Crypt...