CHAPTER 38: THE SMILE OF DEATH

"No... this can’t be... ho–how can a mere Awakened harm me?!"

Hector collapsed to the ground, screaming in pain and despair. Blood gushed endlessly from the deep cut across his chest. His breathing grew ragged, each gasp a desperate fight to live.

He didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not here.

With his trembling hand, Hector tried to pull out a healing potion. His last hope. But when he reached for his space ring, his heart froze.

It was gone.

"What? No... where is it?!" Hector’s voice cracked in panic.

His face was revealed.A middle age man with dark brown hairs and hazel eyes.There were wrinkles on his face indicating his age.

His hazy eyes darted around as blood continued to pour out of his wound.

That’s when he saw two legs standing before him.

Slowly, he raised his gaze upward.

Amon stood there, bloodied and beaten within an inch of his life. His face was torn, his body broken, but he was still standing. Still smiling faintly.

"You!" Hector shouted, desperation lacing his words.

"Give me a healing potion! I’ll spare both of you! Just save me—I can’t die here! I still need to take revenge on them!" His voice was anguish.

But Amon didn’t speak. He only stared down at Hector with an expressionless, bloodied face. Then, slowly... a smile appeared.

Hector’s eyes widened in terror.

"You—don’t smile at me, bastard! I can’t die here! I still have a chance! I can save her! They said I could bring her back again! Save me, save me, please!"

The proud man’s voice cracked, his tone breaking into begging and tears.

"Don’t laugh! You don’t know what I’ve gone through!"

Amon’s smile widened, his bloodied teeth glinting in the dim light.

"How sad? Who did you lose?" Amon asked, his voice disturbingly calm.

Hector’s lips trembled, and tears welled in his eyes.

"My daughter... Ria. She was everything to me. They took her. The temple took her. You people took her from me!"

"They labeled her a witch... just because she awakened a class related to witchcraft. They took her... tortured her..." Hector’s voice broke.

"I pleaded, I begged, but they never gave her back. They used her. Those self-righteous bastards... more corrupted than anyone!"

Amon continues to hear the story with huge smile. There was no sympathy in his eyes for Hector just amusement and there was anger in Amon’s smile.

His breathing grew shallow, his body shaking. Yet he forced himself to keep speaking.

"I saw them bind her at the stake... burn her alive in front of the whole village..." His voice cracked in grief.

"She didn’t even scream. No pain on her face. She was already broken. Already dead inside... before the flames took her."

Then his tone shifted, filled with venom.

"That’s when I swore revenge! They came to me... promised me power... told me if I did their bidding, I could have my revenge! They even said there was a chance to bring her back!They help me to Reached master rank.Yet-"

Amon tilted his head, still grinning. "Who were they?"

"I don’t know! It didn’t matter!" Hector coughed blood.

"My only goal was revenge... so I accepted! Please, save me!"

With anguish, Hector raised his blood-soaked hand toward Amon.

"Help... m-me...p-please!"

But his hand flew through the air as Amon’s sword sliced it clean off.Blood flow through air along the hand.

"NO way~" Amon replied with a wide, bloody grin.

"AHHHH! You bastard!" Hector screamed in agony, his strength draining rapidly.

His heartbeat slowed, his body weakening from the massive blood loss.

Amon’s eyes glinted coldly as he crouched closer.

"You know... I do feel bad for you, Hector. So sad. But what does that have to do with me? What have I, or the other students, ever done to you?"

He kicked Hector’s face, sending him sprawling on his back.

Hector groaned from the impact, barely conscious.

Amon leaned closer, smiling creepily with hatred.

"I pity you. I feel really bad for Ria. But I am more angry at you."

Hector felt chills crawl down his spine.

Amon’s smile was no longer human.

Then came his words, unaltered from your writing—

"Today when you die.... No one will remember you. The real you... no one other than me.... Hector Romblin... I will remember you."

Amon’s expression remained twisted, but his tone grew colder.

"You were a father who was not able to save your only family."

"Not because you are weak, but because the world is cruel... for people like you... and me."

"You accepted the wrong side, the wrong path. You killed innocents for your daughter’s revenge... yet here you are, unable to even get that revenge. Do you know why?"

Hector’s hazy eyes tried to focus, his consciousness slipping away. While Amon continues,

"Because of your karma. Even if it was for revenge against evil, you killed innocents. Karma is a bitch. It will come back to you no matter how strong you are. Even gods are not spared from it."

"One can defied the fate...but not his karma"

Amon’s voice dropped lower, almost kind.

"Don’t worry. The ones who hurt you and Ria will get their punishment eventually. But for now, you should sleep...I will remember you, Hector Rombling, until I survive. Until I die. Not as a criminal or heretic or a murderer ... but as a good father."

His wide grin softened into a faint smile.

"You tried to save her...did wrong only for her...I respect you for that."

Amon picked up Hector’s fallen dagger.

Hector didn’t resist anymore. He didn’t curse. He didn’t argue. He only stared at Amon’s face—the smile of the boy who would kill him.

In his last moments, His chest tigtened,

Hector thought, ’I deserve this.’

Tears rolled from his eyes—not for Ria, not for his failure, not for his revenge—but for the innocent blood he had spilled. For what he had become. He was a father...Now he had killed innocents children who were similar age to his daughter.

Amon raised the dagger and drew it across Hector’s neck.

A clean cut ended everything.

"Rest in peace, Hector," Amon said softly.

"Hey...if you can do it....which is already not possible....go and if you want to survive...attack at the core"

That’s all Hector can muttered with his last strength.

Hector didn’t fight it. He accepted it. His hazel eyes closed, his breathing stopped.

The last thing he saw before death was a smile.

A smile of hatred.

A smile of anger.

A smile of kindness.

The smile of the boy who killed him.

The smile of his death.

And thus, Hector Rombling died.