Agony

Escaping the bandit's loose grip, he had naively lifted me into the air to mock and belittle me. He assumed that I no longer planned on fighting after losing everything that I cared about. However, he was badly mistaken. And knowing I had no chance against him unless I caught him by surprise and had some sort of advantage, I shot straight for his eyes.

Digging each of my thumbs into one of his eyes, pushing them as deep into his eye sockets as I could in the split second that I had caught him off guard, I felt some sort of liquid ooze out of them as he let out a cry.

His eyes almost seemed to have popped as I howled, "I'll kill you and the rest of your crew!" feeling a great drive and fire that I had never felt before.

-

Upon hearing that my mother had fought against them even in her last moments and didn't let them get their way, I felt ashamed of myself for losing the will to live.

I had thought to myself that I should have just let my mother be the one to conduct the trade with the other village. That way I would have been the one to die. But that wouldn't have changed a thing, and she would still have shown up and ended up dying.

It wasn't my fault or hers, but that of the Hyena Bandit Crew and I would slaughter them all even if it cost me my life.

"Argh! You little fucker!" pulling me off him, he slammed me to the ground, and I was helpless to resist.

And although he wasn't able to see, that didn't stop him from withdrawing his bloodied blade and slashing downwards.

However, luckily I was able to react in time.

Rolling on the ground and narrowly avoiding his blade, I scrambled to get up and away from the bandit. Impressively, even without his vision, he had a rough idea of where I was.

"Now you've done it. I'm going to make sure you die slowly, and even if I'm only an F Rank Combatant, I would never lose to a brat like you. Hahaha!"

He was clearly crazy, and despite losing his vision, he didn't seem fazed in the slightest, continuing with his deranged laughter. I also wasn't sure what he meant by F Rank Combatant. However, I didn't care what it meant and was determined to kill him even if it cost me my life as I began to carefully back away from him.

Following after me, but moving more carefully, it seemed as though with his other senses alone he could still fight me, and with the machete-like blade he was wielding, it would be difficult to even get close to him. But remembering the knife I had spotted and previously tried to get to, I suddenly bolted over to it.

Thinking I was trying to escape, he launched himself towards me. His speed shocked me greatly, and was borderline supernatural, as he appeared before me in a matter of seconds.

Slash!

I was helpless to block the blade that came down towards my face, and all I managed to do was lean to the side in an attempt to dodge the blade. But it was to no avail, and the bandit landed a deep slash on the left side of my face.

His blade sliced through my left eye with ease. Immediately after, there was a sharp pain, but I had to move quickly before he managed to strike me with his blade a second time.

Jumping forward towards the knife embedded in the woman's corpse, I managed to get hold of it. But as I did, the bandit kicked me in the back and sent me rolling away.

I had lost all control of my body, which just served to show how powerful his kick was. However, I managed to keep my grip on the knife as I continued to tumble until I slammed into a tree.

Blurgh!

I vomited out a curdle of blood, and the left side of my face was in excruciating pain.

To add to that, my vision had become very restricted after losing my left eye, but there was no giving up.

Getting up despite my body aching and all the pain I was in, I couldn't bear to let the man before me live on after all he had done.

Killing the rest of the bandits was likely impossible for me. However, if I could at least take this one bandit down with me, I would be satisfied and could join my mother and sister.

But even doing that would be tough, as I staggered towards the bandit.

"I must say, you've done well to have damaged my eyes and I probably won't ever see again, unless I somehow stumble upon some miraculous medicine. But guess what? After I kill you, I'll enjoy myself with your mother's headless corpse," the insane bandit yelled before bursting out into laughter.

Lunging towards me, seeking to stab me with his blade, the bandit was confused to find that I also rushed towards him. I didn't even attempt to dodge his attack knowing that it was pointless trying to do so.

And as the sharp blade punctured my stomach and sliced through all my internal organs, there was a sharp and overwhelming pain that took over my mind for a split second. But clenching my teeth and reminding myself of the single goal I had, I slashed at the bandit's throat with the knife that I had pulled out of the corpse and gripped tightly.

He had both hands on the handle of his blade. Meanwhile, since he was blinded, he didn't see the knife coming or even notice that I had armed myself with it, just as I had hoped.

There was a spraying sound followed by a burst of warm blood out of his neck that splattered onto my face. However, he wasn't dead yet and in his final moments of living, he twisted his blade that had penetrated deep into my abdomen.

"The moment I lost my eyes, I was dead to the crew and wouldn't have been able to make it back, so I was planning to die here anyway," he uttered before choking up on his own blood and collapsing onto me.

And with the last breath that he had, he laughed, knowing that I would die not long after he did as blood poured out of my body.

I was sure that many of my internal organs had been punctured. After being battered and losing my left eye, I would have struggled to recover even without the fatal wound to my stomach. But unlike what I had previously thought, I didn't want to die and, for the first time, managed to accomplish something.

I killed one of the bandits that destroyed everything and everyone that I cared about.

However, it still wasn't enough, as I spent my final moments yelling at the top of my lungs and letting out my frustrations.

-

Slowly the palpitations of my heart became less and less frequent as well as fainter until they reached a halt and everything became dark.

It felt as though I was floating in an endless void and I wasn't breathing or alive, but neither was I dead.

'Is this hell?' I couldn't help but think to myself and I couldn't sense or feel anything around me.

I wasn't even sure if I was in a physical form or what exactly was going on. Even the memories of my life had become faint, but there were a few things I was sure of that I kept repeating to myself.

'I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I want to kill! I want to become strong! I want to get revenge! I want to...'

I wasn't sure how long my ramblings had dragged on for. It felt like both an instant and an eternity, but suddenly, an ominous and sinister red light appeared in the distance. It exuded an aura of darkness, death and evil. However, it drew me towards it and I couldn't resist it even if I wanted to.

The red light eventually became too bright and I was engulfed by it once I neared it.

Suddenly, I was in excruciating pain and no longer in the endless void that I had been in for who knows how long. The agony was so unbearable that my mind shut down and it was exponentially worse than being stabbed and having my left eye slashed.

All I could do was wail uncontrollably as time passed slowly...