Hope

The uneasy feeling in his heart worsened as he heard scraping noises from the other side of the door. It felt like his heart was in the grip of an unknown entity threatening to insert its claws in the soft flesh.

Alex had only felt such potent fear when the Ryoujin Clan under his lead faced off against one of the 72 Demons of Hell. At that time, he had aborted the mission and escaped like a coward, causing many injuries and casualties among his men. He hadn't been able to exit his room for weeks after that incident due to the failure.

Alex desperately tried to calm his unsteady breathing, performing several breathing exercises he had learnt during his time at Telos Dou Dromou. His chest ached as his fingers trembled. An aura denser than that of anything he had faced in the 'tutorial' in his previous life descended and leaked from the other side of the gate.

"All right, let's do this," He let out a sharp breath as he gently pushed the door covered with spikes. As the door was pushed back by Alex's tremendous strength, it created a creaky noise disadvantageous to Alex's original plan; the element of surprise.

Having lost the chance to attack first, he gazed at the monstrosity that stood before him. A cat whose body exceeded the height of an elephant stood at the entrance of the room, staring into Alex's eyes as if trying to hypnotize him.

Alex's eyes widened as he saw the texture and color of the cat's body. Surprisingly, half of it was white, while the other half was shrouded in darkness like the rest of the monsters.

'It's a Chimera Cat,' Alex noted as he continued practicing the breathing exercises. Chimera Cats were considered one of the main oddities in which one wasn't a monster, nor was one a regular life-form. It was as if they were hybrids that carried the qualities of both, which is what made it rank above monsters but below superior species.

'Thankfully, it's an infant, otherwise, I would die even by staring into its eyes,' Alex let out a sigh of relief, but the cat's sudden shriek caused his hair to raise. Alex leapt to his right and moved a considerable distance away from the cat. The room was vast, so he had plenty of space to fight.

'The apex of monsters and a quasi-life-form,' Alex thought. 'It's one of the battles where the power difference between me and my opponent is absolutely ridiculous.'

The cat suddenly raised its paw as the symbols under it glowed a silvery-blue color. Alex narrowed his eyes as he confirmed the cat's elemental power; ice.

'There is a tremendous amount of mana condensed inside that paw.'

Alex clutched his half-broken knife with a dull blade. He sprinted towards the cat while performing complex maneuvers to avoid the spikes of ice that escaped from the paw.

Shing! Crack! Crack!

The ground cracked as it was bombarded with spikes of ice manifested using mana. The cat only grew angrier as it noticed the measly human dodging and sometimes even parrying its attacks while searching for a blind spot.

Alex darted towards the cat's tail, hoping to grab onto the fur beside it to climb to the cat's head. However, as he approached the bushy, black and white tail, it swept towards him as if it were a wave of destruction, shattering rocks as it bolted towards Alex.

Leaping to the side, he barely avoided the attack, or so he thought. Alex's eyes widened as he saw fresh blood leaking from his left arm. Rolling his sleeves up, an open wound the size of a tennis ball was revealed.

'Did some of the ice strike me, and because I was on an adrenaline rush, I didn't feel it?' Alex thought of the possibility, but soon discarded the thought. 'There isn't a trace of ice on the wound, and the shape of the spikes are vastly different. This has to be caused by the tail.'

Alex grit his teeth as he somehow suppressed the pain that finally seemed to be reaching his brain. Previously, the adrenaline had blocked the pain from disturbing Alex's concentration. However, now, it was a completely different story.

Alex wasn't a match for the cat even before his injury, so a battle with only a single arm would practically be impossible.

Whoosh!

The tail approached his location once again, this time coated with a layer of ice that seemed to be nigh unbreakable. Alex's vision was quickly clouded by the shroud of darkness that could still be seen through the ice, and that's when it happened.

*

On a bed topped with ruby-red sheets lay a man, sulking over his defeat. The Ryoujin Clan had killed thousands, but had saved tens of thousands, spreading their influence all over the South-Western Region of Telos Dou Dromou. The man that lay atop the bed was Alex Horatius, the one who lead the monstrosity that quickly became one of the 8 Ruling Clans of Telos Dou Dromou.

A tear escaped his eyes which were shut tightly as the noises of soft sobs came with it at different intervals of time.

"Master, are you all right?" A soothing voice laced with concern entered the ears of the man, who slowly lifted his face which was previously buried into the pillow to gaze at the person who had entered his room.

"Isabella?" Alex asked, his voice shaky. Isabella, the person who was standing at Alex's door, smiled gently before approaching and kneeling beside his bed. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting for orders, master," Isabella spoke in a resolute tone akin to that of a solider waiting to accept commands from its superior.

"What do you mean? We just had a battle and we lost! 795 people died, Isabella! All because of me, a 22 year-old good-for-nothing who somehow became a leader! I don't know anything about being a leader!" Alex raised his voice a considerable amount, causing Isabella to be startled. However, her shoulders soon sunk down as she adopted a gentle smile once again, her gaze directed towards the floor.

"There were no records of the number of casualties after our encounter with King Paimon," Isabella stated flatly. "One of the main qualities of being a leader is to care for one's comrades, and you are the personification of that statement. In just six years since your arrival, you have created a paradise for us, for me, and all of our people."

After that, Isabella did not speak. She knelt for hours as Alex sorted out his emotions.

*

'I need to survive for that,' Alex thought as he remembered that moment. 'I need to live for her, for my father.'

For the first time in years, Alex had lost his cool. He wasn't nervous even at the gates of death in his previous life, when he was mercilessly killed. He only anger and wished revenge upon those who murdered Isabella. Then, why had he felt fear for death now?

If he was able to feel not even a shred of fear against the Templar Clan, one of the strongest forces in Telos Dou Dromou, then why would he ever fear a measly cat? Why would he sacrifice his life to an oversized feline when he had much bigger goals?

It was like a spark of rage that acted as fuel to Alex's resolve. As he slowly stood up while clutching the knife in his right hand, Alex pressed on the wound on his left hand. He then leapt backwards to avoid the collision between his body and the cat's tail as he ripped a piece of his clothing.

He quickly tied the cloth around his wound to suppress the bleeding for one minute. One minute, that's all he needed; not to win the battle, but to discover a method of doing so. When he did find the method, winning the battle would be as easy as stealing candy from a child.

'Now, where had this confidence been all this time?'

A genuine question popped up in Alex's mind, wondering if there was a curse placed upon him as soon as he entered the dungeon. However, suppressing the urge to overthink, he grinned at the Chimera Cat.

"Let's begin, fatty."