Chapter 8

When Hadeon opened his eyes, he felt a slight dizziness. It was the first day of training yesterday, and he already felt exhausted. This was both good and bad. Staying in his warm bed seemed like an appealing idea, while getting up early and starting training seemed even more appealing. That's why he enthusiastically got out of bed and put on his training clothes. However, he had a feeling that something bad was going to happen. This feeling, which he couldn't make sense of, was causing a pain in his stomach and a dryness in his throat. He took a deep breath and reminded himself:

'Everything is fine. I just need to calm down and stop being paranoid.'

However, it couldn't be said that he managed to convince himself. Still, without making a fuss, he made his way to the training area. First, he went to the indoor hall and started his weight training. About an hour later, he grabbed one of the wooden swords and started swinging it. With each swing, he tried to adjust his posture, the power in his arms or legs, in order to find the ideal posture for himself. He didn't want to keep the sword training too long, but an idea had come to his mind. Cleaving the air, he raised the wooden sword straight up towards the sky. He closed his eyes and focused on his mana. First, he took his mana on a small tour through his body, then he divided it into two, directing one part to his right hand and the other to his left. His aim was to use the mana together with the sword. But this was not as easy as he thought. He was used to extracting the mana from his body, but transferring it to another object? That was a completely different level. Still, he stubbornly tried to infuse the mana into the sword. The sword, as if refusing to accept the mana, scattered with each of Hadeon's attempts, forcing the boy to gather it again. When this happened a few more times, Hadeon realized that this wouldn't work. He couldn't solve things just by practice. What he needed was theoretical, technical knowledge, understanding. His understanding of mana was weaker than he thought, so transferring the mana to the sword was quite difficult for him now. He played with his mana a little longer. He wasn't tired yet.

Everything was going well, until he felt a pain in his head. At first he ignored this pain because it was small and insignificant. But as time passed, the pain turned into a throbbing echo throughout his head. As his eyes darkened, he forced himself to breathe. He wasn't even sure if he was standing upright. It was as if he was trapped in an endless void. He could move, but couldn't fully feel the movement. His blood was burning through his veins, causing a relentless pain throughout his body. His eyes were about to close in defeat. Knowing he was in a hopeless situation, Hadeon didn't resist and allowed his eyelids to hide those dawn-colored eyes...

Hadeon felt a wetness on his cheek. With his blurred vision, he tried to straighten up to see what it was, but found no strength in his legs or arms... He blinked his eyes a few times to clear his sight. When he succeeded, he saw a small reddish figure, a fox, in front of him. The red-furred fox had a white crescent symbol between its eyebrows. The fox took a few steps closer and licked Hadeon's cheek again. The visibly uneasy fox seemed to want Hadeon to get up as soon as possible. With the help of the small fox, Hadeon forced his collapsed body to sit up. His chest, abdomen and back were burning as if there was a fire inside. He was aware that something was wrong, but couldn't find what. He swayed forward with the sudden and loud pain in his chest, feeling a metallic and thick taste in his mouth. Immediately afterwards, a loud and painful cough started. As the blood was expelled from his mouth, he had no choice but to keep coughing.

'HAHAHA! Did you enjoy that, you little brat! Now you're witnessing what the mighty Karash can do! Consider yourself lucky, you wretched mortal with tainted blood. Lucky that I didn't kill you right here...'

Hadeon continued to cough. With each cough, the dark liquid kept pouring out of his mouth. His throat was now truly burning, and his whole body ached as if there was a poison circulating in his blood.

'You're not wrong about that, brat. My divine blood is now flowing in your veins too. My godly blood is slowly poisoning your weak, mortal body, but don't worry, I'll make sure your death is agonizing.'

Hadeon didn't respond, or rather couldn't. Looking around, the only thing he could see was the shimmering dark blood. There was so much blood that he didn't want to believe it was all coming from his own body. With this amount of bleeding, he should have been dead by now, but somehow he was alive and conscious. He couldn't estimate how much time had passed, but at some point his coughing subsided and the flow of blood decreased. When the crisis was finally over, Hadeon couldn't even find the strength to move a finger. Although the pain had subsided, it still felt like it was there. As if the moment he moved, his whole body would start burning again. But he tried to ignore this feeling. The last thing he needed to do now was writhe in pain. In a dazed state, he tried to calm himself enough to at least be able to walk. During this, he saw the red fox watching him from a distance. For a moment he could have sworn he made eye contact with the little fox, but when he looked again, the fox was no longer there. He silently left a small thank you for the fox and made sure no one was around.

'Believe me, brat, you have much bigger problems right now than whether someone is nearby or not. As the one who caused those problems, please, be my guest.' Karash mocked.

Hadeon bit his lip and opened the status window to check if anything had changed.

[Character Status]

[Name: Hadeon Caelum Phasnis]

[Title: Simurg of the Bloody Moon]

[Current Status: Karash's Curse, Primal Fire, Physical Weakness, Mana Restriction, Batur Han's Blessing, Divine Blood Carrier]

[Skills: Flame Flower, Rubah's Perception, Simurg's Wrath]

Strength: 64

Agility: 71 

Endurance: 82

Mana: 42

Spirit: 11

Perception: 115

Fury: 110

Hadeon examined the almost unchanged status window. The only new addition was the "Divine Blood Carrier" trait. This was probably the thing Karash had mentioned earlier. That dark god had mixed his cursed blood with Hadeon's, and Hadeon had a feeling that the amount mixed was not small. Still, that was not the issue, the issue was that there was literally a poison in his blood that would rot him from the inside, and if he tried to use mana, this poison would progress even faster. For a moment, just for a moment, a great wave of despair swept over his soul. Why did things always go wrong just when they started to get better? Hadeon sometimes had the feeling that he was carefully selected by the gods to suffer and live in misery, just as he was now. All he seemed to do was keep struggling in the swamp...

When he decided he had wasted enough time, he carefully and heavily got up. He had to keep looking around to make sure no one was watching him as he made his way back to his assigned room. After all, he was in no condition to use much mana, given that a dark god was behind this, and he was not exactly emotionally stable either. Still, he went to his room, changed his clothes and checked the time. He had to go to breakfast. Reluctantly, he made his way to the cafeteria. It didn't take long before he heard a familiar voice calling his name.

"Hadeon? Good morning." Said Izel, who suddenly appeared.

Oh, good morning Izel.

Izel nodded, but continued to look at Hadeon as they walked to the cafeteria. About ten minutes later, when they reached the entrance of the cafeteria, the lavender-haired boy couldn't help but ask.

"You seem tired, why?"

After a few seconds of pause, Hadeon replied:

I just didn't sleep very well and got up early for training, that's all.

"I see..."

After Izel's short response, the two children entered the cafeteria in silence and selected a suitable menu, sitting down at an empty table. It was breakfast time, so the place was a bit crowded and noisy, but it didn't bother the two children at all. After all, they didn't need to talk to understand each other.