The Duke Dantalion

"Well, it`s time to start." Evan was sitting on a thick branch, high up in a tree, and watching a small gang of bandits. At that moment, they were drinking and partying. There were six men in the gang, which was just fine for Evan.

He didn't want to attack head-on. Evan had got Lion Sigil and gained incredible physical strength. Without Lion Sigil and with such a weak body he would never have reached this level. But he still didn't know how "The Sins" worked. In his opinion, there was no point in taking any chances.

The young man simply waited for one of the bandits to decide to retreat into the woods, and it happened soon enough.

A tall man, carrying a bottle of some kind of drink, was slowly going toward the bushes. This was a sign to Evan and the beginning of his action. He quietly jumped down from the tree and cautiously crept up on the bandit.

Swing.

With a single movement of his hand, Evan slit man`s throat and dragged his body deeper into the woods.

...

"Hey? Where's Richard?" One of the bandits noticed his friend missing, but the others immediately explained to him the reason.

"Where? He`s probably drunk so much again that he fell asleep in the woods with a bottle in his hand. If you're so worried about him, go and look for him."

Such situations were common. They didn't know what they were doing when they drank a lot of alcohol. So it often happened when a person disappeared and came back in the morning in a not very sober state. So no one was embarrassed by the disappearance of one of them.

"Well, anyway, I'll check it out. I don't want him to get bitten by some creature and then he `ll be whining for the week."

The short man picked up his small, one-handed axe, and headed straight for where his friend had gone earlier.

Unfortunately for him, his end was just as quiet and inglorious as his partner's.

Swing.

<So, well, I guess there's no point in waiting any longer.> Evan was very pleased with this result. He had originally intended to lure out and kill at best one. However, his catch was far greater than his expectations.

Whoosh.

Evan stormed toward the bandits and quickly attacked two of them. Two lightning swings of his sword and the number of opponents dwindled dramatically. They didn't even have time to react or understand anything. All they saw was a blade rushing toward their necks.

"What the hell! Who the hell are you!?" The bandits quickly drew their weapons and prepared to fight. But, Evan wasn't going to fight alone against two. It was too disadvantageous to put himself in that position, so he gripped his dagger tightly and threw it at one of the bandits with all his might.

"Right in the bull's-eye." Evan made a perfect throw, leaving the dagger in his opponent's throat.

Seeing how strong Evan was, the remaining bandit gave up all thoughts of fighting and tried to run away.

Whoosh.

Unfortunately, before he could walk ten meters, the small axe was in his back.

So simply and gracefully, Evan killed six people in a short time without getting a single scratch.

Evan didn't do it because he just wanted to kill someone or take what little the gang had.

Whoosh.

Evan took a short dagger from the corpse of one of the bandits, and began to cut out his heart. He performed such procedures on absolutely everyone.

"All right, that`s enough, let's get down to business."

These bandits were not Evan's first victims. He had already killed thirty people before. And not all of them were bandits.

For his own safety, he hadn`t attack large caravans, where there were many guards and where there were rich traders. Such actions were always fraught with huge problems.

Most of his victims were simple bandits, petty thieves, and the like for whom no one would take revenge.

At this moment, he had exactly thirty-six human hearts. He needed them all for one purpose.

...

Finished with the bandits, Evan made his way to the cave, which had already become his temporary refuge.

The cave was quite deep and vast. Its size would be more than enough to hold all the loot from thirty-six people. But Evan wasn't interested in treasure right now. So the cave was completely empty, except for thirty hearts slowly floating in the cold water.

Evan put the remaining six hearts in the water and muttered quietly: "The easy part is over, now let's get to the main part."

After these words, he pulled his razor-sharp sword from its sheath and made a long, deep cut on his arm.

He could, of course, use the blood of the men he'd killed, but Evan had to be one hundred percent sure of the result. He couldn`t allow any mistakes or inaccuracies.

Using his own blood, he began to draw a large sigil on the floor. Evan had wasted a lot of blood on this, so he was very weak. Before long, however, it was almost done.

"And the finishing touch." Evan took the thirty-six hearts, and placed them at equal distances from each other all around the perimeter of the sigil.

After which he said loudly: "Sigil 71 of Demon, the Duke of Dantalion - activation!"

Whoosh.

The bloody sign lit up, and all hearts burst in an instant. A few seconds later, there was no trace of the sigil, but that's exactly what Evan needed.

Whoosh.

Suddenly an ordinary, worn-out book appeared in the air.

It opened and the pages began to turn quickly. After some number of pages, the book finally stopped at one of the pages. In capital letters, there was written the following, "What do you wish?"

Evan said confidently: "I want a talent for magic and a basic knowledge of it!"

Hearing his answer, the book began turning pages again and after a while showed another inscription, "Fifteen Years."

Evan knew exactly what these words meant. Even so, without blinking an eye, he quickly agreed, "Okay".

In fact, thirty-six hearts was already a pretty big sacrifice, since these were thirty-six lives. Nevertheless, it was not enough for such a ritual. That's why, Evan had to give as much as fifteen years of his own life.

After Evan agreed, the book began to turn the pages again, then stopped at one of them and opened wide.

Whoosh.

A multitude of unknown symbols flew straight from the pages to Evan's glabella, going through his head.

At that moment, he was experiencing an incredibly intense headache and a burning sensation throughout his body. Before thirty seconds had passed, the capillaries in his eyes began to burst, his nose and ears were bleeding and many areas of skin were cracked.

After a minute, the whole procedure was over. Evan lost consciousness and fell to the cold stone floor.

He had just performed an incredibly cruel and demanding ritual. But it was definitely worth it.

Evan saw nothing but total darkness, but it wasn't long before everything changed. It wasn`t the end yet. He'd only gained minimal knowledge of magic, but so much of it just made him overworked.

While Evan was lying unconscious, exactly thirty-six spirits flew out of the book floating in the air. They quickly entered Evan's head. After that, the strange book disappeared without a trace, and Evan's consciousness underwent a colossal change.

Instead of utter darkness, he saw a gigantic explosion that colored everything white. It stretched infinitely far away.

It was neither a dream nor a hallucination. Evan was indeed in a space called "Nirvana" while his physical body was lying dormant.

"I assume this is mine?"

Evan watched as a small, crimson sphere was floating in the air in the middle of the vast emptiness. Deep within it, one could see a scythe as black as the abyss itself, with a blade sprinkled with blood.