New Heights

"Ah!" Ward jolted awake with cold winds slapping his face. "Wasn't I… where am I?"

As he stood up, he saw a nightmarish scene. The dark, dead landscape, with lifeless creatures moving between different areas.

It was the afterlife.

"Welcome to the afterlife, mortal." Death hovered over the dark gray sky with a chilling look on his face. "You are dead. Follow the others and get sentenced over the deeds of your life."

"N-no…" Ward covered his face with tears rolling down his cheeks. "T-that can't be… Was he saying the truth?"

"I won't say it another time." Death placed his black nail at Ward's temple, which caused half of his face to freeze over.

"W-wait, wait!" Ward stood up and chuckled nervously. "I met a friend of yours! Y-yeah, uh, his name was Kiernan Hunter! He told me to say hello to you from him, haha…"

Death's facial expression had a drastic change.

His cold lips turned into an unusual smile. "Oh, did he now? Haha, my friend… How I've missed him. Thank you for passing along his greeting."

"N-no problem!" Ward wiped his sweat and asked nervously. "S-so about the judgment. I might have done a few… bad deeds… So I was wondering if there is a space for me in heaven? Haha…"

"No worries." Death laughed and placed his palm on Ward's forehead. "To heavens, you'll go…"

"O-oh, thank you, sir!" Ward smiled blessfully, but for a fraction of a second, his face turned into a look of agonizing pain.

Ward disappeared in a flash of blinding white light. He was sent to the circle of pain and misery—this time, he was sent for one billion years.

Death's smile froze, and his face morphed into anger.

"Kiernaaaaaaaaaaan!"

…

On Ward's house, the police took evidence of his death—there was plenty of blood and signs of a struggle.

At that moment, a classy-looking detective stepped over the toppled furniture and saw the destroyed room. There was no doubt that a violent altercation had taken place.

"Hmm!" A chirpy-sounding woman followed right behind him and began taking photos of the crime scene. "This looks very personal, doesn't it? If the aim was just to kill, the assailant would've used a weapon, but this was done purposely with their bare hands."

The detective looked at the corpse—it was still warm, but it had turned pale—and he found a strange stab wound on the chest. It had the shape of fourish fingers.

"Take a taste." The detective said and pointed his flashlight at a portion of blood on the ground—it was identified as the assailant's blood.

"Muh, I hate this…" The chirpy-looking woman's voice turned shaky, and she then crouched in front of the blood, took a small sample with a cotton swab, and then strangely licked the blood off the swab.

It wasn't the most common method, but the other officers didn't react. It seemed like this was a common occurrence for them.

At that moment, the woman said, "The person is between sixteen and eighteen years old."

"That young?" The detective looked puzzled by the revelation.

"And the person is in the beginning stages of Martial Soldier." The woman continued.

She had special powers that came from her birth—its called Animalistic Instinct—there were cases of people being born with animalistic characteristics or abilities.

It was caused if the person's mother or father was part of Animalkin. It was a race of people that lived in the Animal Kingdom. They looked humanoid, but some of them had tails, animal-like ears, or even the ability to communicate with animals.

"Anything else you can tell?" The detective asked with a frown. It was a start, as there weren't too many Martial Soldiers of that age frame in Irio, but they needed something more to speed up the process.

"Uh…" The woman blushed and said embarrassingly. "His blood actually tastes good."

"Good?" The detective frowned. "I thought you hated the taste of blood."

"Yeah, I do. I mean, who would like the taste?" The woman paused, then nervously admitted, "But his blood... it's different."

"If you can taste his blood again, can you recognize him?" The detective asked.

"Yeah, for sure." The woman almost drooled by the thought of tasting that blood again.

"That's decided, then; you'll taste the blood of anyone that fits the description." The detective said with a cold smile.

"Eh, everyone?!" The woman covered her mouth in disgust.

"Everyone."

…

The morning dawned over Tiamut—in Tiamut's Training Village, the day had already started.

Young men and women jogged around the village while others were preparing to start the day inside their cottages.

At Karuza High's cottage, Jin walked down the stairs with a sleepy expression. He had to get ready with his training plans—it was going to be a long day of training.

However, as soon as he arrived at the kitchen, he noticed a figure sitting there—the figure was bandaging his arm with a pained look on his face.

His left hand's fingers were already bandaged, and he had a grimace of pain on his face.

"Kiernan, what the hell happened to you?" Jin asked in shock. "Jonathan told me that you left somewhere, but what the hell did you do? You can't get into serious fights before nationals; you might get injured badly!

"Actually, you're already injured badly!"

"Mhm!" Kiernan tightened the bandages around his arm, wincing in pain. "I was training, nothing less!"

"Training, as if! No one gets that badly injured with training!" Jin cried out.

"I do." Kiernan turned to him with a determined look on his face. "Days after days, I used to train till my bones broke and my tears turned red."

Jin was shaken. He expected that Kiernan must've trained hard, as it was rare for a sixteen year old to be as powerful as him. However, this was beyond his expectations.

"Months after months, I didn't have a single day without having broken bones." Kiernan clenched his teeth. "Years after years, I lived in constant pain just to get strong."

"I-I understand…" Jin said with a shaky look. "However, please follow my instructions from now on, alright? I can't let you get injured before nationals.

"Even though those healing bandages heal your bones, they still need to recover or they will turn fragile and break easily."

"I understand; I'll heed your advice." Kiernan stuffed the medicine items back into the cabinet and sat back down to rest.

"Good…" Jin nodded. "Take a rest for today; I'll start the training with others."

"No, I am fine to train." Kiernan said. "I feel like my kicks have turned dull. I need to sharpen them up again."

"Hmm…" Jin scratched his hair and pointed out of the window towards the beach. "Run a few laps around the beach."

"Oh, the irregular surface will improve my balance." Kiernan nodded. "Not a bad idea. I'll give it a try."

'He immediately recognized the meaning of that training.' Jin looked impressed.

Kiernan took off his sandals, as it would be more effective to just run barefoot. He then bade farewell to the coach and left the cottage. 

After killing Ward, it felt like a massive boulder was lifted off his shoulders.

His "death" had been weighing on his mind ever since his reincarnation. It was like the former Kiernan wanted to be released from the burden of his past life.

Now, after getting rid of the torment, he felt light like a feather—it was once again that, unknowingly, his strength continued to rise to higher heights.

The soul inside him showed signs of peeling off another layer—it only needed one more push.