Blood Red

Long ago, some might even say....an eternity ago, there was a kingdom called, Mentha. Everyone in the kingdom led a satisfying life. Like all kingdoms, this one too had a king, who was kind and just. But sadly, an uncurable disease befalls the king, he was bedridden and the best doctors in the world told him that the king would die in a year.

This made the prince, the new king, the people mourned for the king but they also rejoiced at the fact that they had a new king, who was said to be more intelligent and efficient than the previous king.

The prince was all those things, but he was just a 15-year-old, he wanted his father to become alright again since he loved his father, so he didn't give up on finding a cure.

The prince gave out an order that whoever could save his father would be given half the kingdom to rule.

People from all walks of life came to treat the king, but none succeeded, the prince almost gave up.

Untill a women who called herself a 'goddess' came along.

The women was wearing a cloak that hid her entire body and face.

At first the prince was skeptical of her treatment, but the king started getting better after he drinks the potion she brings him. The fire of hope in his heart was burning more brighter than ever.

But after a week, he starts getting weaker again, his sickness returns in full swing.

He asked the goddess, why his father was getting worse, it was then that she told him the secret to her potion.

To make the potion, the goddess needs the souls of humans.

At first, the prince was horrified, but seeing his father succumb to the disease he decides to ask the goddess for a more 'permanent' solution. She tells him that to make a potion that has a more permanent effect, she would need to sacrifice the life's of everyone in the kingdom.

The prince accepts with a heavy heart.

The Goddess asks the prince to go away from the kingdom for a few days, he relents to her wishes and goes away, when he came back three days later he saw that everyone in the kingdom was dead.

The prince rushes to his father's chambers, hoping to find him healthy once again, but when his arrives... he finds his father dead.

The goddess appears before him with a vial in her hands, saying that the potion was complete. The prince gets angry at her, asking her why his beloved father was dead.

To which the goddess says,

'' I had already told you that, to make the potion... everyone in the kingdom would need to be sacrificed. It was your decision to not take your father with you.''

But the prince wasn't even listening to what she was saying, he felt used.

The goddess asks the prince to give her the reward she was promised and in his anger he refuses to give her the reward.

That was the wrong decision.

The goddess opens a portal with her omnipotent powers, and throws the prince and the vial down the portal.

The dungeon inside the portal was completely empty, there was no 'objective' to complete the dungeon. The prince was trapped.

He waited and waited.... for someone to save him but the world doesn't work like that.

The prince dies holding the vial in his hands out of hunger and thirst.

The prince could have drank the potion and hoped something miraculous would happen, but he doesn't do that. In a sense, the prince killed himself.

This was one of the many legends surrounding this 'cursed' artifact.

The Cursed Potion Of Eternity.

Nobody knows the real story behind the artifact, not even me.

The car stops at the mansion and I go inside.

While walking towards Lecia's room, I open my status to see if the job change had been successful.

The blue screen appears as soon as I think about it,

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Name : Adam Creed

Age: 15

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Strength: E+

Agility: E-

Stamina: E-

Intelligence: E+

Mana Grade : D

Vitality : F+

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Job: Spearman lvl: 0

You have a innate understanding and talent for using the spear.

Techniques: None.

Skills:

1.Author's Authority [ SSS rank]

Using your lifeforce you can change the present to your whims. The more significant the change, the more vitality is taken.

2. Mana Disruptor [ A rank]

A skill that allows it's user to break the mana container of a person forcefully. Contact to the subject is required.

3. Bloodlust

Level: E, kills: 0/50

A unique skill that allows the user to let go of the fear of death and the nerve endings of the user get deactivated with the help of mana to completely erase pain and also gives the user a larger boost in strength. The only downside is that the user goes crazy upon the activation of the skill. The duration of the skill is 10 minutes.

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A month of continuous hardcore training had only increased my stamina by one measly rank.

Sighing internally, I enter Lecia's room.

To my surprise, everybody was waiting for me in her room.

Diane, Ken, Amanda, Francis and even Agnes.

Seeing the confusion on my face,

Diane says,

'' We wanted to be there when she woke up.''

The fuck...

Are these guys morons ?

Why the fuck would they tell everyone in the mansion that I was going to wake her up ?

Oh ,wait.

They're going to interact with Lecia after she wakes up anyway.

Of course, they're going to ask how a person suffering from the supposedly incurable mana coma woke up but,

Agnes can be convinced with money.

Amanda and Francis can be tricked with a few words.

They look at me with high expectations... but more than that they all seemed to want to help Lecia in some way as well.

It seems that her charms were still strong even if she was asleep.

I get closer to her and take the vial out of my pocket.

Both Amanda and Francis seems skeptical about the whole thing,

'' Are you sure this is safe for her ?'', she asks in a doubtful manner.

I answer her question, while opening the lid of the vial,

'' Well it's going to be risky for me, but it's going to be safe for her.''

After I say this, I gulp down the red liquid inside.

All the people inside the room is surprised at my action except for Diane and Ken.

Do they know the use of this artifact ?

That shouldn't be possible.

Eh, who cares ?

Thinking this I black out.

~~~~

I open my eyes to find myself in an ocean of sorts, this was probably my soul.

In the novel, the person who uses this artifact was one of the twelve angels, after using it the angel gets transported to the angel's 'soul space', it's basically the physical form of a being's soul.

' pop'

A sound enters my ears from the left.

I turn my head around and see a little kid.

'pop' ,'pop' ,'pop' ,'pop' ,pop' ,pop'

Soon enough, more people appear in my soul space, a lot more.

I stopped counting as the number had become too large to count.

There were probably millions of people in my soul space, right now.

People who should be dead.

Another peculiar fact about them was that none of them had eyes, they're eye sockets were empty. But I could sense them looking at me.

The child that had first appeared comes towards and hangs on my legs, it would have been cute if he had eyes, I felt like I was living in a cheap horror flick.

As the child swung around using my legs for balance, he starts laughing or at least I think he is, once he opened his mouth all that came out was a shrill scream.

As the boy started screaming, the rest of the people also start screaming as well.

Uhhgggg, I'm getting an headache.

I kick the kid away, from the force of my kick he disintegrates. This wouldn't happen in the real world but in my soul space. I was the strongest.

They all start running towards me, in an attempt to take over my soul.

*AN HOUR LATER*

I think, I understand the prince a little now.

I understand how he could sacrifice the entire kingdom.

These people were annoying as hell, If I had been their prince I would have killed them all a lot sooner and not even for making the potion, but just because of how annoying these little shits were.

'' The dead should stay dead.'', I say after smashing the last women into dust with my bare hands.

Whew.

After I destroyed the whole lot of them, the dust or ash, { I don't really know} that had gathered accumulate together and form a huge sphere of ash.

It raises up in the air and then abruptly goes down into the depths of my soul.

Well now, I should be transported back soon,

The next second, unlike my expectations I did not get teleported back, instead my view changes once again.

Instead of an ocean, what I saw now was a battlefield.

I could see, millions of demons dead on the battlefield. There were also many dead angels as well, not the angels exactly but their soldiers, the humans were told that they were angels who had not yet ascended to greatness but the truth was....

But before I can complete my thought, I feel an intense pressure near me.

I look in the direction of the pressure and see a person shrouded in darkness.

Impossible.

No one should be able to overpower me in my soul space.

The hair on my skin stands up as the pressure exuded by the man increases more, causing me to literally fall down face first,

'' Pathetic.''

The mysterious man's voice sends chills throughout my entire body.

I feel myself blacking out, but before I do, I force my head up and meet the man's eyes before teleporting back.

They were blood red.

~~~~

I wake up and look at the ceiling blankly.

Who was that ?

Was there someone that strong in the Mentha kingdom ?

No. I would know if there was something that I had to watch out for, the angel who used the artifact didn't meet that guy.

So just who was he ?

A blue screen comes into my view breaking me from my thoughts.

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Vitality increasing in a rapid rate !

Blood being tempered with...

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It worked huh ?

Let's think about the man after I wake up Lecia.

The Cursed Potion of Eternity, isn't cursed.

It just tests a person's morality on an universal level, if you fail that test.. then you die. So, I guess it is a little cursed.

A normal person wouldn't pass the test, and even if they pass the test, killing that many people will break them mentally. There were children, aged people in the mix of people, even if the person wasn't killing them literally, the act of killing them would definitely break a person like Emilia or Eric.

Taking the potion, increased my vitality by a lot. When I say a lot... I mean a lottttt.

I was literally immortal, well not immortal but I'll live for a very long time, much longer than a normal human.

This opened a lot of opportunities for me, I could finally use that morbid skill called,'' Author's Authority'', I mean in theory I could actually wake up Lecia using that skill but I won't be doing that, since I already have another solution ready. There were also some doubts that I had about the whole skill in general,

The skill stated that the more significant the change, the more vitality would be taken but how is the significance determined...

Significant to the plot ?

Or significant to me ?

I'll conduct some experiments and find out.

Another thing that improved was my healing rate, If I broke my hand now, it would probably heal by itself in three or four days.

How was any of this going to help Lecia wake up ?

Simple.

The answer was my blood.

After the potion completely assimilated with me, the healing properties of the potion became one with my blood. So, I could heal people but there was a catch.

I could only heal uncurable diseases.

Something like a mana coma for example.

I get up from the floor, surprising Amanda, Francis and Agnes. But Ken and Diane don't appear surprised.

'' Take out those pipes.''

I point towards the tubes that were fitted into Lecia's mouth

Ken moves forward to do as I commanded but Amanda stops him and looks at me,

'' Are you sure about this ?... once those are removed, there's no going back.'', she warns me in a grave tone.

'' Just do it.'' , I say in a tired voice because I am tired.

Ken pushes aside Amanda and proceeds to take them out.

I walk over to Lecia.

'' You might need this.'', Diane walks towards me with a knife in her hands.

Huh ?

How did she know ?

I take the knife.

I'll ask them later.

I was planning on biting myself untill I bled, but a knife felt more elegant.

Ken opens Lecia's mouth wide open as he already knew what I was planning to do.

There's definitely something going on, but waking Lecia comes first now.

I make a small cut on my hand and pour a single drop of my blood into Lecia's mouth.

After a full minute of waiting, Lecia finally opens her eyes.

~~~~