My Roleplay System
Chapter 53: Nightmare Beast’s Fate

Chapter 53: Chapter 53: Nightmare Beast’s Fate

A sound like thunder echoed through the treacherous mountain as Romero’s fist crashed into the beast’s jaw, sending it flying backwards.

The light on Romero’s arm had disappeared at that moment.

*drip*

Blood trickled down Romero’s right hand, his muscles torn from the pressure that was exerted on it.

At that moment, Romero and the others all dropped to the floor. They had completely used up all the mana in their bodies causing them to collapse.

In the martial world, this was a common occurrence when someone ran out of mana. When a martial artist starts practicing, a small portion of the mana they absorb is used to nourish their body, strengthening it so that it can store larger amounts of mana.

This increased the martial artist’s physical and combat related abilities greatly but came with a severe drawback. Due to the effect of the mana on their body, they have become almost completely reliant on it to move. Without mana, their bodies shut down and it becomes difficult to move.

This wasn’t to say that they had become completely reliant on mana. To put it into perspective, their bodies have become like a vehicle and their willpower the driver. Mana is the fuel used to power the vehicle and make the engine run but when it runs out it doesn’t mean they can’t move. They can still get out of the car and continue to slowly push their body using their willpower. It’s difficult and slow, but it could still move.

This was the state Romero and the rest were in right now.

Breathing heavily, Romero raised his head up with great difficulty, turning his gaze to the body of the shadow beast.

Romero’s punch had caused the creature to go flying. Its large malformed body was currently lying motionlessly on the ground 20 or so meters away.

Suddenly, its body started to tremble as it slowly got up. The left side of its face had been greatly deformed from Romero’s punch with a large piece of its cheek missing, revealing the inside of its mouth where a large amount of its teeth were missing.

The Shadow Beast released a low cry of pain as it tried to get up from the ground. Every time it got up it would struggle for some time before falling back down. However, after a few minutes the beast seemed like it had started to recover as it no longer fell.

When Romero saw this he released a sigh.

The physical body of a human could never match up to the physical body of a beast in the same realm. It seemed like this time it would truly be their end.

Professor Sun released a small sigh as he closed his eyes as he saw the beast rise, seemingly accepting his fate.

"Ariel, my love... After all this time, I can finally get to see you and the rest of our family."

As Professor Sun spoke, a sad smile slowly formed on his face.

Eliza slowly crawled over to Romero before leaning against his shoulder.

"I guess this is it."

"Indeed. After all this time, I always thought I would live out my life and become a legend whose name would be spread all throughout the Grey Dragon Continent, but here I am, dying in an unknown rift before I could even fully spread my wings."

Romero’s words were calm despite their depressing meaning. Eliza could see that even though he was disappointed at the end, he had long accepted it.

"Romero... you didn’t die as a nobody. You died fighting till the very end. You died as a warrior."

When Romero heard these words, he smiled lightly as he held Eliza’s hand. Eliza had been with him for a long time, since the days when they were both attending the Martial Academy.

At that time Romero was at the top of his class and Eliza was always just behind him. They were always competing for the top spot, their rivalry driving and fueling each other’s growth.

This rivalry had caused a spark between the two that over time had blossomed into a beautiful romance. However, Eliza was the daughter of the guildmaster of a top tier guild and after graduation had joined her father’s guild.

When Romero had seen this he had immediately chosen to follow her. With Romero’s talent and martial ability, he was able to quickly rise through the ranks with much admiration from the higher ups.

However, this had also drawn the ire of a lot of the lower ranking members who envied his talent. When the news of Romero dating Eliza was revealed to these members, it resulted in a large-scale protest, claiming that Romero used a backdoor to enter the guild.

In order to deal with this before the situation escalated, the guild leader decided to split Romero and Eliza up for a period of time, at least until the dissatisfaction died down.

During this time, Romero had accepted the proposal and continued to work in the guild, dealing with the members who were still dissatisfied with him even after the "breakup". However through repeated exhibitions of skill and power, he managed to convince several low ranking members during his raids that he deserved his own high rank.

After a while however, many people had turned their eyes to Eliza instead. As a woman of outstanding beauty and background as well, many men were eager to get their hands on her, especially after Romero and her so-called breakup.

Using various means to court her, many acclaimed men of society came after her. However, all of them were rejected and most of them gave up after that.

However, there was one man that went a little bit further than that, Don. When he was rejected he decided to deal a blow to Eliza’s guild as revenge and that was how the whole duel came about.

When Romero thought of all this he gripped her hand even tighter.

Their relationship had always been a secret from the outside world since then to avoid problems with the public but at this point, what was there to worry about?

Even during this raid he had to suppress his feelings for her in order to hide them from the others but now he didn’t care about anything else. They were already going to die here so there was no reason to suppress these feelings any longer.

"Eliza... I-"

"Romero, look!" Eliza cut off Romero at that moment.

Her hand was pointed towards the direction of the Shadow Beast.

Romero swallowed the words he was about to speak as he followed the direction of her fingers to see what she was pointing out.

When Romero’s eyes looked in the direction of the beast, his eyes widened into a look of shock.

The Shadow Beast was standing up at that moment. Both its yellow eyes staring angrily at Romero and Eliza. Although it still hadn’t recovered, it wouldn’t be long before it could move again and proceed to finish them off.

However, at that moment, unbeknownst to the Shadow Beast, a lone figure had silently appeared on its left, standing right beside it.

This figure was dressed in a hooded black coat drenched in blood and held a sword with strange markings engraved on the blade that almost seemed to glow in the eerie light of the rift’s moon..

Without the beast noticing, the figure raised its sword and slashed.

*Slash!*

"GRWAR!!"

Blood spurted as a long cut appeared on the Shadow Beast’s neck. It howled in pain as it turned its large head to the left in search of the attacker.

However, the beast didn’t see any creature there and before it could even attempt to search for the creature, another slash mark had appeared on its neck.

"Rwarrr!" The beast howled in pain once more as it hurriedly searched around it for its attacker.

However, no matter how hard the beast searched it couldn’t find its attacker as more and more slash marks started to appear on its neck. Slowly, fear started to fill its heart as stories of the South Region’s terror of the night began crawling through its head. The beast tried to recall the name of the creature but was soon interrupted by another slash appearing on its neck. Before it had been playing with Romero and the rest as they couldn’t deal damage to him so it didn’t have to worry about death.

However, whatever its new attacker was, it could clearly deal damage to him meaning it had the means to kill him. Right now it was in a weakened state and had no chance of defending against the attacks of its new assailant, especially if it couldn’t even see it.

Romero and Eliza who had spotted the attacker earlier were currently dumbfounded as they looked at the scene before him. Even the Professor who was prepared to die a moment ago was slightly stunned by the current situation.

Since they were watching the battle from a spectator perspective they could see exactly what was going on, which only left them even further stunned.

The mysterious man that had appeared out of nowhere had started to walk around the beast, slashing it every time it was near the creature’s neck, continuing to layer several marks into it.

The beast, like a dog chasing its tail, would continue to turn in circles in search of the creature attacking it. However, due to its injuries, the creature moved incredibly slowly to the point where the figure only had to walk in order to stay on its side.

In this manner, the figure continued to walk in circles, always hovering around the creature’s neck like a demented spirit, continuing to leave numerous slash marks across its neck that slowly evolved from mere cuts into gouges.

Professor Sun wasn’t a hunter so he didn’t understand the details of what was going on but Romero and Eliza were, which made the scene even more shocking to them.

The man moved in a simple manner but each step he took had placed him in the perfect position to hide from the watchful eye of the beast. Each swing of his sword was but a simple downward slash but as they piled atop each other, several deep cuts into the creature’s neck formed, perfectly stacked on top of each other, creating even deeper wounds that splashed blood onto the mysterious wraithlike figure.

When Romero and Eliza saw this, they were utterly impressed. They thought that whoever that man was he had to at least achieve advanced proficiency in his weapon art, a feat not even most Peak Martial Warrior’s can achieve. His movements also showed off his mastery of the stealth arts in the way he avoided the creatures movements while planning his next steps ahead of time.

However, even though Romero and Eliza could appreciate the skill of the person before them, they didn’t consider it to be all that astonishing. After all, they had already seen a few people who had achieved advanced proficiency in their weapon art in their guild, Romero being one of them.

However, Romero and Eliza wouldn’t think the same if they were on the receiving end of Lake’s torment.

The Shadow Beast, that had previously struck fear and terror in their hearts, causing them inexplicable pain, was currently on the verge of tears.

Lake’s attacks had been going on for more than a minute now and the beast still hadn’t even seen a trace of its attacker. There was no sound or smell that the beast could use to trace its attacker down and there was especially no sight of it.

The Shadow Beast had tried innumerable times to blend into the shadows but the attacks were endless and before it could even start to hide, it would be met with the feeling of yet another slash being added to its flesh, interrupting its camouflage.

Its roar was also disabled under a similar situation. It couldn’t make a sound otherwise the blade would come slashing through the open hole on the side of its left cheek, scarring it silly.

The worst of it however would still have to be the fact that it hadn’t seen the attacker even after all this time. This had slowly created a terrifying illusion in the mind of the beast that it was being attacked by an invisible murderous spirit and not a living being.

Fear was creeping up in its heart and it wanted to run but its injuries from Romero’s previous strike had still left it unable to move fast enough to escape.

Under these relentless strikes soon another minute had passed. The Shadow Beast had been desperately trying to find its attacker but time was moving extremely slow and before it knew it, it had already subconsciously given up on searching as the cuts continued to stack up.

It was at that point when the creature had mentally given up, that its guard weakened and its muscles subconsciously relaxed for a moment.

That moment however was all that Lake was waiting for. Without hesitation, he ruthlessly slashed down on the deep cut that had formed on the creature’s neck.

*Swish!*

With the sound of flesh and bone being torn apart, the Shadow Beast’s head was removed from its neck, falling to the floor with a heavy thud, forming a crater in the mud below it that was saturated with its own blood. What was previously a small trickle of blood turned into a spewing fountain as the Shadow Beast’s arteries and veins were split open.Romero and the rest watched in astonishment as Lake continued to stand still in the rain of blood, seemingly deeply immersed in the experience.

However, what Lake was immersed in wasn’t the blood that rained down on him, but the fate that he was clutching between his fingers. It was a mass of darkness shaped in the form of a screaming face. As he absorbed the Shadow Beast’s fate, a set of system notifications appeared.

[Detected that the Host has come in contact with a Nightmare Beast’s Fate. Beginning the absorption process...]

[Absorption complete.]

[+100 RP Points]

[Calculating...]

[The system has detected that a fraction of the Nightmare Beast’s Fate power can be absorbed.]

[Does the host wish to begin the absorption process?]

[Yes?] [No?]