24 IF I KILL THEM THEY CANT KILL ME (2/2)

Indomitable had different effects on different people. The common shared traits were bloodlust and mental clarity, freeing one from negative feelings such as fear and so on, but the degree of change depended on one's personality.

Darius was a coward and quite shameless; he put his life above all else and avoided confrontation as much as possible. He would only enter a fight if he was one hundred percent confident in winning. The elder had stated that this same trait would remain even in his Indomitable state. He would still have a desire to battle, but his caution would be in part retained, preventing him from becoming recklessly crazy.

Take Lara, for example. She was a battle maniac with a fiery temper. If she had an Indomitable ability, she would have constantly been in a battle craze, having little to no regard for her safety.

Most Spiritknights had a warrior's disposition. They had an innate desire for feats of strength and victory. This would result in almost every person who possessed the Indomitable ability to be an Asura on the battlefield, risking their lives to rain death. Darius, however, had no such disposition. The combination of his cowardice and cautious personality coupled with his strong desire to live prevented him from going over the edge.

At first, Darius had thought that the elder was buttering him up to get him to use Indomitable more often, so he had hesitated, but after his experience with the worm, he felt more sure of the old man's conjecture.

When Imperishable had activated, Darius had retained a clear state of mind, driven by cognitive reasoning. The only difference between him and his normal self was that his cowardice had been replaced with a desire to battle.

Normal Darius's default thought pattern was 'run at the sight of danger' whereas Indomitable Darius's train of thought was 'eliminate the danger with as little risk and effort as possible.'

Recalling the previous incident when he had been under the Indomitable state, Darius felt this to be true; thus, he decided to test his conjecture. He calmed himself and gripped his hammer as he activated Imperishable. Bloodlust took over his body as an overbearing wave of calm surged through his mind. He took stock of his surroundings and immediately simply concluded to… do nothing.

Indeed, his final thought was to do absolutely nothing. At least for now, there was no enemy to battle. To prepare for his next battle, it was best to recuperate and shut down Imperishable.

Overdraw tired the body while Imperishable tired the mind. Thus, after a few seconds of activating Indomitable, Darius shut it down. When he came to, he was gobsmacked. He was surprised that he had not done anything crazy. He had even feared that he would have attacked Lara who was seated nearby due to his desire for battle, yet he had quickly surmised that she was of no threat to him, or at least the other 'him' had.

'So, it is just like the old man said!'

Darius was elated by his discovery. This meant that his chances of survival were actually better than he had thought. Not to mention that Imperishable behaved completely different when he was out of battle as there was far less of a bloodrush and instead more of a soothing feeling, Indomitable's bloodlust did not mean a loss of rationality. Anger had different ways of expressing itself, and Darius was the type to silently bear anger. When he became truly furious, he became even more coldly rational.

'It seems that Indomitable determined that I had no active threats nearby, so there was no need to enter a state of battle. Amusing, truly amusing.'

While Darius was playing around with his ability, Lara sat quietly, observing him. She watched his eyes become bloodshot and his body ooze killing intent, but it was only for a few moments. After scanning around the room, Darius returned to normal.

Lara was not sure what he was doing, but she was glad that he had not lose his mind. Lady Farah was known for entering a frenzy the moment her Indomitable skill activated. Although it was not known exactly what happened when she activated it, historians assumed that it was likely for her to attack random people who were closeby, especially those that were seen as threats. This behaviour was akin to how a spirit chose its opponent, so it was debated quite often by scholars.

Lara frowned for a moment when a disturbing thought entered her mind.

Does he not see me as a threat? Not at all?'

Darius was messing around with multiple thoughts when several footsteps caught his attention.

'Hhm?'

He looked up to see Lara walking toward him.

'Wow, she is really hot.'

Her luscious curves and short black hair hit Darius's hot spot. Granted, he had never previously even communicated with a woman of the opposite sex who he was attracted to, but he was now at that age.

When he had first met Lara, her fiery words had caused him to brand her as dangerous, causing him to lose any romantic thoughts he had about her. In his mind, even fantasizing about her had become taboo. Her previous threat did its job, tempting Darius to cover his lower region, cower, and hide any feelings. However, after remembering that she was not a threat, he calmed down.

As he stared at her, his intuition indeed suggested that she held no malice toward him. That coupled with the fact that she was weaker than him caused him to lower his guard.

'Ah, wait, she is royalty. How am I supposed to greet her?'

By the time Lara stopped beside him, Darius was at a loss. To her shock, the latter stood up and bowed. Halfway through his bow, he felt that it wasn't quite right, so he decided curtsy instead.

'Wait, that's what girls do! Maybe men should salute?'

The result was rather odd. Embarrassed, Darius thought of kneeling to atone for his previous foolishness. He half-knelt, slammed his fist on his chest, and hit his head against the floor.

'Since I don't know which one it should be, I'll try them all. At least one of them should be right.'

”Darius Omen greets your majesty, Princess… Princess… uhm…”

That's when it struck Darius. He didn't even know her name! At the orphanage he hadn't paid much attention during social studies, so he didn't even know who in the royal family held each rank, let alone their names.

Darius odd stunt shocked Lara speechless. She had wanted to inquire about his past and so had decided to approach him. Lara had done her homework on him, but she had wanted to understand him as a person and possibly recruit him into her retinue. She was creating her own faction of talented young people, and her plan was to make them her vassals once she became Empress. A powerful ruler needed powerful subjects. Darius was more than qualified in terms of talent. The only question was: what was he like?

She remembered how cruel she had been to him; thus, she had hastily decided to make amends in order to better recruit him later. Although she still felt that he had deserved it, he was no longer the same nameless weakling who she had previously mocked. He was a bonafide Spiritknight, one her age and much more talented, so he warranted her respect. Little had she known that within a moment, he would once again succeed in making a fool of himself.

It only took a moment for Lara to realize what had happened. She giggled, amused by his antics. At first, she had thought that he would be somewhat scary now that he had come into his martial prowess, but it seemed that he was nothing like what she had imagined.

”Your majesty is for my father. Your Highness is what you ought to use for me,” She said with a melodic chime of laughter. Darius rose up, embarrassed. He felt ashamed that he had used the wrong phrase. He obviously ignored that his gestures had been even worse.

Lara did her best to stifle her laughter; it would not do to alienate a potential ally. She had never seen a man attempt to curtsy before. It wasn't even a custom for females in their kingdom: women simply bowed their heads. Thus, she found his actions hysterical. Nevertheless, she had not come here to mock him, so she coughed and introduced herself, ”I am Lara Farlene, First Princess of the Pazhe Empire, Heir to the Throne. It's a pleasure to meet you, Darius.”

She extended a hand to him. Darius appeared to enter another bout of confusion. Hence, she decided to help him out.

”Just shake my hand. No need to be very formal with me. Treat me as you would any other person equal to your own station.���

Darius sighed. It was as if a truly massive weight had been lifted off his shoulders. She was a Princess. Nobles were known to be cruel, so he had imagined that royalty would be even worse. While there was Lionel, he had met Darius under special circumstances. Therefore, the Prince's station had never bothered Darius. After all, how could one take him seriously when he had such a shady disposition?

Darius shook her dainty hand. ”Haha, that makes things simpler then. It is an honor to meet you, Lara.”

Lara was surprised by how comfortable he was with being informal with her. Most people would find it difficult: after all, she was still a princess! However, Darius took to it like a fish in the water.

'It's not a bad thing. It'll make it much easier to deal with him.'

Lara herself was a straightforward person, so she appreciated such behavior.

Darius sat down and gestured for her to sit beside him. The couch was quite spacious, so it wasn't a problem. The two exchanged some small talk for a while, gradually lessening the distance between them. The more she talked to him, the more she liked his straightforward nature. Few people had ever acted so naturally around her. In fact, only her family had ever treated her with such familiarity. Darius was like a breath of fresh air to her. On the other hand, Darius enjoyed their chat even more.

'It seems she isn't as scary as I once thought.'

Darius had never before had a long casual discussion like this with a peer, let alone a girl, so he appreciated it quite a bit. The fact that he was attracted to her was just the cherry on top.

The duo talked about many things. Lara was curious about what it was like to live like a normal person, and Darius was curious about what it was like to be royalty, so they had plenty to talk about.

”So, Darius, tell me: how did you become so powerful?”

”Eh?'

Darius enjoyed the conversation with her quite a bit, almost reaching the point that he fully immersed himself within it. However, Darius was, after all, Darius. In the deep recesses of his mind, he kept asking himself the same questions.

'Why is she being so friendly to me? What's her objective?'

Due to his past experiences, and his recent incident with Lionel, Darius had started to more often think the worst of other people. As they talked, he kept wondering why she was talking to him.

'Is it because she is attracted to me?'

It took only a second for him to trash that foolish thought. His intuition told him otherwise, and he found it hard to disagree with. After all, what was there to like about him? It certainly seemed that there wasn't enough to attract a Princess. He was cowardly, poor, and not particularly charismatic. Granted, he was now somewhat strong, but surely that wasn't enough to warrant a princess's attention… or was it?

Hence, when she had asked him how he had gotten so strong, the gears in his mind had entered overdrive.

'As a princess, she must have access to a wealth of information. She should know plenty of methods to get strong. A country hick like me, on the other hand, knows nothing.'

Many ideas went through his head until one idea stuck out like a sore thumb.

'She wants to know the source of my strength!'

Nevertheless, she was not the only one curious about this matter. Darius himself wasn't quite sure. He had even asked the old man about it the night before.

”If one spent every day doing what you did for hours on end, it would be weird if they didn't become strong.”

This had been the elder's answer. Darius had not been satisfied with it because he had suspected that the old man had still been hiding something, but he had kept his reservations to himself. After all, if Darius truly had a technique that made it easy to obtain strength, he would attract far too much attention. He doubted that he could smoke the information out of the wily old fox so easily.

'I should just be honest. Well, not too honest.'

Darius was someone who prided himself in his ability to avoid confrontations of any kind; thus, he had come up with many ways to avoid difficult questions. After all, his daily hammering of the anvil had been bound to have captured others' curiosity, yet so far, no one had ever managed to get a single peep out of him. Well, except for that old man.

”To be honest, Princess, I'm not sure myself. I just do some simple muscular exercises. Before this test, I didn't even know I had this much strength.”

The truth mixed with lies was always the best combination. Darius was not a social person, so he was not confident about lying convincingly. The solution he came up with was half-lying. Hopefully, that would prevent his body from unconsciously revealing his falsehoods. The action he performed with his hammer every day was a muscular exercise of sorts, but it was by no means simple. Before the test, Darius had also been unaware of his strength, so that much at least was also true.

He had had an inkling that he was stronger than the average person, but he had not believed that it was to this extent.

The elder had explained that becoming a Spiritknight had unlocked the latent potential hidden in his body, producing his explosive strength. Darius was not knowledgeable on the topic, so all he could do was helplessly accept the elder's words.

He didn't really feel that much stronger, but the old man had had no answer for this, so Darius was not sure either. Darius didn't buy the elder's lackadaisical explanation, but there was nothing he could do, so he had moved on.

The answer was actually quite simple. Using the hammer every day had granted Darius a sublime control over his strength. He didn't simply hit the anvil ten thousand times a day. He also aimed to produce a certain sound, which required delicate control over his body.

The action of raising the hammer and striking the anvil involved every muscle in his body. Hence, over the years, Darius had developed an incredible subconscious control over his body.

Nevertheless, due to his timid nature, Darius always held back in whatever he did. Be it at the orphanage or at Sahid, Darius had tried his best to not garner any unnecessary attention. Thus, his brain would translate this hesitation into his actions, resulting in him not exerting his true strength.

The extent of his childhood trauma also played a part in this. His cowardice was deeply rooted in his mind and now a part of him. There were many unforeseen side effects of this, the reduction of his strength merely being one of them.

The elder had believed this to be so but had decided against telling the boy, believing it to be counterproductive.

All that Darius knew was that if he wanted to, he could exert incredible strength. In fact, he had used his room's summoning function to have many odd objects brought to test out his strength after the elder had left.

He would clap his hands and summon metals and objects that he had thought would be either heavy or hard. The results had been quite surprising, and the boy had been shocked by his own strength. While he had not had much time to truly discover his limits as it had already been morning with the test having been only a few hours away, he'd managed to break quite a few valuable metals. At the time, he had put his embarrassment at the back of his head and focused on his constant priority, staying alive.

”Really now?”

Lara crossed her arms over her bountiful chest and scrutinized the boy from head to toe. Lara considered herself a good judge of character, but she could not find anything wrong with his expression.

'There is no way a country hick could outsmart me, so he must be telling the truth.'

Her pride refused to let her believe that Darius was good enough to pull one over her, so she let it slide.

'So, the source of his strength is inherent. He either has inborn strength or a powerful bloodline or maybe even both.'

Since talking to him was not helpful, Lara smoothly changed topics, which Darius happily obliged. The two chatted for quite some time until an emotionless voice entered their ears.

”Please prepare. The fourth test is about to begin. This test is quite dangerous, so take this time to mentally prepare yourselves!”

Kylian and Donald were seated in their private booth, preparing to observe the fourth test.

”The first three tests were rather straightforward and fit what you'd usually expect from beginners, but for some reason, someone with an incredibly high clearance managed to throw in two more tests. You know what that means, right, Buddy?” Donald's chuckle echoed through the room.

Kylian maintained his usual somber expression as he replied to his compatriot.

”It means someone else is observing him. The question is, who?”

Donald shook his head, ”Even Katya, that brat, has no idea, and you know who is her backing. If he was actually able to subvert her authority, he must be something special. Should we make a move?”

Kylian thought for a moment and shook his head. ”No, not yet. If our identities were revealed, it would cause a fuss. It's better to observe this boy longer from the shadows. For us to personally make a move, it has to be worth it.”

”Aren't you worried that someone will make a move for the kid before we do? He doesn't seem bad. If we were late, it would be a problem,” said Donald warily.

Kylian crossed his arms and snorted in disdain. ”Even if the emperor himself had designs on the boy, he would be powerless. The only person to worry about is the person who subverted Katya's authority. I would like to see who would dare challenge what I, Kylian Laporte, have set my mind on.”

Donald snickered at his friend. ”You know, referring to yourself like that makes you sound arrogant.”

Kylian ignored Donald and focused on the task at hand. Observing Darius was his firm priority. He had no time to waste brain cells on nonsense with his garrulous companion.

Donald sighed in resignation and relaxed in his chair. 'Kylian's arrogance will definitely cause him issues. This is why I don't like dealing with noble-born people.'

…

Katya sat in her chair, closely observing the screen ahead of her.

'This is not a test fit for mere inductees. What is that old man thinking?” She slowly tapped her armrest as many thoughts ran across her face. A smile exuding devilish charm rested on her face while she thought of the possibilities of what would next happen.

'Well, at least this assignment wasn't nearly as boring as I had thought it would be.'

Katya licked her lips in anticipation. Her assistants could not help but gulp at her actions. They were straight women, but they were still enchanted by her beauty, which seemed to transcend common sense.

'Let the games begin.'

…

Man's greatest fear was the unknown: this was a commonly acknowledged fact. Darius had had no idea what the next test would be like, but something about it had made him uncomfortable. He was not sure what it had been, but he had suspected that something would be different. When he was teleported to the test location, he was instantly horrified that his intuition had been right.

The duo was sent into a swamp-like environment. The ground was covered in damp soil, with the jungle around them providing zero visibility. Darius did not hesitate to instantly activate Indomitable.

This time, the blood rush came in full swing. His innate senses picked up countless signs of danger in the environment. His eyes became red while his heart rate sped up. His testosterone levels shot through the roof, but his mind remained clear. Killing intent oozed out of his body like lava from a spouting volcano.

Lara was bathed in the radius of Darius's killing intent, but she was not the target, so she remained unaffected. On the contrary, it was sort of comforting. Knowing that she had a worthy compatriot in such a scenario was a good feeling.

Unlike Darius, this test was voluntary for her. She had taken it because of the rewards that had been offered. Hence, she had initially assumed that it would be exceedingly difficult for her, especially if the test had been tailored for someone of Darius's caliber. However, Lara was not one to give up easily. If she had surrendered to her fears, she would not have reached where she was today.

”Attention, the goal of this test is to capture the flag. A powerful spirit and its minions are guarding this flag. Your objective is to take said flag from their possession. If one of you takes possession of the flag, the test can be considered to have been passed. The test can also be passed by slaying the powerful spirit. Warning: the spirit is a two-star variant of the Courage step, so tread wisely. Begin!”

If Darius had not been under the Indomitable state, he would have no doubt cursed his ancestors. The old man had explained the rankings of Spiritknights and spirits, so he had a rough idea of what to expect from this formidable spirit.

The explosive shrimp was a one-star variant, and it had already been monstrous. Variants were spirits that had gone down a unique evolutionary path, carrying with them incredible power that surpassed their levels. A two-star variant could be as powerful as a normal three-star spirit.

Lara shuddered to think of the consequences if they were to battle it. She was far from being able to battle a two-star spirit, let alone a two-star variant. She looked over at Darius, wondering what his thoughts were. After a moment, she could not help but ask, ”Darius, do you think you can take on a two-star variant spirit?”

Darius looked at her with his crimson eyes, sending chills down her spine. His bloodlust was not focused on her, but it still made her feel uncomfortable like she was being stared at by a powerful predator.

”Depends on the type of spirit it is. Before we make any plans, our first objective is to find out what kind of spirit it is and its capabilities. How is your knowledge of spirits?”