"That’s terrible!" Freddie frowned at Hector. He was about to step forward and stop whatever Bill’s pet was doing, but a few students nearby immediately grabbed his shoulder to hold him back.
"Don’t be stupid. If you get in their way, you’ll drag everyone into trouble. Just let him be. Those guys... they’re nobles," one of them warned, tense.
Freddie grit his teeth, clenched his fists tight in anger, and kept his eyes fixed on Hector.
By now, the dog had been locking Hector’s right shoulder with its maw. Worse, it would occasionally shake its head while keeping its teeth sunk into his right shoulder, as if he were just a rag doll it could tear apart at any moment.
The smell of blood and screams spread through the area where the fight was happening. The noble brats only laughed and mocked Hector’s defeat.
"F-Fuck..." With a palest face, Hector tried to pry open the dog’s jaws to free his shoulder, but the bite was far too strong because he was simply too weak if he didn’t use mana.
The dog shook its head again, spilling out even more blood from wounds in Hector’s shoulder and causing his face to be more and more pale. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ NoveIＦire.net
Bit by bit, Hector’s vision dimmed. His arm felt like it was about to be ripped clean off.
He was unable to hold out or yell anymore, managing only a few shallow breaths behind.
"I’m tired...."
Although he seemed calm, he just tried to control his fury about this impotence. Because he knew if he lost any of his control at this moment, he would have let his monster inside him trigger.
His vision blurred completely, and he gradually stopped resisting.
"Six! Bring him here," Bill ordered in a steel-cold voice, though his eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
The dog stopped its attack and slowly dragged Hector toward its master, leaving a trailing streak of blood behind.
Tap.
Hector laid on the ground with hollow eyes while trying to control his movement to avoid losing the most blood he could.
"Huh." Bill scoffed, staring down at Hector and then, he shook his head in amusement.
"Look at you... Where’s that cold, emotionless face you had earlier, huh? You blind little shit."
Bill spat in Hector’s face, then pressed his foot down on it.
"Pathetic!"
Bill lifted his head toward the commoners ahead and shouted loudly,
"Now, you’ll know the cost of standing against me, a precious prince."
"Like that!" Bill curled one corner of his mouth into a smirk, pressing Hector’s head harder into the ground until small cracks began to spiderweb across the floor.
Blood kept seeping from Hector, pooling more and more around him.
While Bill kept rambling about his power and authority to everyone, Hector just lay there in silence—like an actual corpse.
"You should give up. If you hesitate, you’re gonna die," the voice inside Hector’s head sighed.
"Give up! I’ll kill them. I know all the pain you’ve carried since back then—you must want to destroy everything. I’ve seen your memories. You’re just a lucky dead man who happened to reincarnate in my body. You’ve got no reason to live, so why not give me control? I’ll handle everything for you."
"This world is really, really dangerous. It’s not a place where you can rest and play," the illusion said softly.
"Just trigger your mana, and I’ll take over."
"Do it!"
The illusion kept hammering Hector with dark, poisonous words, and it was working.
Struggling to take a deep breath, Hector slowly moved his left arm and gripped Bill’s foot, pressing down on his face.
"Oh? Still alive? Fine, I’ll end your pathetic life right now."
Bill raised his right leg high, ready to crush Hector’s skull.
Clive nearly startled as he saw Bill’s action. He thought Bill was just kidding, and completely unexpected things to go this far.
"No! That’s a big problem. Don’t drag me into your mess!" Clive rushed forward to stop him, but he was too late.
Bill stomped down with all his strength.
"YOU little piece of shit! I told you not to cause trouble!" Clive roared, glaring at Bill.
By now, the training yard was buzzing with noise.
"Damn, he actually did it," Freddie muttered in a sour mood, glancing at his classmates. They all wore the same expression. That was both afraid and hopeless.
After all, they were just commoners—if they picked a fight with nobles of the empire, their fate was already sealed.
"Tsk. Always the coward, huh, Clive? Just a little piece of trash. Kevin wouldn’t waste his time picking a fight with a prince like me," Bill smirked, shaking his shoulders in mock indifference.
But then, a creepy sensation covered him as a tight force grabbed his foot.
"Aaaaargh! My foot!" Bill screamed in pain, yanking his leg back before it could be crushed.
Suddenly, the atmosphere shifted—from cold and tense to something heavier.
Everyone felt the air thicken, almost suffocating, and turned their eyes toward Hector, who was still half-buried under the dust kicked up by Bill’s earlier strike.
"You piece of trash, I’ll tear you into mush!" Bill roared, glaring at Hector—
but half a second later, he felt his chest tighten as an invisible force wrapped around him, squeezing the breath from his lungs.
"Shit! It’s him—that monster!" Tom’s voice cracked as panic took over. He trembled violently, collapsing to the ground with tears streaking down his face.
The memory of the cell came rushing back—the day of the second cell exam, when Hector had broken free from the torture chair and slaughtered most of the prisoners.
That day, he’d been even stronger, more terrifying than anyone Tom had ever seen... even more than his own master, Haley.
A sudden howl rang out, and from somewhere above, a figure plummeted from the sky, crashing into the cloud of dust around Hector.
No one had seen him coming.
Then a few seconds later.
"Take him!" Tyrone roared, tossing Hector toward Freddie and the other commoners from the cloud of dust.
He stepped forward from the dust, his form now fully revealed—the towering, solid frame of a wolf.
Tyrone tilted his head back and let out a deep, thunderous howl before baring his fangs, his voice low and taunting.
"Surprised? You dared to bully my underling? I’ll rip off your head and feast on it myself."
With the sheer pressure of his presence, no one doubted it—Tyrone was the one who had filled the air with that suffocating, deadly aura.