156 The Right Thing To Do

Eric shuddered in absolute horror as he stared at the dead-looking body underneath him, his legs shaking faster than a vibrator as his previous thoughts and ideas got flipped on their heads as he was unable to believe his weary eyes… 

That body did not belong to Moby like he was led to believe, far from it… It was none other than Raymond, looking skinnier than ever before, laying on the ground with a motionless, shocked expression on his face… The one who came out on top of that scuffle was not Raymond but Moby, and he was the one responsible for what happened to him… 

The thought that Moby was the winning figure never even crossed his mind as he thought victory was assured… So, he decided to attack the dangling body upon being given the signal to shoot. 

He was still not able to accept what was going on, he clearly saw Moby being swallowed by Raymond's poison cloud so he must have fallen under its effects. The only way that could explain this was if Moby closed his eyes and held his breath for that entire time. However, in his mind, that was completely impossible. Even without that poison, Raymond was physically superior to Moby in virtually every way, the only thing that Moby had the upper hand in was in martial arts which would make it a slightly closer fight, with Raymond still holding an advantage. So, if Moby was both blind and unable to breathe, there should have been absolutely no way for him to win…

'H-how the fuck did this happen… th-th-there's no way this can be real… What kind of monster did I create…W-Where the fuck is he…' Eric thought in panic, still flat on his ass, shifting his attention from Raymond's motionless face as it was currently the least of his worries.

What followed baffled Eric somehow even more than he had already been…

As he began to look up in order to see where Moby was, he saw a shadow appear from the edge of his peripheral vision before he felt a sudden, piercing uncontrollable pain coming from his stomach with an unexplainable burning sensation that burnt yet did not feel hot at all, the sound of flesh being cut filling his ears as he let out an alarming scream of pain. 

When he looked down, he saw a bloody, rusty old katana stabbing right into his stomach, making his weary eyes grow even wider than they already were as he felt his body suddenly become week, coughing up a mouthful of blood onto the sword stabbing him. 

At that moment, Eric lost all hope… There was nothing more that he could do in his current state as he was completely out of mana due to his previous barrage of attacks, he was as good as dead, something that he felt like he would actually become in the next few minutes… Moby was simply too powerful, he had created a monster, making him unlock his hidden potential or maybe it was just that all those other times he was simply holding back… Either way, he knew that he was completely and utterly doomed… 

'Why did I have to mess with this guy… Why is the world so cruel… I don't deserve any of this…I am too young to die...' Eric thought, cursing his entire existence and stupidity, a waterfall of tears gushing down his face. 

However, Eric was once again completely wrong… Moby did not win by simply overpowering his opponents, he won with quick thinking and pure strategy alone… 

Moby did not know if those memories he saw were memories of the future, another reality, or just visions of who he must truly become, all he knew was that they were very real as proved by his working system and that the girl in the necklace was actually called Avilia, just like in his memories… He had many seemingly random facts litter his mind, ranging from useless facts like when military school Z started and ended to really useful ones like how to properly control and manipulate demon energy. 

One of those facts was that demons were completely immune to poisons of all kinds, however, it went deeper than that… According to his memories, a demon's anatomy was not the one responsible for neutralizing the poisons, it was the flow of demon energy that ran throughout their body that made a lot more sense to him. Throughout his entire childhood, he did not have a single case of food poisoning, and any poisonous substance he ever consumed had their effects still working yet severely reduced, something that he now attributed to his weak flow of demon energy. However, now with his memories and new system along with Avilia's power boost, his flow of demon energy was far stronger than before, allowing him to fully neutralize the poison with no trouble at all.

Even in his enraged state, Moby knew that if he wanted to win and get his revenge, he was not able to rush in blindly so he formulated a plan of attack. 

He first forced Raymond into activating his poison cloud, pushing Eric to stop his endless barrage of wind blades that Moby was not confident in dodging, especially with his limited reserve of demon energy. He then suppressed his flow of demon energy, inhaling the poison to see its effects before unsurprising it again to only pretend to be having the symptoms of it to lure Raymond closer and give him a false hope of victory. After Raymond found him seemingly in pain, coughing on the ground, he smiled wickedly, rushing towards Moby with a dagger in hand. However, he was the one stabbed instead, right through the chest by Moby who had caught him completely by surprise. 

Moby then released his sword from Raymond's weak body before grasping onto his with an iron grip, lifting him up to where his legs would not even be able to touch the ground as he struggled to break free due to his fear, panic, and injuries. As the dust began to clear, Moby gave a thumbs up Eric who of course interpreted it as a sign to attack, not wondering why he did not speak as smoke would have gotten in his mouth and lungs. 

This served as 2 things, the first was to deplete Eric's entire mana reserve, making him a more drastically easier target than before, and the second was to increase his shock factor and fear, causing him to become too scared to fight. Then, after throwing Raymond's body towards Eric like a torpedo, surprising and knocking the wind out of him, it gave him enough of a distraction to quickly close the distance between them without worrying about any wind blades coming his way, using his demon flash to do it even faster.

Now, Moby had Eric exactly where he wanted him, kneeling on the ground with a look of pure despair in his face as Moby's demon energy enhanced sword was dug deep into his stomach, although it was weaker than the visible, pure demon energy he saw his other self use, it was still strong enough to cause unimaginable pain onto his opponent with the added bonus of it being virtually invisible to the naked eye. 

As Moby looked at Eric's eyes and look of despair, he felt absolutely no pity, the only thought running through his mind was what the most painful, inhumane way of torture he could instill upon him before he finally dies… That was the reason he chose to leave the other boys alive for now as it was their turn later... And as he was thinking, he realized the answer in the form of a memory he had witnessed from his other or future self, making him laugh hysterically as he removed his sword from Eric's stomach, picking him up by the head before infusing a good portion of demon energy inside of him.

Moby would have much preferred it if he could turn one of them into a demon, his personal slave for a week before disposing of them like they were nothing, but he was not even a lesser demon at that point and his reserve of demon energy was not enough… However, it was enough for the torture method he had seen in his memories, the one that sucked someone dry of their life essence before turning them into literal dust.

As Eric felt Moby's tight, crushing iron grasp on his face, he began to inwardly panic, squirming around like a little child, trying his best to breathe let alone escape as he had no mana and was simply too weak to do anything in his current state. Then suddenly, he felt an unknown energy enter through his head, slowly spreading throughout his entire body. The feeling of calmness and peace that was instilled throughout his entire body made him stop his futile escape attempts as his entire body felt at peace…

However, that peace did not last for long as it was replaced by the worst pain he had ever felt in his entire life… 

The light, heavenly blissful sensation disappeared and was instead replaced with pure darkness as he experienced his worst nightmares over, and over again in his head… However, they did not feel like nightmares… No, for him they were all too real, all the physical pain, all the mental anguish that came with them were both mostly replicated in his mind but also his actual body... 

His blood felt like it began boiling and bubbling with the heat and intensity of 1000 suns. He felt the bones in his body form cracks making it feel like it was about to crumble at any instance. Every organ in his body felt like they turned inside out, not all at once but slowly to make it as painful and excruciating as possible. His skin felt like it was churning as his previously black hair began to show strands of white and gray. His previously smooth skin began to wrinkle, making him look older than he actually was, even at his height of only 4'10.

In his mind what was only 1 or 2 minutes felt like many weeks or even months straight of the worst torture he could even imagine.

Moby stared at this entire painful process with a wide smile on his face as he was glad it was working even better than he expected, he could see all of the pain and suffering in real-time as he began to witness his body agonize, break, shift and transform in weird ways. In a few seconds, he would undoubtedly be dead and he could have him out of his hair forever, getting what he deserved for all that he had put him through…

When, suddenly, he felt an intense pain in his head akin to a slap that snapped him back into reality, making him come to his senses as he felt extremely stupid beyond belief for what he was about to do… 

He immediately let go of Eric's body, making it fall on the ground with a thud, small wrinkles on his skin with a few strands of gray on his head, his nose still breathing as he was just barely alive… 

Moby almost just messed up his entire life, almost killed and doomed himself over revenge due to his furious, blinding rage and hatred… He needed to stop and think about what he was about to do, something that he luckily managed at the last second before it was too late. Getting revenge did not mean throwing logic out the window, what was even the point if he would not stay alive for long right after. He needed to think calmly, logically and intelligently, If he had killed Eric just now, everyone would know that it was him, leading him to get arrested and even sentenced to death in many cases, it was just not worth it. Even if he also killed the other 2 boys, there were many witnesses that saw him go with them to the back of the school, and if they formed an investigation or just asked him with a lie detector test, there would be no way he could get out of it.

He had already scarred all of the 3 boys for life, and if he wanted to kill them, he needed to do it at a better time when there would be no witnesses and no way of them leading the murder back to him.

For now, he needed to leave Eric alone as anything more would just straight up kill him. He could wait for Simon and Raymond to wake up from their unconscious state to do the same thing he had done to Eric as it only worked when they were awake, but that risked him being seen by other people that could have been in the area. It risked his new torture technique being discovered and it risked him going into another fight with potentially stronger students, something that he was not confident in as his demon energy reserves were almost depleted.

His best course of action would be to leave for now and strike later when the time was right, building his strength using his system in secret until the time was right, which was exactly what he decided to do. Moby sheathed his sword, looking at Eric's shrivelled body, rain falling down on his face with pure contempt, before walking away towards his bag in the distance to grab it before planning to search the 3 boy's belongings for any valuables before he left the area.

As he was walking towards his bag, a sudden flash of white light appeared all around him as his vision was completely consumed by it, making him panic and put his arms to his face to protect his eyes…

In the next second when he opened his eyes, he saw himself naked, floating in a void of mystical golden space, greatly shocking him as all he did was stare at its beauty in awe, not even taking the time to question where he was or what he was doing. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he heard a loud, deep, majestic voice that echoed throughout the entire space and shook him down to his very core. 

"Congratulations Moby Kane, you have passed your first trial! You have demonstrated exceptional strength, will power, intellect, strategy, and last but not least, rational thinking! I am thoroughly impressed! I look forward to your next trial to see what you will do then… In the meantime this will be my farewell, I wish you the best of luck on your path to becoming the demon lord!" The voice resounded before fading away like it was getting farther and farther away from him.

And, before he even had the chance to talk or ask any of his possibly 1000s of questions, another abrupt, flash of blinding light consumed his entire being, blinding him once more...

Then, suddenly, still, in the witness of the flash, all of his true memories and knowledge began coming back to him all at once as he knew exactly what had just happened to him with the trial.

In the next second when he opened his eyes, he saw that was once again back to the familiar-looking blue gym of his military school, back in his actual, non-prepubescent body, heavy sweat running down his face from all the mental strain he experiences he had just gone through...

'I-I am back! I passed!' Moby thought with immense relief and celebration as he felt extremely proud of himself, but still, many questions and thoughts running in his mind making him ponder deeply about what he had just seen and experienced.

Then, all of a sudden, he heard the familiar sound of one of his system's notifications, interrupting his train of thought, making him really excited to see what his rewards were going to be for successfully passing the trial he had just gone through...