Thank you for the reviews, I know I don't have allot written as of this point in the story but I love feedback and questions. To answer your question, epantaja521, yes. Rudeus will become more powerful in body and in magic than his previous life. I intend for him to learn more on how to manipulate the world around him as he gradually improves. As for his abilities they will be unique and not necessarily explosive. Just OP as fuck, however that will not happen for some time. But in the meantime his largest goal is to stop the teleportation event.

The night was blanketed in a sheet of fog, the moon was dim and darkness was being cast all around death row. The only light source was the one made by their torches and they could barely see in front of themselves. It was the perfect cover to kill discretely.

Clive and the men of death row were approaching the house. Normally if given the task to destroy a single house they would let loose some arrows that were covered in oil and set on fire, or using a fireball incantation, and shoot them at the house and burning the people inside. But Darius had asked that they make it look like a monster incident. So the plan was to surround the house, not allowing a pathway of escape, Clive and his top men would raid the house and slaughter everyone inside, if anyone tried to flee then the men on the outside would hunt them down and kill them.

They approached the house and confirmed it was the right address. Clive signaled for the men to approach the front door, pulling out his sword while doing so. His heart started to beat faster at the anticipation, killing was his second favorite thing to do, but if he could he would execute his number one favorite thing to do first which was torture. Before he could touch the handle, he heard a little girls voice.

"Hey mister, do you want to play hide and seek?" It was pure and innocent but off putting at the same time.

Clive looked quickly side to side but didn't see anyone.

"Who is there? Show yourself!" Clive whispered a little loudly. If the people inside were still asleep he wanted to dispatch of the little girl before she screamed. And there shouldn't even be anyone awake at this hour. Something was very off.

"Well if I showed myself to you. Then it wouldn't be hide and seek now would it? But where are my manners, my name is Hollow" The girl laughed teasing the men.

"Hollow huh? Is that some kind of joke? I'm not fucking around little girl, show yourself!"

"But mister, I don't think you will like what you see, every time someone sees me they run away in fear. They scream. MOMMY! MOMMY! Or something like that, honestly I just want to play hide and seek with them. But it looks like you have come here to do something much different then hide and seek, you stink of murder after all." The girl didn't change her tone, she was still playful in her voice.

"Do you even know who I am? I've killed hundreds, don't think I won't kill you too!" Clive hissed.

"Oh I know your name Clive, you have killed many people, but I didn't expect to see you here at my doorstep."

Before Clive could retort one of the men behind him tapped on his shoulder. He glimpsed and saw that his mercenary was pointing up above them in sheer terror. Clive looked up and saw a hooded figure floating above them. It towered over the group. Then it flew down and landed on the ground not even making a sound. It was so fast it was almost as if it had teleported. Drops of blood fell from its lips as it smiled demonically at them. The drops landed on Clive's forehead. He didn't move a muscle. For one of the only moments in his life he was completely frozen at the sight before him. He had faced countless monsters but this was no monster, it was intelligent, and it could speak to them in clear words.

He threw his sword forward as his instincts kicked in. The blade was stopped by one of Hollows arms that protruded from its back, the arm itself looked like a single edged sword and it was composed of hardened bone, it could not be cut through. The only way to destroy hardened bone like that was to shatter it with a hammer or use a saw.

"Hey mister, before you throw another swing at me, I will give you an opportunity. Tell me who hired you, and I will let you go. They will pay for annoying me, and you get to tell others about me. Deal?"

The monsters offer was sincere, he could hear that it was serious behind it's playful manners, but he didn't go back on a job when he had already accepted it and he never turned in an employer. The creature already noticed Clive's answer through his facial expressions.

Hollow smiled at him and let out the joyous laughter of a little girl. Then it attacked. Using its other free sword like arm to go directly through the skull of one of the men standing to Clive's right, killing the man instantly. The monster bent down and whispered into Clive's ear. "You hide, and I will find you."

And then the monstrosity became a blur, killing indiscriminately. Screams reverberated through the night.

Clive evaded or blocked several of the monsters attacks. It was quick but it wasn't advanced in hand-to-hand combat, that he noticed. His plan for killing this being would be to injure it bit by bit, a sword thrust here and a slash there, always retreating whenever the monster tried to attack him. Like teasing a pissed off cat, he would win if he was faster at getting away than the swipes of its claws. However his men couldn't say the same, it had already killed four of them.

"Everyone get back, weaken the monster with arrows and jabs! Will, use a fireball on the house!" Clive knew that their ruckus would wake up the people inside so they had a precious few seconds to complete the job before Paul and Roxy entered the fight.

Will, one of their advanced sorcerers outstretched his hands and began the incantation. Whenever the monster tried to attack Will one of the other members of Death Row moved Will out of the way, blocked the attack for the monster, or stood as barrier and attacked, distracting the creature.

A fireball formed and shot at the house, the spell was done successfully. Clive smiled in a moment of celebration now that they would have two pieces removed from the board and just had to deal with the monster but they were cut short. A ball of water intercepted the fireball and steam exploded everywhere making the fireball neutral and useless.

Clive looked down at the hand of the monster. It smiled at them gleefully laughing.

"My turn mister." Hollow outstretched its hand and a stream of blue flames engulfed Will. The man would have screamed but the fire was infused with wind magic, it was so fast and strong of a spell that his flesh was burned off before he could blink, by the time the spell had finished he was nothing but chard bones.

Then the door to the house burst open, Paul stood with his sword at the ready. He was shirtless and it was clear he had only managed to put on his pants and rush downstairs. He didn't flinch at the sight of the dead men littering his yard but he did freeze at the sight of Hollow, the creatures figure was illuminated by the blue flames casting an ominous shadow over the house. Roxy burst in right after Paul but her reaction was the same.

"Paul! Rudeus is missing! I can't find him!" Zenith screamed in desperation from inside the house.

'Where was the kid?' Clive thought, they had to make it out of tonight alive but if the child survived that presented two problems. Firstly, always end the bloodline of a family if they are a witness to your kill, they will swear revenge, and become strong to face the one who killed as an act of vengeance, the second was that this mission was supposed to be discrete. If the kid survived and saw them then Death Row would lose it's bonus from Darius.

"Hey mister, don't worry about these guys, I will play hide and seek with them, so far they suck at hiding but you know…..well…. They are trying to kill me so it's kind of hard to do that while hiding." The monster shouted at Paul, it waved at him with one hand while having it's other hand cupped to the side of it's mouth like a microphone. Then a rock dome covered the house. Sealing Paul and the rest of the people safely inside the building.

"Well I have a few moments before Roxy gets rid of that rock wall with her incantations. So I will get serious."

It outstretched its hands and some of the men floated in the air, no wind seemed to gush and force them up. It was as if the creature was using telekinesis. Then rocks formed in a spiral and pierced through the men like bullets from a gun. Other men fell into the ground, it was a trap that was covered by grass when really they had stepped into waist high mud, they were quickly dispatched by more rock bullets.

By the time Clive could get a breather half of his party was already dead, however since he didn't need to worry about his men getting in the way as much he was free to use his skills without the need to be concerned for collateral damage.

He breathed in as much as he could, tensing all of his muscles, then he imagined himself becoming liquid, flowing like a jet of water released from a pressurized tank.

'Sword god style, sword of light!' Clive shouted in his mind.

The world around the monster turned red as Clive shot forward, the wave of light was then proceeded by darkness. After a millisecond light came back into focus and the ground cracked along the path of Clive's sword technique.

"Wow mister that was pretty colorful and flashy." Clapping and laugher filled the air.

Clive looked behind him but no one was there. Then he looked around and came face to face with the monster. It was bent down so it was at eyelevel with him. He would have seen Hollows eyes had it not been covered with the cloak. Clive leapt back, keeping distance from the creature.

"You are probably wondering how I avoided your attack. Well I will put it this way, I have fought against people who were way better than you using that technique. Sword of light is easy to avoid if you are experienced, and I've lived a long time. Now then." Hollow bent down and shot forward.

Clive swung his sword out but was met again with Hollow's sword like arm. It grabbed Clive's face and slammed him down on the ground, then raising him up and slamming him down again, dragging him across the dirt while doing so. It was a brutal display of dominance.

The leader of Death Row let go of his sword and in a desperate attempt to get free grabbed Hollow's head with both hands and slammed his knee into the monsters face, shattering it's nose.

It threw him away. Clive got up and put both of his hands to his head in an attempt to stop the ringing and the mind numbing pain coming from the back of his head. The monster on the other hand acted as if nothing happened.

Hollow raised its hand and outstretched two fingers. Clive's sword began to float off the ground. Then the beast squeezed it's hand tightly together. The Sword shattered into small fragments.

One of the men shouted at the monster "Are you trying to mock our boss? Shattering his sword like that proving you are his greater?" Before the man could ask another question or mock the beast the fragments flew in his direction going through his body and vital organs, he collapsed as he started to hack up blood from his damaged body, it was clear he was going to die.

Clive reached for his dagger and lunged forward but one of the fragments blocked his attack while another shot through his arm severing the tendons in his wrist, then another shard went through his bicep followed by another shard to his shoulder. Clive screamed in pain as his arm was rendered completely useless falling limp as all three tendons in his arm were cut.

The dagger then began to move as if it had a mind of its own and went into his foot pinning him to the ground. He screamed again and attempted to reach for the dagger with his only good arm now in an effort to pull it out but his fingers were all of a sudden sliced off at the base by Hollows boney sword. Meanwhile Hollow was using the fragments like birds of prey as they whizzed around faster than the eye could keep track of. He used these pieces of shattered blade to slit the throats of the rest of Death Row.

Clive looked up at Hollow.

"Now you won't make it out of this alive, but just incase you are ready and I want to check one last. Reida Reia, Darius Silva Ganius."

It was a psychological tactic, it was done to people who were in a moment of stress and being interrogated. When a name or place was mentioned without them expecting it they would flinch, their heart would skip a beat, or their eyes would dilate. Either way their body would give the interrogator the answer.

Clive stiffened at the last name, Darius. After a moment Clive's composure returned.

"Go to hell." Clive shouted, it was a last breath of retaliation. And his final breath, as Clive's head was decapitated by the fragments of his blade. They rotated around and around like a bandsaw blade as they cut quickly into his flesh and then through his spine. Leaving his head cleanly cut.

"You first mister." Hollow whispered coldly. It then sat down beside Clive's corpse, and Hollow had stopped smiling as it looked at the stone dome it had made. Hollow lied about Roxy being able to break through the rock dome it had made, Hollow was constantly growing it back so whenever she cast an incantation to remove it the beast simply fought against the spell by casting a new one.

Looking across the mayhem there was no one left alive. "I'm sorry it had to come to this, I knew who you were but I gave you a chance to live tonight despite the cruelties you had done on others, I don't like killing, I never have." He was talking to the corpse of Clive.

Hollow stood up and walked over to the dome wall which would fall down any second. It knelt down in a submissive manner, Paul would mostly try to kill Hollow if it showed any sign of aggression but maybe he would think logically and realize Hollow had no intention of hurting the family.

The Rock dome finally went down. Roxy was panting, she had made numerous attempts and kept trying to remove the rock barrier but her attempts were met with resistance or another rock barrier to replace the one she took down previously. Paul didn't move from his spot, his eyes were completely set on Hollow.

"Where is my son you monster?" Paul asked coldly.

"Mister he is safe. Rudeus shall return at first sunlight in the morning, he was exploring in the night because he couldn't fall asleep, he was in a direct path to meet these men, so I knocked him out and took him to safety, then I followed these people to see what they were doing at this time of night." Hollow stated.

"Why did you kill these men, who are they?"

"They were sent here to kill you, so I killed them, they are a mercenary group known as Death Row. I tried to interrogate their leader Clive as to who hired them but he would not give me an answer. So I ended him."

If Hollow gave Paul the truth that Darius was behind this his next objective would be clear and he would leave to challenge the prime minister of Asura.

'This creature doesn't show any intention of hurting me or Paul,' Roxy thought.

"What are you?" Roxy stated with her own question, interrupting Paul's follow up question.

"I am Hollow, I like to play hide and seek, that is all you need to know."

Paul grimaced but he didn't want to be disrespectful towards the creature, if it was unwilling to tell them what it was then there was a reason for it, and Paul wouldn't push it. One last thing was on his list of questions.

"Will you guarantee my son's safety? If he doesn't come back what will you do?"

"He will come back unharmed you have my word mister."

And with that the monster flew off.

The morning came and Rudeus could be seen walking towards the house in the distance. His eyes showed a look of panic when he saw the corpses littering the area around the house.

"Father! Mother! Roxy! Lilia!?" Rudeus shouted running as fast as his legs could carry him.

Zenith was the first to appear from behind the house. She ran over to her son and embraced him, crying with tears of joy and relief. Rudeus cried too and held her as tightly as he could. Paul and Roxy came running embracing him as well. Lilia smiled faintly in the distance.

"Don't you ever run away again!" Zenith scorned her son as she continued to cry.

"Okay mom I promise. But what happened here?"

"Men came to attack us in the night but a monster showed up and killed them, it didn't hurt us though. It said that it knocked you out when you went to go for a midnight walk, you were about to come in contact with those men." Paul stated.

"Yes, I was walking around but then it got really foggy, I wanted to head back as soon as I could but before I could turn around something hit me and I was out. I woke up when something splashed water on me, I looked up and I saw the creature called Hollow. It said hello to me."

"Were you scared? Did he say anything?" Roxy asked.

Rudeus gripped his arms together tightly, trembling and nodding his head slowly. He then went into a long story about how Hollow and him had talked, about what had transpired, and about Death Row.

Paul gripped his fists together. "I am going to find out who did this!" He shouted with determination.

'Shit I have to think of something fast. If Paul leaves no one will try to get me a job to teach Eris in the future. Paul will go off on a quest for vengeance instead.' Rudeus thought cursing himself.

"Hollow told me it is already looking into that." Rudeus said.

"Huh? Why would that creature be interested in protecting us even further?" Paul asked.

"It gave me three reasons. One, if you want to kill a weed you have to pull it out by the root, and two, children are precious and meant to be protected, the third was because you exist as the strongest line of defense for this family other than the creature. And my own point, would you really like that thing hanging around the family instead of you?"

Paul didn't hesitate in his answer that he didn't want that thing to hang around the family instead of him. And in the meantime he would practice some more and try to become stronger. Maybe he could reach saint tier. He gripped his hands tightly looking at his son.

"I will become stronger to protect you son and everyone here who is dear to me." Paul promised.

Rudeus smiled, glad he was going to stay, on the other hand years from now he was not looking forward to Paul knocking him out with a wooden sword to get him to leave the household. That all depended if Rudeus could play out those future years as normally as possible.

Later on Rudeus and Roxy looked out across the plains. Recalling last night.

"I was so scared." Roxy stated gripping her arms tightly together. "We were completely surrounded by many men as advanced as both me and Paul. If that monster hadn't shown up we would all be dead, and besides the fact it saved us, I don't think I will get the haunting picture of it's smile out of my mind any time soon."

Rudeus put his hand on her sleeve in an attempt to comfort her.

"Master Roxy, please know it didn't mean to scare you, I was scared too when I met it, but it has a kind heart. It saved us. It's like an ugly or scary person with a soft heart. I don't know what else to say, so please stop shivering." Rudeus said softly, but there was pain in his voice.

'I never wanted you to see my other side, the side I created to defend my family and to keep my real powers hidden.'

Looking back to the night before Rudeus was exploring but he was flying around instead of walking. He saw the lights above the layer of fog. The mist was not thick enough to conceal the torches as Rudeus viewed them from above. He took a closer look, as close as he could without separating the fog. He recognized death row as he had faced them before. Granted some of the members had changed over the years but he knew the leader Clive, Eris had killed death row single handedly in his previous life when she was a sword king.

Either way, the reason why they were here was clear, this was the work of the man god Hitogami. Rudeus thought about ways to deal with Darius now that it was confirmed that the prime minister was an apostle throughout Rudeus's early years of life. Hitogami kept with his apostles until they died or left him, and if they left him he would usually find a way to kill them. And then he moved onto the next person to be his pawn, three people was the limit the man god could contact and control.

Hitogami also could see fifty years into the future at most. Something Rudeus would do in the timespan would affect Hitogami's plans for the negative and so the man god had gotten Darius to commit an assassination attempt.

There were two options here, go after Darius or mentally Rudeus would commit himself to not fighting Hitogami until he met Orsted, which would change the future for the time being. After that point Rudeus much like in his previous life would work with the Dragon god to kill the man god, but Rudeus didn't like that idea much either. A sense of pride was lost to Rudeus that day when he was defeated by Orsted, while he was humble for the most part, a very small part of him wondered if he could beat the dragon god this time around, not kill, just get him to submit.

One advantage stood out to Rudeus against the man god. Hitogami didn't know that this was Rudeus's second time in this world, and the man god didn't know that Rudeus already had his eyes on him. He would know about Hollow and Rudeus being the same person so he might try to throw a wrench in that secret, Hitogami could see anything happening in the world excluding Orsted.

For the time being Rudeus would have to think hard on his next step. He didn't expect himself to be thinking so hard so early but life had other plans. And if he took a misstep then Hitogami would destroy his future.

Roxy looked up at the sky, staring aimlessly, Rudeus looked up with her, wondering what she was thinking as he pondered his own options. They stood in silence letting the minutes pass by until they decided to walk back to the house.