East Meet West

Chapter 18: First Kill

First Kill

Since he is around Demi-human level; I think after killing him, I can get multiple level up's and get many free stats points. With free stats points, I could allocate those to my stats, as I have low stats. And if increase my stats, I will have more chances of survival in this forest.

But here is the problem, I have to make sure to kill him in one hit, as I know that as we cultivate, our body also gets stronger; and since I have such weak strength and stats, I am not sure I can kill him easily.

As I was thinking how to kill this guy, I felt his fingers just twitched.

As soon as I realized that I need to take action immediately, as he would wake up anytime now; I saw a sharp rock near the river shore. Seeing the rock, I made a decision and ran to pick up the rock.

Hurriedly I picked up the rock and ran to the man. I made a quick decision and took my shot. A human's body has many weaknesses and to kill a person quickly, one needs to strike those weak areas. Like the temple area, the side of the ribs, the heart location, the crotch area or his balls, eyes, or throat.

I felt that striking at the throat area with the sharp stone would be the most appropriate. As it has big probability of killing or at least injuring him critically if I could not kill him in one blow. And if he is injured and I feel that I cannot kill him, I could at least run-away as taking a blow to the throat and still being conscious enough to chase me would only be possible if this guy is made of steel or his skin is made of iron.

As I made my decision, I gathered my strength and lifted my hand which holds the sharp stone; I took a deep breath as it would be my first kill and anyone would be having second thoughts. I resolved myself and took aim at the man's throat. My hand descended with the sharp stone in full force and the stone pierced his throat with some resistance. I don't know if it is due to my low stat in strength or due to the high cultivation of the man, I encountered some resistance but still forcefully drove the stone deeper.

As the stone was pierced deep enough, the man abruptly woke up and looked at me with eyes wide open. Seeing him awake, I backed off quickly and distanced at least 2 meters from the man. As I watched his shocked and painful expression, I tried to remain indifferent and act strong and ruthless. But still due to it being my first time killing someone, I felt that my stomach was not well and I had a sensation to vomit.

To calm myself, I moved my eyes from the man and looked in other direction. Still unable to calm myself as I could hear the man struggling as the stone was stuck in his throat, I moved back to the hollow tree where I hid myself earlier and closed my ears to prevent from the noises from being heard.

I might have told myself that if I don't kill the man and instead helped him, he would kill me or hurt me after recovering. I might have learnt about the cruel rules of the cultivation world and abandoned the 'kind' person in me.

But still deep within my heart I can feel the guilt being increasing as the man continues to struggle. I felt I could avoid the sounds of the man struggle to decrease and eliminate my guilt, but I still cannot.

Right now, I am feeling very conflicted.

I feel guilty for killing the man.

I feel that at least I should go and kill the person quickly, to end his suffering.

I feel maybe I should have taken the risk of saving the man and helping him. Maybe he is different from others, especially different from my bastard friends and fiance. Maybe not everyone is cruel.

I feel what I have done is the right thing.

All these are making my mind messy and I feel very uncomfortable.

After sometime I made a decision and took a deep breath. I decided to kill the person quickly and end his suffering. Maybe I cannot eliminate my guilt for the rest of my life but at least I could minimize it. No matter how much tough and ruthless I wanted to become due to the cruel rules of this world, I could not resolve myself. And it looks like I need some time to change and leave my kind character.

I exited the hollow tree and looked in the direction of the person. I saw that the man was still struggling and he had already removed the stone. The stone was missing, maybe the man threw it into the river. As I don't have anything with me to kill the man quickly and end his suffering, I could only look around the surroundings and hope to get something proper.

As I was looking for something, I heard a sound

'plop'

As I turned my eyes in the direction of the sound; I saw that the man who was struggling, lost strength in his legs. And was lying on the ground and was still weakly struggling. It seems that due to blood loss, he lost strength and was about to die.

As he was lying weakly on the ground, I moved closer to him and saw that blood was flowing from his mouth. I looked around and saw that there was lot of blood near him. As he was still struggling, I saw that he was looking at me and was gesturing at me with his hand to come closer. I thought that he wanted to say something or had some last wish or some kind of regret, and that he wanted to say that to me. So, I moved towards him and bought my ears close to him.