Mack turned his head and seeing what was ahead his spine went numb. It was disgust mixed with fear and rage.

He could not believe what was in front of him.

Mack forced himself to keep looking, but his contorted face displayed vividly his emotions.

“Please tell me this is all fake! Is this another kind of dream I’m in?”

[…]

But no response came from the Arcane Legacy.

“ANSWER ME!!!!!” .

[…]

Mack took his pistol from his back with his right hand and in a rapid motion pointed his gun to his own forehead.

“FUCKING ANSWER ME! YOU KNOW ME ALREADY!!!!

~click~

Mack removed the safety lock of the gun and put his finger on the trigger.

[You already know the answer.]

Hearing what he feared, Mack dropped the gun and he fell on his knees.

He could not believe someone could be this cruel.

Mack looked to his right side and more of the same presented in front of his eyes.

Children. Hundreds of them. On spikes.

Small disfigured bodies covered in fresh blood.

Some with perforated eyes, others without them. Some with legs broken and dozens without a leg.

Guts filled the ground and the screaming and cries resounded in Mack’s ears.

Thousands and thousands of children’s impaled in wooden spikes.

Mack looked close to him and saw a familiar signboard.

“The children’s of the wicked. It was the way they called us. But to me, they were my friends, family, and neighbors.”

“For the ones with our blood, there ain’t peaceful days in life. Don’t let the past repeat itself one more time. Choose wisely.”

“Know your enemy.”

Reading the sign, Mack could feel all the rage and pain inside every rune carved.

“There is no way to avoid this?”

Asked mack aloud.

[…]

“ANSWER ME!”

[This scene repeated itself several times in history already. Every warlock found would be hunted down, and, all people around them have the same fate too]

“WHY?!”

Asked Mack, not believing his eyes. Children’s. Only kids. Why be so cruel? Why this way? Why?

“WHY?!”

[Fear]

“Fear?”

Mack knew the atrocities made by people who were engrossed by this simple but powerful emotion. History on Earth was not that different.

But as a man who disregarded his own life. That thought of himself as a mere ant. He could not accept this. Did he kill before? Sure he did. But never like this. This is not killing to live or to survive. This is a cruel and sadistic purge.

Even animals are not like this. A lion, when killing, strikes at the prey’s neck. A merciful and quick death.

But this. Mack could not even find words to describe this scene in front of him.

It was disgusting. He had pure disgust for the people who did this. He wished they were in front of him. He would kill them the same way those poor kids were.

Mack looked down at his own hand, and it was dripping blood. He unknowingly was clenching them so hard that his nails left holes in his own skin.

With the sound of blood dripping on the ground and the screams of kids in the distance Mack was almost losing his mind.

He was a simple man. He didn’t have huge ambitions. Just living a good life was enough for him.

But this.

This was his bottom line. Mack could never accept something like this and simply walk away doing nothing.

Even if all this was not really happening in front of Mack and was just a magic spell showing what happened in the past. Even this way. He could not accept this.

He wished, he truly wished, he had the power to kill all the ones responsible for this inhuman scene in front of him. Not just kill but make them suffer an even more cruel and painful death.

[Now you need to choose. There are two gates in this room. To your right side, the gate will teleport you to a sealed planet where you can live a new life free of all this. And to your left side, there is a gate that will lead you in the path of a Warlock.]

“There are no tests in this room?”

[The choice is the test itself. You saw what happened in the past, it happened several times, and this may happen in the future too.]

“I see.”

“Well, there is nothing to be tested then.”

Said Mack, already walking to his left.

He had no one anymore and nothing to lose either. He could live an easy life if he quit these tests. But he already made his mind. He would bring pain for the ones who caused him pain.

More than never, Mack was sure that his family was hunted because they simply existed too. No reasons. Just fear for what anyone in his family could become.

It was time for Mack to bring them genuine fear.

Fear of what he is, not for what he could become.

A man with nothing to lose is not a helpless man. On the contrary. A man with nothing to lose is the scarier form of an enemy that any sane man would avoid like the plague itself.

A man with nothing to lose is free to do whatever he wants. And Mack, already set in stone his own fate. He will become the worst nightmare for those people.

Before coming to this gate, he wanted to know why he and his family were hunted and maybe get rid of the ones who killed his father.

But now.

He will be fear itself in flesh and bones.

“Stick and stones may break my bones. Arrows and bullets may cut my skin, but even in my last breath…”

Said Mack, looking one more time behind him to see the scene of the children’s, impaled and agonizing for the crime of just existing.

“I shall bring to them the true meaning of fear.”

Said Mack raising his right hand and with the left one he took a knife from his backpack and made two cuts in his right hand.

The blood dripping from the back of his hand made visible two long red lines in the format of a V letter.

“This is my oath to you, to my parents, and to myself.”

Said Mack, clenching his fist, now full of blood.

One minute later, Mack touched the gate and disappeared from the place.

He set his fate in stone. There was no turning back now, and no need to regret what he would do in the future.

He chose to become fear itself.