I Refused To Be Reincarnated

"We met Asha the same day we left the port city, which means she had been attacked before reaching that place, right?"

"Yes, as you said, every four days. But after meeting you, it became a daily occurrence."

Asha confirmed his words, still not seeing what he tried to point out. But her tensed muscles relaxed after realising her entourage wasn't suspected.

Yet, it was the next question that caused her eyes to light up as the puzzle of Julius' reasoning began to assemble in her head.

"Could the beasts come from the city's direction?"

The roads were usually safe. The closer you were to a city, the truer that statement became. To reach the port, they travelled across a narrow road surrounded by two cliffs, making it impossible for the beast to come from its direction without razing it. Therefore, they could only come from behind.

"You think the beasts were aiming at Arun's carriage, but because they could only come from behind, and I was between them and their target, they attacked me instead, right?" Asha asked, a look of understanding on her face. The explanation made a lot of sense... if someone really sabotaged their travel, that is.

On the other hand, Arun's face paled, an icy shiver running down his spine as the gravity of the situation sunk in. He had been targeted for weeks without knowing if Julius' reasoning turned out to be right! It meant he could have died without Asha and her three guards handling the attacks in his stead!

"What a bullshit explanation. Even if what you said is true, who would the culprit be? The young master is innocent by default, and I can vouch for Marco," Idiot One exclaimed, his lips raised in displeasure.

However, everyone looked at him weirdly, unsure who he was referring to.

"Wait... Did you guys really believe we were named Idiot One and Two?" He said, gritting his teeth in disbelief and anger.

"Ahem, I knew Marco was Idiot Two, of course!" Arun said, hiding his embarrassment behind a mask of confidence. After calling them like that for so long, he forgot that they had real names.

Anyway, Julius wasn't concerned by their names. With pragmatism, he broke the awkward tension with a sharp question.

"So, the attack the day we met followed the same pattern as the others. Everyone, tell me, who was the only person injured and thus left unchecked most of the time after the armored lizard attack?"

He then turned, his movements slow and deliberate, to gaze at Idiot Two, his fists clenched in anger.

Everyone followed his gaze, varying expressions distorting their faces. Asha's and her guard's eyes narrowed, and their jaws clenched. Meanwhile, Idiot One's and Arun's shook with disbelief.

"Why?" Arun asked Marco, eyes trembling.

"Are you really believing this rat you picked on the streets? I told you that we shouldn't take strangers with us. Look at the result. He is sowing discord among the group and weakening us!"

Marco declared with conviction, his face distorted into a wronged grimace.

"Yes! he is innocent! I've worked with him under you for three years, young master. How can you believe a stranger more than us?" Idiot One added, unwilling to let his friend suffer this injustice silently.

"If you are innocent, you won't have any complaints if we search your possessions, right?" Julius asked, his words sounding more like an order than a question as the crackling fire cast ominous shadows on his furious face.

An uneasy silence settled as everyone waited, impatient to see if Marco would agree. However, the answer he offered wasn't one they had expected.

Marco exhaled longly before retrieving something from his pouch with his wounded arm.

"This is a new alchemical product developed by your father's rival," Marco said, showing a red pill gleaming ominously with a dangerous smile on his face.

"He created it by studying another world where body cultivators weren't as hopeless as they are in ours. This pill's effects allow its consumers to jump to the next tier temporarily. Sadly, the side effects make him lose twenty years of life expectancy. It's truly a shame that my plan failed to kill you."

Marco revealed, gobbling the red pill like a candy despite the terrible side effects.

Subsequently, Marco's body shuddered and cracked, transforming before the astonished eyes of the group. They didn't even have enough time to process that he was really the traitor before a disgustingly disturbing scene unfolded before their widening eyes.

Marco's height increased to reach three meters. Then, his muscles expanded, reaching unnatural sizes. Veins uglily bulged out of them, so thick that they resembled snakes hidden under his leathery skin. His sclera darkened, turning a deep, soulless black that seemed to swallow the surrounding light.

His features contorted into a grimace of wicked satisfaction, revealing sharp triangular teeth glinting death.

Marco's transformation was a horrifying spectacle, a fusion of a human and a monster, incarnating the darkness of his intentions.

The sudden change caused Arun and Asha's legs to give in as they plopped to the ground in terror. The more experienced adults endured better, yet clanking noises echoed as their legs trembled inside their metallic greaves. Even Julius stood frozen on his spot, jaw wide open in shock.

But he was also the first to recover. Immediately, he scanned the monstrous Marco with hi Qi and discovered in dread that his life force was above the serpent's!

After all, Marco had been in the middle of the first tier. And now, using the pills, his strength surged to reach the middle of the second tier. Dread gripped his heart for a second. Marco became the most threatening enemy he encountered in his life.

Excluding Gaston, of course...

"Asha, take Arun and hide. Louise and the others, help me kill that aberration!"

He screamed loud enough to awaken everyone from their daze.

As Arun and Asha ran to the carriage, the guards looked at the monstrous Marco, fear swirling in their eyes. How were they supposed to win against that thing?