[Congratulations, Host has killed a Fallen at the Initial Cataclysm Stage]
[Rewards: +25,000 EXP!]
Ryuk's pitch-dark eyes looked at the notification before him, then turned to the body beneath him.
Taking two steps backwards, his pitch-black eyes slowly receded in colour.
Once more, they regained their normal blue-crimson hue as he looked at his own humongous claws that seemed no different from a devil's.
[Congratulations to Host for instinctively being able to use Void Claws automatically!]
The system notification flashed as Ryuk's eyes flickered, before he ordered,
"Deactivate Void Claws."
He commanded, and his claws receded, his hand soon morphing back to its regular form as he walked away from the corpse.
"Meow..." Void called out to him as Ryuk paused in his steps, looking at Void.
He watched as the small creature ran to him, jumping into his embrace while wiping away the blood that had blinded his left eye.
Ryuk's eye opened, flashing with light.
"Thank you, Void," he mused as Void quickly ran up to his shoulders.
Then he turned to face Asteralaxia, who was now on her feet, her eyes flashing with a mixture of shock and suspicion.
"So not only do you not belong to this world… you're actually a Knull!?" Asteralaxia asked, barely suppressing her shock.
From the moment she had come to this world, she had been able to sense the difference in source energy and had noticed that Ryuk didn't have the same source energy as the others, even though he appeared human and the world seemed to perceive him that way.
She knew well he was, at the very least, not a human like he pretended to be.
But now, she had watched as the Fallen declared Ryuk a Knull and had witnessed how Ryuk reacted to that—by instantly murdering him in the blink of an eye.
That was more than enough proof.
If he wasn't a Knull, then he would've laughed it off or something.
The fact that he killed him only showed he was probably trying to hide the secret.
"Does our deal still stand, Asteralaxia?"
"You help me get rid of the Knulls, prevent Enderath from becoming a Dark Gormar, and in turn, you get your freedom and go your way."
"The contract still stands, no?" Ryuk asked with a raised eyebrow, as Aster's eyes narrowed.
"It does. It has been made with a Contract Grimorie after all, so I cannot go against it."
"But if you're a Knull, then I have to make sure you're not leading me on a fruitless search."
"Because now, I see no longer any reason why you would want to get rid of your own race and even help the humans."
"You're not a human, Ryuk. You're a Knull!"
"You're everything this world wants to get rid of," Aster said, as Ryuk shrugged his shoulders.
"Seems like our deal still stands then."
"Now come. We have to leave," he said, as he activated Void Vortex.
A gigantic dark vortex appeared in the air, reaching a massive five meters—shocking even Ryuk.
'Why is Void Vortex suddenly so big?' he wondered in shock as he looked at the vortex, pausing a bit to glance over his shoulder and saw Aster—unmoving.
"We have to leave Asteralaxia."
"That guy is a spy and no doubt already has our location revealed."
"He's an Initial Cataclysm stage expert and nothing but a spy."
" You can guess the cultivation level—or the power level—of someone who could use a Cataclysm stage expert as a spy, right?"
"So to be safe, we have to leave... now!" Ryuk said with a bit of urgency as Asteralaxia's eyes flashed.
Ryuk watched them silently debating something before she quietly stepped forward and entered into the portal, followed by Ryuk.
It immediately collapsed in their absence.
---
VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM
The sound of the Power Bike racing through the snow rang out through the silence as both Ryuk and Aster moved farther and farther into the snowy wilderness, at a speed of Mach 15, heading in a random direction.
But even though things were visibly calm, Ryuk's mind was like a raging tornado.
'I killed a Fallen... without even the slightest bit of hesitation at all? What went wrong?' he asked in thoughts, taking his hands into his gaze, perplexion in his eyes.
The thought of killing that Fallen had never crossed his mind at all.
The Normal Ryuk would have grabbed him, threatened him and tried to force out answers—who he was, or how he knew he was a Knull.
But somehow, when he heard how sure the Fallen had been of his real identity, his hands had reflexively cleaved out and slashed the Fallen's head and brain into pieces, killing him in one swift stroke without the slightest bit of hesitation.
And what was worse was that, even though Ryuk felt he shouldn't have killed the Fallen man—and that the smarter decision would have been to force out answers and find out how he even knew he was a Knull at all, and how many people were aware of it—he didn't feel the slightest bit of guilt that he had killed the man unjustly.
It was the same feeling as when his scythe cleaved through a mutated beast wanting to take his life.
Nothing. He felt nothing at all.
But now, when he thought deeper about it, he soon realized a lot of things had gone wrong within that single second.
'Hey system, what do you mean by Void Claws were activated instinctively!?'
'This is a new skill, not an old one. How could you say it was activated instinctively and definitely beyond my will?'
Silence.
'I order you to give me a bloody explanation!' Ryuk ordered as the notification panel flashed.
[Host's anomaly in action and behaviour is due to the cultivation of the Void Asura Grimoire.]
'The Void Asura Grimoire?'
'How does that have to do with anything?'
[The Void Asura Grimoire is a manual that seeks to evolve Host remember.]
[Seems like the evolution is not only physical but mental too.]
[When Host had awakened, he had yet to fully awaken from the Void Asura's influence causing the impromptu action of unfurling the Void Claws once danger was sensed and cleaving off a Fallen head without hesitation]