Rise Of The Undead King

Chapter 3

Marcus was shattered, and his world crumbled right before his eyes.

He had initially thought that he was weak and destined to be trash. That maybe his body affinity was just terrible, that he was meant to live on their leftover forever. It just turned out that he had been betrayed.

The words stabbed a claw into his heart. All his life, he had waited, worked and trained for this moment. Sleeping barely 5 hours everyday since he was 8, training with bags of sand until his hands bled, making crude instruments because he couldn't afford real ones.

All of it stolen. By his own blood and the one he had trusted enough to tell her his deepest secret and reveal his greatest treasure to her.

They didn't stop there. Jessica stepped forward, informing him even further that she never loved him. That cold and distant edge that she always had around him whenever they were together was fully back on her face.

"I never loved you," she said, her voice flat and cold. "Who would want to date trash like you?"

Marcus stared at her. This was the girl he had shared his deepest fears with, the girl he had promised to take away from this place once he awakened a decent class.

"Our relationship was because Henry asked me to, to find out where you kept your mother's vial and you trusted me enough to tell me."

The thick sense of bitterness arched deeply into his bones. She had played him. Every smile, every time she held his hands, every moment they had hidden behind the estate talking about their future together.

Marcus let out a sorrowful laugh and asked, "So all the moments we shared, they were all lies?"

Jessica shifted away slightly, not wanting to be associated with him. Her face twisted with something that looked like disgust.

"I wasn't the one that made you so cheap Marcus," she responded to him. "You handed yourself over because you were desperate. Don't blame me for taking what was already broken."

Henry watched them with a smirk on his face, soaking himself in every second of Marcus's pain. He pulled Jessica closer to his side, like he wanted Marcus to see exactly who she belonged to now.

"She made the right choices," Henry said, that smirk growing wider. "Soon, I would be owner of the household. Father will hand everything to me because I am the golden star of this family."

Henry stepped closer, his eyes flashing with something cruel and dark.

"And then I would take your dead mother's ashes and make them into a comfortable stool."

Those words were Marcus's last straw.

His eyes turned murderous with rage. He didn't think about Henry being an A ranked combat class while he was just trash. He didn't think about anything except wiping that smirk off Henry's face.

He attacks them with a pocket knife, pulling the small blade from his old pants and rushing forward with everything he had left.

But before he could do anything, the guards caught him. They rushed in from the hallway and grabbed him, slamming him hard against the floor. His face hit the wood and his arms were twisted behind his back until his shoulders screamed with pain.

"Get off me!" Marcus struggled against them, but they pressed him down harder.

His father and stepmother rushed in quickly. Henry staggered backwards the moment they appeared, clutching his chest and acting like he had been hurt. His face twisted with pain like he had really been wronged.

His stepmother quickly rushed to him, delicately asking if the trash had hurt her golden son. "Did he hurt you? Did that animal lay a hand on you?"

She turned around and cursed Marcus and his whole mother, calling them both mistakes that should have been dealt with years ago. Marcus squeezed his hands tightly against the floor, his knuckles turning white.

Marcus faced his father, looking up from where the guards had him pinned. "Father, they changed the vial! Henry and Jessica stole the silver serum I saved all my life for! I could have awakened something decent!"

He waited for his father to get angry at Henry. He waited for justice, for someone to finally see the truth.

His father said he knew.

Marcus heart shattered

"I knew," Mr. Cave said, his face beyond stale, his breath rising and falling with irritation. "Does it matter? You are meant to be trash and Henry the star of this family. We will be better off if you were dead."

The words crashed heavily into Marcus's chest. His own father had known about the stolen serum and allowed it to happen.

He turns to the guards instructing them to toss Marcus off at the undead cave crawling with shadow beast where he would definitely be eaten up.

He did struggle, only a slight chuckle escaped from his lips. There was no need to fight anymore. 

"Take him to the edge of our territory," Mr. Cave said, not even looking at Marcus anymore. "Throw him in the undead cave. The shadow beasts will finish what we should have done years ago."

The guards dragged him up and pulled him out of the room.

They threw him into the back of a transport and drove for what felt like hours. The air coming through the cracks turned freezing cold and carried the smell of death and something rotten.

When the guard drops him off there, they mocked him before they left the place.

"Try not to scream too loud when they chew your bones!" one of them laughed, kicking Marcus in the side.

"The shadow beasts haven't had a good meal in weeks," the other guard added. "You'll be useful for something at least."

They got back into their transport and drove away, leaving him alone in the darkness.

Marcus looked at the massive cave in front of him. Dark fog rolled out slowly like breath from something dead inside. The air was thick with the smell of rotten flesh and decay.

He stayed on the ground where they had thrown him. He was tired of running, tired of fighting for a life that nobody wanted him to have. All those years of training with crude instruments, sleeping barely 5 hours everyday since he was 8, saving every penny for that serum.

All of it stolen by the people he had trusted most.

And then a lion shadow beast appeared, ready to devour him.

It stepped out of the darkness slowly, its massive body made of thick dark smoke with bones flickering inside it. Its red eyes locked onto Marcus, saliva dripping from its long fangs as it sized him up.

Marcus doesn't attempt to run. He's tired of running and too broken to. He just stayed there on the cold ground, staring back at the beast.

"If you want to eat me," he muttered, "then just do it."

The beast lashes forward with terrifying speed, its massive jaws opening wide.

And then stopped.

Right in front of Marcus, the lion shadow beast's body jerked. Its glowing red eyes flickered and the growl died in its throat. Slowly, its massive head lowered to the ground.

It dropped down, whimpering like a dog before its master.

Marcus stared at it, his breath caught in his throat.

Just then, a sound rings in Marcus's head.

Mortician class activated.

One undead beast tamed, 4 more left to upgrade your class to F tier.

The words weren't heard with his ears. They were printed directly into his mind, clear and sharp like someone had spoken inside his skull.

Marcus looked at the massive shadow beast still bowing before him, then at his hands, then back at the beast.

For the first time since the awakening ceremony, something that wasn't pain or rage moved through his chest.

Maybe being the trash of the Cave family wasn't the end of his story after all.