As Mac finally entered the cave, the faint echoes of his slow and confident steps got drowned out by the heavy breathing of the utterly dismayed unnamed guards.
Looking them down, Mac had a triumphant and satisfied grin. He was actually a little worried that the amount of dopamine released from his brain could be dangerous. He was not stopping, though. It was not every day one of his plans worked out so perfectly.
Even if Luterio suddenly awakening to voice his bewilders to Mac took him by surprise, it surprisingly worked as the last nail in the coffin to break the guards will.
"Oh well, time to finish this." Mac made a slight quip with his head and tossed Luterio aside. With his freed arm, he grabbed his war hammer from his back.
The weapon of destruction nearly hit the cave's roof when Mac raised it in a pose. To avoid more unnecessary trouble, he thought he might just as well strike the last vestige of the invader down once and for all.
"Wait, did I not leave three of these guys alive back at the village?" Mac hissed with his mouth as he remembered his stumble. He silently prayed to no god, in particular, that would not have lasting consequences. "Well, I can always say I did that out of mercy."
And just like that, he was about to contradict his last statement. He observed the trembling guards on the floor that would never look up, and Mac actually hesitated.
It seemed that was a small vestige of compassion in his brain. "Who would have thought?" Mac discovered that it was surprisingly hard to kill nameless guards just doing their jobs. He had a way easier time with the invaders doing atrocities before his eyes back in the tribe.
Mac was confident that these two guards were no different from their fallen comrades and that they would do the same things in their place. But a fundamental difference in Mac's perception stopped him from striking them down with a clear conscience.
Considering Mac's oversized ego, he had no qualms acting as a judge of people's actions, as he thought himself more outstanding than the gods. But he still lacked the omniscience to know what he had to judge.
"That... can be arranged!" Mac came up with a surprisingly suitable solution (by his standards).
He crouched near the guard's exposed heads and asked with Hidden Will. "Hey, can you hear me?"
The confirmation came as fast as directly. It was a little less robotic and soulless than how Luterio was previously, but still just as truthfully.
"Ok, you two, hear me out. I will give you guys one chance to save your lives." Mac stopped for a moment and took a look at Luterio. His crippled body did not stop him from stubbornly watching him with stoic confusion. It was as if he was trying to understand Mac by observing his actions. He had already given up on any hope that Mac would die today.
In response to Luterio's curiosity, Mac snorted and continued with Hidden Will. "Answer me. What are the worst things both of you ever did?"
Since Mac had not witnessed their wrongdoings, he thought that hearing what they did in their long life from their mouth would be motivation enough for him. And so right he was!
The things that he heard were enough to make even his stomach hurt. "No wonder they didn't bat an eye while slaughtering the tribals." He thought.
Mac was revolted but not surprised. These guards probably fought in wars and participated in raids, and since they were here, bowing before him, they had won their battles. Mac believed that these people, baptized by gore and glory, would lose their morals and humanity little by little. At some point, they would not be able to really care for something or someone anymore. By his views, that was the point they were not human anymore, and therefore, he would not hesitate.
Mac raised his war hammer again, barely scratching the cave's roof. It was a little awkward to hold such a heavy weapon with one hand, but the control of his strength and balance far surpassed the master level.
Without wavering, Mac brought the weapon down, smashing the head of a non-specific guard. The cold stone floor was the last thing he ever saw.
The move sent a thunderous bam along with gore. It echoed through the whole cave again and again. The sound was so loud and striking that revived the other guard out of his trance. He desperately tried to get on his feet to flight away. He could not get fair, though.
Mac already expected that something like that would happen. He promptly articulated his body and stepped to the side. He used the instantaneous momentum to bring his weapon from the ground and crush the last guard trying to escape.
The man had no time to react. He could only think about running away from the monster that was Mac. The war hammer collided with his head, sending his whole body to crash against the cave's wall. He barely survived, as in, he did not die instantly.
Given the course of time and causality, that man would perish in seconds, but that was not enough for Mac. He casually walked toward the guard could not even breathe anymore, and kicked his head with full force.
Mac receded his foot that had perforated the wall along with the skull. He tried to kick the remains away while wearing a sour expression. Mac deeply regretted not using his weapon to finish the last man standing. He grunted his frustration to no one as he justified his actions in his mind.
"What a waste of time! I should have killed them before hearing their crimes against humanity!" The regret sank deeper. "I couldn't even find pleasure in their deaths. There was no fucking point!"
Mac repeated the last sentence a few times until he finally washed his foot off. He thought it was a shame that he was only left with a bad temper after his plan went perfectly, but then he noticed Luterio again, and his mood brightened.
Mac felt nothing when he killed the two guards, and the reason why was because he had no connection to them. He did not even know their name. When Mac delivered the killing blows, he believed he was doing nothing but his moral obligation as a human being. The sadistic part of him was left unsatisfied.
But things couldn't be more different with Luterio. Their first meeting traced back to only a few hours, but they already had a story and a feud between each other.
Not only was Luterio the man that fought him for the longest, but he was also the one that captained the burning of the Sun Grow Tribe. When Luterio first told Mac his name, the world had already sealed their bond as forever enemies.
Asserting their relationship, Mac imagined how Luterio probably hated him even more. After all, he did destroy everything that Luterio believed in and had. Considering the blood feud between them, Mac imagined how good tormenting him would feel.
"Huh, It makes you think." He scoffed with an uncontrollable grin as he looked at Luterio. "It is kinda funny when you realize that everything thing, literally every little bad thing that happened tonight, is solely your fault."
Mac casually insulted Luterio, intending to provoke him to drag an interesting reaction out of his dying corpse. He expected that Luterio would, at least, furiously writhe on the ground while calling him names. But that was not what happened. It was quite the opposite, actually.
Luterio only stared with an adamant vigor, unwilling to leave Mac's face. His eyebrows did twitch slightly when he heard Mac's words, but besides that, there was only confusion and curiosity in Luterios's dark, firm eyes.
Taken back by Luterio's strange behavior, Mac was shocked and insulted. That was not the reaction he wanted at all. He felt a little stupid as if his taunts were as flail as the air.
"Hey, you ok?" Mac crouched and snapped his fingers in front of Luterio. "Did your mind turn off again?" He made a question that he knew the answer of. Luterio's eyes showed more signs of consciousness than his.
But this time, there was a reaction from Luterio. He closed his eyes and took a deep and long breath as if to organize his thoughts before speaking (Something Mac was not that familiar with). "I am making peace with myself." He finally declared.
"Making peace with..." Mac repeated. "No, what the heck, you cant do that!" That was the last thing he wanted for his enemies: a peaceful death. He seated beside Luterio and pointed at the corpses of the guards. "C'mon, man! Don't act like that. Look at them! They were your men, right? Don't you feel that I deserve some kind of punishment for what I did to them? Don't you feel rageful and violent at all?" Mac was getting desperate.
For once, Luterio's eyes left Mac and observed the dead. His eyes quivered for a moment as if concealed emotions were leaking from a facade, but, in the end, he recomposed himself and looked back at Mac and answered with a question. "Why did you kill them?"
Mac frowned before the response. Luterio didn't seem unsettled before the carnage of his people, and he somehow managed to spur a calm and wise tone in his voice. Mac took that as a challenge and pondered the best response to trigger Luterio.
"I already know the answer." But Luterio did not give him time to think. "You killed them because you can, and you have the right. They offended you, just like my father and I did, so you ended them with the strengths and advantages you possess against them. That is how it is supposed to be."
Luterio exhausted with his whole body (or what rested of it). It was as if his own words demonstrated that he had accepted his fate and given himself up to the order and chaos of the world. It was as if he had cleansed himself from the burdens of regrets and grief.
And that infuriated Mac the most. "No, no, no, no, my friend." He said with hasty laughter. You don't get to play the atoned criminal after being a massive dick." Mac raised Luterio by the collar and looked at him closer. "I know your type very well. "Privileged" in gigantic quotations, borned with a golden knife. Your type is encouraged to work until your bones break to attain an unreachable level of power. They raised you in an environment where power is the only thing that matters, and the weak shall forever bow before it in shame and inferiority. You won't fool me. The pride you cultivated through blood and tears makes you unable to achieve peace with the end I will give you. How can you accept that I, someone who can't even cultivate, destroyed your everything?"
This time, Luterio's gaze did not even falter. Before Mac's desperate words and insults, he even showed signs of a smile.
"It is true that I felt wronged by my reality at first." He said to Mac. "But now I understand that worth and power can come from unexpected sources. You showed me that I may have had a few misconceptions about life, but in the end, you proved that I lived rightly. The strong will forever rule against the weak. It is just that this time, I was the one weaker. And I finally comprehend it. I should thank you, Mac, for allowing me to live longer to understand my place in the world.
Mac drew air through his teeth. He was starting to feel helpless before Luterio newly adopted fair state. And to aggravate the injury, Luterio somehow still had to guts to refer to Mac by his first name.
"You know the real reason why I let you live, don't you?" Mac said with venom on his tongue. "The only reason I haven't sent you back to the dirt yet is that you are going to tell me about all the loot I can raid from you guys. I reduced your existence and purpose to serve my greed."
But to Mac's dismay, Luterio nodded in agreement. "To eat or to be eaten, my better foe." He said with a peaceful smile. "That is how it is. You deserve you reward for being the victor of our confront."
Staring at Luterio's clear eyes as he heard his soothing words, Mac finally attained some type of peace himself. "I think this guy may have fallen in love with me or something, because holy shit!!!"