"Bro, behind you!" Bo shouted as Ku Lo's eyes opened.
'Danger!?' His head spun to see the person who'd followed him yet vanished when Bo had shown up. 'This is it?' Even if he somehow managed to dodge this punch, his enemy would still crush him. Ku Lo closed his eyes and his cheek shifted away from the punch as a teardrop ran on it.
"Not so fast," a female voice said, but it wasn't Feng Huling.
"What?" the surprisal came from the person throwing the punch.
"Nobody else gets to hit him."
Ku Lo's eyes opened to see that a woman had locked the fist from moving further by grasping its wrist. His focus followed the jade hand till he came across a long, orange ponytail mirroring her hips. 'Rin… Tin… Tin…'
The man behind the fist laughed. "You get to dictate that?"
"Yes," Rin Tin Tin responded.
The hand started to twist in a way it shouldn't. Bones pierced out from under the skin, accompanied by snaps and screams. "AAarghh! My hand!"
Eyes wide open, Ku Lo stared at how Rin Tin Tin crushed the wrist into bits. 'How strong is she? Stronger than Deacon Dai?'
"Your hand?" Rin Tin Tin said, inspecting the hand. "Meh, nothing special. A few good omens, but the line here says you'll die tonight."
"No-no-no…"
"Sorry, I am a humble messenger of the stars, I do not decide who dies when, but I can decide how-" Rin Tin Tin's other hand grabbed the man by his throat. "Suffocation or falling?"
"Suffocation, a quick death is too light for the crime," Ku Lo spoke for the man.
"Did I ask for your opinion?"
"Did or did not, I don't care, Rin Tin Tin-" He stood up from the lotus position. "I care for the fact that some dude named Yao Khange wanted these… these…"
"Yao Khange? Are you sure? Like sure-sure?" Her hand let go of the man who'd she suffocated.
"No. I think I remembered the name wrong." If giving the name would help her, he wouldn't confirm it. It was better kept as an ace in the sleeve, he resolved before rushing to aid Bo.
"Bro, I'm here!" Ku Lo announced his return by KOing one unsuspecting drunk trying to get around Bo. "Let's show them what their actions mean."
Bo nodded from within the indigo flames. "They all deserve to die." Setting an example, Bo's hands crushed an enemy's heads by slamming it inwards from both sides, forcing the head to explode upwards under the pressure.
The feat awestruck Ku Lo, yet the questions concerning his friend's condition also rose again. He shook his head hard to get rid of the thoughts. "Fight. Fight! FIGHT!"
Working together, they forced their enemies to give ground. "I'm on him!" Ku Lo shouted callouts as they drove them back to the second floor. "Brothers, don't run! There's something hunting us in the darkness!" one of their enemies called for them to stand their ground as those who ran were heard screaming in the darkness. "There's nothing but death in front of us!" Still, freshened from their stupor, most of the Inner Court Disciples made their minds and fled one by one.
During the fight, Ku Lo's opponents hadn't channelled a single attack with Yang Qi. Lucky for him, who had never even thought about dodging such an attack in real life.
"Bro," Ku Lo said to Bo. "Let's kill everyone, leave none alive. Teach what happens to those who fancy the young miss."
"Right, that would set an example." There was a slight smile behind Bo's veil of fire.
"You get the runners, I finish the half-dead."
"Sure."
Ku Lo turned away from Bo and laughed in his mind. 'Time to make sure no one else knows who had orchestrated this.' From the way Rin Tin Tin had acted upon hearing the name Yao Khange, he reasoned the information should be precious. Furthermore, there was looting to be done.
Yet, as he returned to the scene of battle, his mood sank. A lot of them were still alive, and though he'd told Bo he'd free them from their mortal bodies... Well, a glance at them made him feel regrets.
'He deserved it,' he thought as his fist swatted away a life like it belonged to a housefly. 'Don't feel bad, for he was a scum.' The deed was done, though he couldn't look at the victim directly in the eyes.
'Die.' Five lifeless bodies behind him, the job became easier and his pockets heavier.
It took him thirteen bodies that squirmed, begged, and cried for their mothers before he got used to ending a fellow human's life. Still, in the back of his mind, there was the knowledge that these feelings resurface tomorrow. 'Everyone goes through a change after their first kill, so I shouldn't be too anxious about it.'
'Now… are these expensive?' From one robe, he found a see-through bag full of what appeared to be purple grain seeds. 'Could these be Dark Seeds? But why would they be on a man? A gift for a woman?'
He stared at the bag for a second or two more before strapping it next to ten other bags on his belt — Those bags were from his previous victims and filled with various items. 'Something for my troubles. Emotional compensation.' If nothing else, he would be rich after looting the bodies of twenty, maybe even thirty inner sect disciples.
In the end, Ku Lo made for his room with heavy mental and physical baggage. 'Oh, the guards are finally here.' A small ocean of torches rushed towards the motel at a speed impossible for a mortal human. 'Better store my loot before they start asking questions.'
Amongst the gains was a storage artefact, so he plopped everything there. The artefact that had the appearance of a ring was put into his pocket, for he suspected having it in the open would raise suspicions.
…
Ku Lo returned to a scene in which the motel's front-yard was filled with guards half armed and armoured.
"Feng Huling, keep your dog in line!"
"Are you saying they didn't deserve to die?" As always, Feng Huling argued back without censor. "They would've raped and abused me to their heart's content until I died, and you say they should live?"
"I'm not saying that." Rin Tin Tin was throwing a fit. "I wanted a prisoner, but no! Your lap-dog executed them to the last man!"
'Good, everything is proceeding as planned.' It would appear that his 'Bro' had done the dirty deed too. However, as he strolled towards them, another notion rose to prominence. 'Why is Rin Tin Tin here? She lives a walk from here…' The reason wasn't hard to think.
'She's stalking me.'