A man wearing a night suit was sitting on the bed. He looked to be in his late fifties; however, he had dyed his hair black.
He was holding a phone in his hand, seemingly trying to look at the time.
He pressed the button on the phone, and the screen lit up.
The time was 23:59 on 12th October.
SIGH!
The man sighed and switched off the phone.
"Let's see how many useless people die this month," the man uttered with a smirk on his face.
He placed the phone on the table and gazed at the analog clock on the wall.
[23:59:48]
"12 seconds remain for the baptism time to begin."
[23:59:57]
As the time passed by, the smirk on the man's face grew wider.
[23:59:59]
[00:00:00]
"And it begins!" The man shouted in excitement.
He stretched his hand in the air and lazily uttered, "I hope the kill count reaches 2000 this time."
The man moved to the bed and prepared to sleep. He fixed his pillows and grabbed his blanket. But suddenly, all the lights in the room went off.
"...!"
The man panicked and grabbed the transceiver from under the pillow.
He pressed the switch and asked, "What's going on?"
[We don't know, Sir. The power went out all of a sudden.] the guard replied.
"Then turn on the backup generators, you fools!"
[They are already on, Sir. But the power is still out.]
"What's the problem? I need the power on. Now!"
[It's an internal problem, Sir.]
"Goddammit!" The man rushed to the table and turned on his phone.
[Don't worry, Sir. The team is right outside your room.]
"I don't care about all that! I need my lights on! You know what will happen if you don't obey my commands, right?"
After a brief silence, the voice answered, [Yes, Sir.]
"Good. Now fix the—"
THUD! THUD!
The man stopped speaking and glanced around in the darkroom.
[Sir, is everything alright?]
'What was that voice? Where did it come from?' the man wondered.
KNOCK! KNOCK!
The man jerked his head to the glass window and saw a masked person with glowing red eyes staring right at him. The mask had features of a fox and a crow.
"Knock, knock, president!" said the masked man in a sinister voice.
It was dark in the room, and the president couldn't even see his own hand. But the masked man was looking inside the room as though he could see the president.
"I can see you~"
The president's eyes widened in terror as he dashed out of the room.
"Get him! There is a masked man outside my window!" The president yelled as he ran his way to the office, which was the most secure room in the mansion.
The office room had no window, and there was only one door to enter or exit the room.
The president scanned his handprint on the device to open the room and rushed inside. He closed the door behind him and sighed in relief.
"The lights are still off, dammit!" He yelled.
He turned on the flashlight on his phone and walked to the table in the center of the room.
"That guy had the nerve to attack me, the president of this country! How dare he!"
The president leaned on the table and caught his breath.
"Heh!" He smirked. "What an idiot! Whoever he was, he came all the way to kill me, and now… he is dead."
"Hahaha!" He laughed maniacally.
After a brief pause, he said, "And even if he managed to survive, there is no way he can get in here."
"Are you sure about that?" the same sinister voice reverberated in the room.
The president jolted and ran to the door.
"Who is there?!" He yelled.
The chair near the table slowly turned around and revealed the same masked man was sitting on it.
"You—! How are you here?!" The president asked with a horrified look on his face. "You were at my window not long ago."
"That was just the body of a random person I killed on my way here," the masked man answered.
"But… it spoke…"
The masked man raised his hand and showed a transceiver: "Knock, knock, president."
"But you said you could… see… me…" the president stuttered.
"That was a lie, of course," the masked man sneered. "I knew you would come into this room if anything happens, so I had to scare you to get you into this room. It was all part of my plan."
The president was petrified and couldn't comprehend the situation.
"How long have you been here?! And how did you even get in here?! The door only unlocks using my handprint."
"I was here since evening." The masked man answered. "And this mansion's security firmware was easy to crack. I hacked into it to get all the information about this place."
Baffled, the president tried to open the door, but it wasn't opening.
"Don't bother; it won't open unless I open it," stated the masked man.
"What do you want?! State your demands, and I will give you everything!"
"Everything?"
"Yes!" The president nodded violently.
"Hmm~" the masked man began to ponder.
Suddenly, the door of the room wide-opened, and a dozen guards entered the room.
"Ha! What an idiot!" The president pointed his finger at the masked man and shouted, "Kill this man!"
All the guards pointed their guns at the masked man, but none of them fired.
"What are you waiting for?! Fire your guns!" The president yelled in frustration.
The masked man got up from the chair and circled the table. Then, he looked at the guards and the president. "Now, now, president. Stay quiet; let me think—"
"You bastard!" The president grabbed the gun from the nearest soldier and fired at the masked man. However, the shot didn't fire.
Confused, the president grabbed the gun from another soldier and fired, but the same thing happened again.
"Shoot, dammit!"
"You are so impatient, president." The masked man remarked.
"What did you do with the gun?!"
"You are an idiot, president." The masked man grabbed his bag from the chair and opened the zipper.
"If I said I was waiting for you to come into this room since evening, then how did that body appear in your window?"
"Don't tell me…" The president threw the gun on the floor and glanced back and forth at the guards.
"Don't tell me you are all in this together?"
The president tried to run through the door, but it closed.
"Get him on the chair," the masked man ordered the guards.
The guards grabbed the president and tied him to the chair.
"Let me go!"
Meanwhile, the masked man took out a tripod from his bag and placed it on the table. Then, he grabbed the president's phone, but it was locked.
He moved the phone to the president's face to unlock it, and it unlocked.
"Stop! What are you doing with my phone!" The president yelled.
"I am setting up the live feed so the entire country… no, the entire world can see this," the masked man answered as he turned on the live feed.
"Smile, president. There are three people watching you," the masked man asserted.
The president turned his face to the other side and screamed, "Stop this! Why are you doing this?!"
"I just wanted to thank you for everything you have done for this country to make it an amazing country."
"Then why are you treating me like—"
"Oh!" The masked man exclaimed. "There are now 600 people watching you. No, 904 people. 1208! 1689! 2365! 3869!"
The president gritted his teeth in annoyance and shouted, "Stop the live feed!"
"Wow! You are famous, president!"
"I said stop it and let me go!"
"Stop yelling, president." The masked man clapped and uttered, "Come on, make the poker face you always make before your every speech."
The president glared back and forth at the guards and yelled, "You traitors! How dare you betray your president?!"
The guards stood straight with poker faces and said nothing in response.
"Don't forget your families are taken as hostages! If anything happens to me, they will die," the president threatened the guards with a smug look on his face.
The mansion had hundreds of guards protecting the president. However, the president didn't trust anyone. He was afraid that the guards might come to kill him on the purge night, so he chose twelve guards and took their families as hostages. He threatened the guard that he would have their families killed if they tried to do anything to him.
The guards had no choice but to follow the president's order and wait for the time to pass. However, they were mistaken. The president never intended to let their families live, and he was going to kill them and the guards ten minutes before 6 AM.
"Don't forget you are in front of the camera, and you just confessed your sin," the masked man remarked.
"I don't care about that. Every murder is legal between 12 AM to 6 AM, so it doesn't matter who I kill," the president scoffed.
"You said it!" the masked man exclaimed. "By the way, I forgot to tell you that the mercenaries you hired to take these guards' families as hostages are already dead."
The president was smirking, but after hearing that, his smirk vanished.
"You are bluffing," the president retorted.
The masked man fixed the tripod and said, "You can confirm it when you meet them in hell."
The president's face turned pale, and he started quivering.
"You… you… are going to… kill… me?" he stammered.
"Not so fast," the man replied.
"Why are you doing this?"
"For fun, of course," the man replied with an evil laugh.
"What do you want?" the president argued. "If you let me go, then I will give you as much money as you want."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Just name the amount, and it will be in your bank account within an hour," the president asserted.
"Let's see then…" The masked man pondered for a while and asked, "How much is your life worth?"
"..." The president didn't say anything in response.
"10 dollars? No, 1 dollar?" the man tittered.
"My life is not that cheap!"
"Why not? You are also a human just like us others."
"I am the president! My life matters the most in this country!" the president screamed on top of his lungs.
"So you consider yourself superior to the rest of the citizens in this country?"
"Obviously! I am the president. People die every day! Who cares about them? I run this country, and my words are absolute!" the president yelled out loud.
"Alright, enough talking now." The masked man clapped and said, "Untie him."
The guards glanced at each other in confusion as though they hadn't predicted the current situation.
"Didn't you hear him?!" The president shouted. "Untie me, you assholes!"
The guards untied the president and stepped back.
"Haha!" The president laughed as he stood up from the chair. He looked at the masked man and said, "You are a smart man."
He walked to the masked man and uttered, "How about you work for me? I will—"
The masked man kicked the president and slammed him to the wall.
The president glared at the masked man and asked with a furious look on his face: "What is the meaning of this?"
"I didn't give your permission to get up from the chair." The masked man clapped and said, "Get him on the chair."
The guards grabbed the president and forced him on the chair.
The masked man looked at the phone's screen and muttered, "43,987 viewers."
"I was waiting for fifty thousand viewers, but you bored the hell out of me." The masked man took out a sheet of paper from his bag and squinted his eyes.
He read in a monotonous tone: "President GG. Born in a wealthy politician family. Graduated from high school with top scores. Twenty police cases at the age of 20. Arrested for drunk driving and killing 14 homeless people at the age of 23."
"However, you testified that it was your driver driving the car, but the driver denied the claim. There were seven witnesses who saw you driving the car; however, just before the day of your court hearing, four of them changed their testimony, and three of them disappeared. You were found innocent."
"Married at the age of 27 with a famous actress. Became a father at the age of 28. You were caught cheating many times; however, all the proof was debunked. Then, you were having a serious affair with the chief secretary, and her husband found out, so he confronted you."
"The next day, he was found dead, and the reason for death was stated as a suicide. But, you were the one who killed him. And when the chief secretary found out about that, she died the following day in a mysterious car accident."
"However, she had sent the proof to your wife, and your wife filed the case against you. But for some reason, the hotel she was staying at was attacked by terrorists, and she died along with your nine-year-old daughter."
"That was ten years ago..." The masked man threw the papers at the president and uttered, "And you are still alive."
The president frowned his face and said, "What are you getting at?"
"I am amazed how you became a president even after committing all those sins. The system is faulty, and they—"
"So what? Are you saying that I did all that?" The president sneered and continued, "No one could prove anything against me; what can you do? Do you think you can do what they couldn't do? Do you think you can prove me guilty?"
"I don't care about all that." The masked man cracked his fingers and said, "They reap what they sow."
He looked at the screen to check the viewers and hummed in wonder: "67,546."
"What are you, fighting for justice or something?" the president snorted.
"Nope. I don't care about justice." the man replied. He took out some more paper sheets from his bag and placed them on the table.
"This is an official and enhanced version of the purge night," the man asserted. "I will summarize it for you."
"It says, 'From here onwards, every 13th of the month, from 12 AM to 6 AM, shall be considered as a purge night, for forever; no matter who or which president rules the country. The purge night shall not be discarded, no matter what happens. Everyone in this country, rich or poor, citizens or politicians, shall be in effect of the purge night. All the crimes shall be legal and shall be considered the same, no matter who kills who'."
The man tossed a pen to the president and uttered, "Sign it."
The president smirked and said, "I won't sign it."
SIGH!
The man sighed and walked to the president. He grabbed the president's hand and placed it on the table. Then, he took out a knife from his pocket and placed it on the president's neck.
"Sign it."
The president immediately grabbed the pen and signed the document.
"Done."
The man looked at the sign and stabbed the knife in the president's hand that was placed on the table.
"Aaaaa!" The president screamed in pain and agony.
"This is the fake sign," the man uttered. "Sign your original signature, or the next time, the knife will be in your head."
The president signed the documents with his trembling hands.
"Good." The man showed the documents in front of the camera and said, "Let the fun begin."
He took out a garland made of grenades and placed it around the president's neck.
"W-Wh-What… are… you…" The president lost his ability to speak due to overwhelming fear.
When the man took out the grenades from his bag, all the guards ran away from the room.
"Heh!" the man scoffed and whispered in the president's ears: "You asked me why am I doing this, right? You asked me if I am fighting for justice, right?"
He pulled out the pin from the grenade and asserted, "I am doing this for my personal grudge. My name is Leon Alastair; make sure to whisper it to the demons in the hell."
The man slammed the president's head on the table and ran out of the room with the documents.
The grenades exploded one by one, although the president's body was ripped into pieces on the first grenade, and he died on the second one.
Ten years ago, Leon went to a five-star hotel with his parents and siblings to celebrate his 8th birthday. However, he lost his parents and younger brother in a terrorist attack. The same terrorist attack that was organized by the president to kill his wife.
After that, Leon and his older sister's custody was given to their uncle, who was the only available relative. The bank had given access to their parent's accounts to their uncle, so he could take care of them. However, their uncle used all the money for gambling and drugs. He would often chain Leon and his sister and beat them mercilessly.
One night, when his uncle was beating him up, there was an announcement on the television.
[Today's date- 12th September 20XX. Time- 18:18. Due to the increasing population and advanced technology, thousands of homeless, uneducated, unemployed, and criminals roaming in the country are a useless burden to the world. So the government has come to a solution that on every 13th of the month, from 12 AM to 6 AM, all the crimes, including murders, would be legal.]
Leon wouldn't have lost his parents if the president hadn't organized the terrorist attack. He wouldn't have suffered the painful life. Nothing would have happened, and Leon would have lived his life normally, like every other child.
However, his life turned to hell because of the president. But, it was thanks to the president that Leon was able to get his revenge in an epic away.
On October 13th, the month after the purge night was announced, Leon killed the president in live-stream.
More than a hundred thousand people watched the live stream from all over the world.
Leon was simply getting his revenge and entertaining the world to terrorize them with his actions; however, he became the world-famous— Secret Killer.
====
Author's Note- I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. This is going to be a helluva ride! Add this book to your library and support it with power stones, golden tickets, gifts, comments, and reviews.
Warning- Don't try any of the actions at home. And this novel is not for kids. It contains Gore and mature content.
Note/ spoiler- At around 100 chapters, Leon will install a chip (system) in his body. (Not like the system in the system novels). It will work as his second brain to use his superpowers to the maximum.