Blunt pain shot through Teerom's entire head and then his shoulder when he crashed into the alleyway wall. White Vest grabbed him by the neck before he fell to the ground and pinned him against the wall.
"You Crasca?" He asked ambiguously.
"Please don't kill me…" Teerom mumbled weakly, feeling pathetic for saying it.
"We can rent him to Jeilal." Red Shirt suggested.
"Jeilal does too much. Mr. Graff would be way better. He makes his ones last way longer." The oldest boy said coldly, still enjoying the desperate, muffled moans of his crying victim.
"True. Both of them would fetch a good price. They're natural lookers." Red Vest suddenly grew furious with jealousy. He hadn't been blessed with the best of looks, "Fucking lucky bastards." He punched Teerom's face, making the cheek begin to swell up.
"Are you stupid!? The whole point is that he looks good. We've lost two gold coins now, you twat." White Vest shouted.
"S-Sorry." Red Shirt backed down.
"It's alright. Boss'll heal him. Do what you want. I know you're itching to try him, Harth." The oldest boy smiled at White Vest, who licked his lips in anticipation.
"He's a bit skinny. I want Mr.Graff to fatten him up first." He let go of the barely conscious Teerom, who fell onto the ground cheek down. He watched as Harth, and Jillet returned to their leader, Killer, a nickname he chose for himself.
"You gonna kill the kid?" Harth asked.
"I don't know…" Killer seemed to be deep in thought, "Let's sell him with the other kid-" He paused when he saw that Teerom was missing. The other two turned and ran out of the alleyway to look for him, but he was nowhere to be seen.
"Fuck!" Jillet shouted.
"Great. What gang's he part of?" Killer asked, slowly taking the knife out of the boy and covering his wound with his hand to stop the bleeding.
"Don't know." Harth replied.
"It's fine. Boss will deal with it. Let's sell this kid for now." He lugged the boy into his arms, keeping pressure on his wound.
"Hey!" A voice shouted from above. They looked up to find it was Teerom.
"There you are, Twiglet." Killer said creepily.
"Let him go!" Teerom was shaking, but luckily the moonlight made him appear a menacing black figure.
"Who's asking?"
"M-Me?"
"Make me." Killer ordered, lifting his knife towards Teerom, who hesitated, but ultimately jumped down, screaming. Unfortunately, this cry of bravery was not heard by Aywa who was miles away in his desperate search for Quimor.
He dropped down, planning to land on Harth, but he moved out of the way. Quickly reacting, Teerom stretched his arms to grab him and bring him down to the ground. Harth's jaw dislocated sideways as it hit the ground. Teerom's torso landed above him, using him as a cushion, but his foot smashed into a trash can, breaking the ankle.
They both yelled out in agony, but Teerom would continue screaming as Jillet held him stomach down and punched his back relentlessly.
"Enough," Killer ordered, "Tie him up and bring him." He walked past Jillet, who sat on Teerom with a look of disbelief.
"I should kill him! Look what he did to Harth!" He protested.
Killer dropped the boy he carried and drew his knife, putting it up to Jillet's swallowing throat. All in an instant.
"I'll fucking murder you and your girlfriend if you disobey. Do you understand?" A look of intense evil filled Killer's wide eyes.
Jillet nodded silently. That was all he could do.
Below him, the suffocating Teerom had not given up and began trying to lift himself up. Killer and Jillet watched his desperate struggle with joy. Blood flowed consistently from Teerom's mouth that resulted from gritting his teeth with an undying determination. Not to live, but to win.
'Not here… Not like this!' Teerom thought to himself, driving himself to stand, but his legs didn't move, and his arms couldn't lift him out from beneath Jillet.
'Seima…' were his last thoughts before he plummeted into unconsciousness.
"You want to give up?" A voice echoed in his head, deep yet young and full of compassion.
"My body won't move." Teerom felt strange, he thought he was talking to himself, but it didn't feel that way.
"Then let me move it for you."
He could only hear the voice, but he knew its owner was holding their hand out behind him. Slowly, he turned to see a shadowed figure apart from its long beautiful white hair and glowing blue eyes. Teerom couldn't tell since they were camouflaged in the darkness, but six amazing black wings came from his back.
"Let me help you, Teerom."
"W-Who are you?"
"Your bonded."
"What?"
"You are a Dark Conjurer, Teerom Eodo. And I am your bonded. My name is Lucifer. I am the sin of Pride." Those were the last words uttered in this space before Teerom snapped awake, forgetting the exchange almost immediately like a dream. He was still pinned under Jillet. However, he now had an unimaginable feeling of power erupting from within him.
Two things, harder than diamond, seemed to grow out of his head and they horrified Jillet and Killer, who were already filled with an insurmountable dread.
Jillet powerlessly watched as Teerom placed his palms flat on the ground and lifted himself with ease, turning menacingly toward the two. His eyes were wide and his pupils had changed color. They were blue. A beautiful, bright blue with white lines taking the shape of the petals of a daisy.
They were so mesmerizing that Jillet hadn't noticed the fist halfway in his neck.
Teerom had punched him, and with such force that his neck exploded, leaving the head to fly off and what remained of the torso and legs to fall to the ground.
Killer was stunned as an unstoppable fear rose from within him, something he'd never felt before.
Then, he saw it.
For an instant, he saw a tall figure with beautiful white hair and the same blue eyes except they were encased in an enchanting cold gaze. And it had six coal-black wings as well as two pitch-black horns half-buried in its hair.
Teerom's image returned and walked towards him, somehow not acknowledging the fact that he just killed a man.
"What the hell are you!?" Killer shouted, quivering like a small dog before a hyena.
Teerom took a deep breath. "My name is Teerom Eodo! Remember it, villains! For evil is nothing before me!" He quoted one of his favorite battles in Aneros' tale.
Killer fell to his knees, accepting his fate.
"This dread." He clutched his heart, "I have only heard of it in sermons. You.. You're a-" Before he could say the word damned by all, his head was smashed to pieces by Teerom's fist.
As if waking from a dream, Teerom's black eye color returned and he looked at the bloody mess before him, then his stained hands. Screams and cries of children filled the air; lights were turned on as shaken parents tried to comfort their children.
"What the-" Weak choking drew his attention and he ran back into the alleyway toward the source. The boy was alive. "Hey! Are you alright?" He stepped over Jillet's jelly-like torso and checked on the boy.
"It hurts…" The boy's eyes began to close like he was dying.
"Stay awake!" Teerom slapped him, "Hey! Stay awake!" He slapped him again.
"I am," The boy said with slight annoyance under his great agony. Teerom looked down and noticed the horrible amount of blood the boy had lost and was still losing. Quickly he took his shirt off and tied the arms around the boy's body. It began soaking up blood but ultimately reduced the bleeding.
Sighing in relief, Teerom positioned himself next to the boy and tried to pick him up with all his might to no avail.
"Hamma…" The boy began crying at the sight of the corpse of his defiled little sister.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Teerom began tearing up, fully empathising with the boy, who now looked the other way with a void in his eyes. "But you have to live! Please!" Teerom urged him to fight, but the boy had started to give in.
"I don't want to live… without Hamma… I'm alone…"
"I understand. I have a little sister too. But I won't be able to sleep at night if I let you die." Teerom continued struggling to lift the boy, who wasn't even much heavier than him.
"Do you know what they did to her?" He looked into Teerom's eyes with a mixture of sorrow and hatred. "They raped her. My beautiful little sister. They raped my Hamma!" He shouted, bawling desperately and falling into Teerom's chest.
Awkwardly, Teerom wrapped his arms around the boy, tearing up. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry…" Was all he could say.
After about ten minutes of the boy mourning his sister, Teerom managed to convince him to walk with him. They emerged from the alleyway, Teerom supporting the boy as he limped on one side. The streets had a bunch of people standing around, trying to find out what the sudden commotion was. They wearily watched the little blood-covered boy carrying another walk by.
A painful fifteen minutes of walking later, they arrived at a two-floor wide wooden building called the Medical Center. Teerom knocked on the door to no response. After he knocked again, an incredibly small slot opened above him from which a nurse looked out cautiously.
"Please! Help!" Teerom begged and the door opened. The nurse that opened it had short, slightly curly, black hair, a rugged countenance showing that she was around 40. She had drowsy eyes as if she had just woken up. She also had a long and serrated knife. Three other sleepy nurses stood behind her, each holding a shotgun ready to blast Teerom with concentrated melting balls of metal.
"Strip." The nurse with the knife demanded.
"Huh?"
"Do it!" They all shouted, one of the shotgun-wielding nurses pulled Teerom into the Medical Center and locked the door.
Reluctantly, Teerom slowly undressed.
"Faster." The nurse ordered. Once he reached his underwear, he looked up, hoping they didn't expect any more, but they did. "Isn't this enough?"
"Butt-ass-naked." The nurse quickly replied. Teerom embarassedly took off his underwear, immediately covering his privates to which one of the nurses tutted. More embarassedly, he revealed his privates. As this happened, one of the shotgun-wielding nurses took the injured boy to a bed and began treating his bleeding and other injuries.
"No bombs anywhere?" The knife-wielding nurse, grabbed his penis and lifted it to check under.
"Hey!" Teerom jumped backwards, "I want my clothes back. Please." He said with a completely red face.
"Sorry, kid." The nurses carried out his request, "The bastards do send kids often."
"What do they want with a Medical Center?" Teerom asked, slightly angry.
"Control. You control the people with money, health, and men with women. Cerstar's been trying to dictate the Crasca territory since decades. Plus, a lot of men have a strange kink for nurses." She cleaned Teerom's blood-stained hands.
Teerom understood her cautiousness now. He'd heard of what the men in the Crasca Gang could do and did countless times.
"I'm sorry." He apologized.
"For what?"
"Well, us guys are always hurting you women, so I felt bad."
She smiled, a smile that was unexpectedly warm, "You don't have to be sorry, kid. It's not all of you. Otherwise I wouldn't have married one of yous." She giggle to herself.
"Is your husband a nurse too?"
"He's dead. But yeah, he used to be a doctor here." She finished cleaning the blood of him, "Anyway, enough about me. Are you a mage?" She asked, taking a stick device with a long thin green Healing runestone attached to it and scanning Teerom with it.
"No. I'm past the awakening age."
"You're eleven, right?" She tapped the scanner against a screen beside Teerom that he couldn't see.
Teerom nodded at her question, worried at the sudden surprise on her face that she failed to hide.
"Y-You're a Dark Conjurer." She had a horrified look on her face.
That night, at the same time, something incredible occurred in Rukae. At around midnight, every man and woman had a horrifying night terror. The children screamed and the grown men and women cried, some of them weeping in corners as curled up balls rocking back and forth.