In a certain building, one man leaned against a wall with this indifferent look placed on his face. His gaze would only lead to one certain direction. His face would contort and change at each passing second, from a smile to an expression of sadness, from sadness to a look of curiosity and from curiosity to a look of fury, this man was a mix of emotions. But everything he displayed and would express was covered by a black helmet and the only thing that could be seen in front was his unchanging stare. A stare of indifference .
"..."
As he gaze over that one direction, he could see the sun slowly setting by at each minute that passes. Until finally that sun would fully cover itself by the waving seas.
~Screeeee~
As he stood in awe over the passing of time, a door suddenly opens and a different man enters the room. A man who wore a simple white shirt and had white cap over his head.
"...Its been hours and they still haven't returned." said the man as he calmly reported the situation to the man who wore the black helmet.
"...I know." said the man as his voice was distorted by the helmet and only spoke a monotonous tone to the man who reported.
"I heard that a bunch of cops were huddled over the town in a karaoke bar…some said that four people were arrested, I'm worried…what if they got caught!?" said the man as he voiced out his worries over the missing group.
".…" the man in the black helmet remained silent as he would watch over the worrying look of his compatriot.
"What should we do?"
"We'll wait. If they did approach a few problems on the way here and fail to deliver the last bomb then we will still proceed with the plan." said the man in his ever so monotonous tone.
"..." the man in white felt conflicted over the choice the man in black made, yet he did nothing but stayed in silence as he could not complain over him. he only responded in by clinching his fist tight over the frustration of the situation
It was clear that the man with the higher authority over this conversation was the man in the black helmet, so whatever he choose to say would be the one thing that couldn't be complained over.
".…"
".…"
The silence in the air felt cold and unwanting as they had nothing to talk over, so the man in white decided to leave the room. Slamming the door as he left.
*Baam!*
"Hmm…the air tonight seems a bit suspicious." mumbled the man to himself as he began to turned back to the outside view and stare over the overlapping full moon.
Meanwhile outside the room, a man who was wearing a set of purple jogging sweatpants was minding his business and slowly playing the classic game, EAmong Sus.
'Hmm, red, green, orange and brown are dead…that leaves the only player being me, black, white…and blue. I wonder who the killer is among us.' he taught as he enjoyed the game that was happening on his phone.
While playing it, he noticed his friend in white furiously walked out of the room and began pulling out a cigar our of his pocket.
".…Stop worrying about them. They'll be fine." said the man in purple to his friend.
"We don't know that." replied the man in an anxious tone.
"We've been planning this for months now…they should know not to be careless in the public's eye view. We've been careful, wary and silently keeping our desires in check…all for the day that we can finally send a message to those bastards." said the man in purple as he looked on to his friend with a calm look.
"..."
"So buck up and drive the forklift over to the freezer room. We have to transfer all of these frozen fish into the containers by the end of the week."
Judging from how those context of orders were told, they were clearly in a building that stored some fishes. They were in a warehouse filled with freshly hooked fish. With some people working through the day, some where fishermen and some where labor men. All these men worked in the same theme as any, Fish. But in truth their current job was only a facade to fool the public's eye..in truth they were terrorist.
"...fine, where's the forklift parked?" said the man in white as he followed the orders of the man in purple.
"Outside, its by the pier in storage lot 4."
"Okay."
As he walked out of the building, he casually smoked out a cigar and made his way to the forklift. His mind was still a bit anxious from worrying over his friends, so to at least lessen the worry, he had to work it off.
"..."
As he slowly walked down the pier with a cigar in hand, a sudden gust of wind pushed itself to the man's direction and causes the cigar to fly out of his hand and roll down the dirty floor.
*Thud* as the cigar hits the concrete floor and started rolling along with the direction of the wind, it suddenly stops in front of the shoes of a lad who casually stood by the edge of a pier.
"!?" the man in white noticed this bystander and was curious as to why a person was casually just hanging out by the pier in this time of night.
He looked over the lad and noticed that he was wearing gray hoodie, a black mask and cap over his head to cover up his face. Judging by his stature, the man presumed that this lad was about in his teenage years.
"What are you doing here at this time of night?" he said as he walked up to the boy and casually asked him a question.
"...this is the third pier right?" the boy then spoke to ask a simple question.
"...It is. Why are you asking?"
"I'm looking for an abandoned warehouse..."
"..." the man in white began to feel a bit cautious over the question that boy gave. It was unnatural for anyone to ask a specific location of an abandoned warehouse in the third pier without any questionable reason.
So in response to that question, he warily walked closer to the boy's direction about until they were foot away from each other. There, he then suddenly pulls out a gun from his back and places the nozzle over the head of the boy. It all happened so fast that it most likely didn't even took half a second to do so. This show of speed was clearly an indication that the man in white was talented when it comes to handling a gun. Like a cowboy from the west, he too was quick in terms of drawing his weapon out.
"Leave or else I'll blow your head off."
"...so you're one of them. An Impos-"
"!!" without a moment to hesitate, just hearing his incomplete response, the man in white instinctively pulled the trigger.
*Bang!*
Just from the word "Imp" his whole body reacted from that answer. He knew immediately that this mysterious lad was trouble.
The shocking sound of a bullet resounded throughout the pier and with it the man expected to hear a falling sound of a dead body to the floor but all he got in return was an unexpected splatter from the right side of his face.
"...!?" he realized that something was wrong…the boy was still standing and the not a single hole was piercing through his face, yet blood itself was found splattered on the face of the man who pulled the trigger. He tried to understand the reason why blood was on his face and not on the boy he intended to kill.
*Splat*
He could hear a gushing sound pouring itself from somewhere.
He turned down to look at his arm and noticed that it was missing.
His whole right arm was missing.
"!?!?!????!???????????????????!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" his mind went into a frenzy and panicked.
As he panics, he didn't know what happened and he couldn't process how it happened. but as he turned to look even lower he could see his missing arm lifelessly laying on the ground like a piece of abandoned meat.
He could see that the gun he used was still intact along with decapitated his hand…yet he noticed something particular.
His finger wasn't able to fully pull the trigger.
".…??" he was so sure that a sound of an explosion being fired was heard and yet being an expert in the field of guns, he could clearly tell that the gun he used was still cold around its nuzzle.
He turns back to the boy who stood all carefree like. He noticed that the boy was holding on to a black stick-like weapon and that it was looking like a weapon that was strangely coated in a black substance.
His mind was still a bit woozy from the shock of this whole event, so he tried focusing down on what that stick of a weapon was clearly enveloped in.
"!!" after staring at it for a second or two, he was finally able to tell what it was…it was an elemental attribute.
"...lightning." that's when he realized that the sound of a bullet like explosion didn't come from his gun but instead it came from this element of terror. And the likely event that the explosion he heard was nonexistent, that the sound of that overbearing explosion was from the element he heard in his ear up close.
"...Who are you?" he asked the boy as he finally realized the futility of the situation.
"..." the boy didn't respond.
"...Was it you? Were you the reason why my friends aren't here!?"
After asking this question, he vision suddenly went out and he could feel the dark cold concrete the moment he fell on his knees. The bleeding was too much and he couldn't maintain the effort to stay awake while he lost too much blood.
He didn't hear an answer from the boy but he could tell that that boy was the reason…
'haaa…I guess this whole operation is a bust then…damn it, how did someone like that knew of our plans…damn it.'
Not long after, his whole body went cold and slightly pale than before.
"...this should be enough to keep him alive." the boy said as he pulls out a minor healing potion out from his pocket. He then proceeds to pour all of it out into the injury. After pouring it on, he could see the effects of the potion working through the decapitated arm and slowly reattaching itself one muscle and tissue at a time.
He then looks to the direction of one abandoned building that had it's lights on.
""About ten…no twelve more people are left...now then, what should I do?"
He tried looking for a way to silently take out those men without fully attacking them head on. He was cautious because he didn't fully know the enemy at first hand. All he knew was that the only person he had to watch out for was the leader…the one who wore a black mask.
After looking around the pier, he noticed that one electric pole was leaning down to the direction of the building. It was a clear indication that the pole itself was old. He could see that it was connected to the abandoned building, knowing this he was finally able to think of a plan.
Meanwhile, inside the building was the purple man who still casually played the hit game EAmong Sus.
"Finally, I'm once again the killer of the crew…this will be fun."
When suddenly the lights turned off.
*Thack!*
"!?" all of the members in that abandoned warehouse were curious as to why the lights turned off. One by one, they brought out their phones and tried to see what was going on.
"Hey what's going on? Asked the man in a pink shirt.
"Hey, someone go check on the electricals, maybe something tripped the breaker." said the purple man as he ordered one of the crew.
"I'll do it!" shouted a man who wore a cyan cap.
"I'll go with." said another man who wore an orange tracksuit.
As the two of them walked out of the warehouse, the purple man decided to walk into a certain room that was occupied by one person.
As he entered the room, he noticed the place was pitch black dark. He couldn't see the man in the black helmet but he could tell that he was standing in some corner.
"Why aren't you turning on your phone? Its dark in here." said the man in purple.
"...I don't mind the dark." his dark tone felt a bit ominous as he said that simple sentence.
"ahh, by the way. I received a message from one of my connections in the police department. They said our guys were in the cell being interrogated by the grand knights...what should we do?"
"...We'll proceed. Our men aren't dumb enough to tell on us knowing that our fateful time is only a couple of days away. We have the bombs in my storage ring. On the day that event comes then we will proceed."
"...and after that?"
"...it depends."
"Depends on what?"
"It depends if my king will finally look my way."
"..."
"...Something's off."
"What do you mean?"
"...the crew, I can't seem to hear them anymore."
"What?"
"Go check on them."
"Okay."
As soon as the purple man leaves the room, he noticed that the lights from the phones where still and only pointing to one direction.
"Hey, whats going on there!?" he shouted as he couldn't fully see through the dark.
"..."
"..."
Curious as to why no response was heard, he cautiously walked to where does lights were. And as he stood by one of them, he could see phones abandoned by the floor.
"!?"
Curious as to why this was, he instantly went into alert and tried shining his light at every direction, looking for a single crew that stood. Yet as he made a full 360 of checking his area, he couldn't find one single crew…not one.
Not until…
~Swoosh~ *THUD!*
A frozen fish was thrown out of nowhere and hits him straight in the abdomen.
"Gagh!" the force of that throw made him instinctively crawl into a ball from the intense pain.
*step* *step**step**step*
Although he was rolling in pain, he noticed that a few steps were heard and it was coming his way.
"...Hnnn!!!" he tried looking up to see what it was.
"!?" and there he saw…a lad who wore a gray hoodie and was carrying a frozen fish stood before him with an indifferent look.
He could see that the boy was preparing to whack him in the head with that fish, so in an act of desperation he reached out to his pocket and pulled out a gun.
It wasn't as fast as the man who wore a white shirt but it didn't in this choice, in this desperate time.
"Wh-Who are you!?" he screamed while pointing that gun right at the direction of the lad, this action made the lad to stop in his tracks and stand all menacing like.
"..." the lad didn't answer and instead proceeded to coat the fish in mana. Making it harder and more powerful than it was before.
"!?" the man in purple suddenly felt a cold chill running down his spine. He could feel the killing intent that was beyond the frozen fish.
He panicked and shoot all of his rounds at the lad.
One by one, those bullets began to stray into the direction of the lad. But his response was as cold as the frozen fish he held in his hand.
As the fish he held was coated in mana, it wouldn't be destroyed as easily as it should. With this fact in mind, he simply struck each bullet that came his way and deflected each one into different directions. One being intentionally into the knee of the purple man.
*Thud!*
"AAAAGGH!!!" the purple man screamed as the bullet dug itself into his knee. Making his experience even more painful.
As he screamed in pain, the lad began to approach him and began dragging him over to a certain area. His scream would resound itself in that abandoned warehouse, that painful scream was his last chance to call on his last hope…his leader.
But there was no response.
No action took place.
'...Leader, Where are you?'
Just as the boy was about to drag him out of the warehouse, some noise echoed in the dark building
*Baam!* the sound of a door slamming itself open echoed.
"..." in response, the boy stops and turns back to where that noise was.
"I don't remember inviting any visitors in this time of night?" the monotonous voice spoke out and glared through his black helmet and emitted pure killing instinct towards the intruder.
"..." yet in response to his call, the boy just casually stood in his none ever changing look.
"So you won't say anything? Then…may my lord bless you with mercy then." he said as he slowly walks up towards the boy.
His only attention was on him…only on him.
He was curious, maddened and intrigued by the sudden change in events.
He questioned himself why someone like this random person was able to locate this place and why he did so what he could.
And this question will only matter if he could capture this intruder.
"Rashmaga~Furniptun" said the man in the black helmet as each step he made his way towards the boy, he started to conjure himself his own weapon.
As he said these words, a black sword erupted out of his shadow and symbiotically transferred itself into the hands of the man.
Before the boy was a weapon forge in the plains of darkness, a sword with a wish if one could say it's darkest desire. This weapon would behold to it's owner in hopes to fully clad the light in darkness.
This weapon was the artifact that could rival many weapons of light.
One look of the weapon and Hamil instinctively knew that sword was the same sword the leader used against Arthur when they fought against each other.
"...An Impure sword." said Hamil.
"Hmm, you seem to know something about this weapon. It's magnificent isn't it? Its a gift bestowed upon me by my king."
"King?" Hamil was curious towards the man's say of a king.
"The king of Darkness…the king that could rule them all. You don't know?"
"...no."
"Such a shame then. Well I'll at least show you the power of my king. Only then will you be able to immortalize him in your mind as I did."
The boy decided to let go of the man in purple and focused instead more on the actual threat of this arc in the story.
The title of this chapter was called "The Dark King's Soldier" in the novel. Judging from the context of that title, this person that stood before Hamil was a soldier of the Dark King.
With how the world was divided into many sections, from elves, dwarves, giants, demons, humans and so many more species, one species that lived in darkness was the dark beings ruled over by the Dark king. They were called the Litchens.
They live in eternal bless of being able to serve their king, with a faith so high that they are willing to even kill themselves over his attention.
From how the book described their existence, they were born over in the shadows of a deep gorge in the entrances of the Dark King's Kingdom, it was a place called the shadow of the dark king. As they were born, they always had this uncontrollable urge to fully express their emotions all together at the same time…some would smile while they cry, others would laugh as they would get injured, It was a show of faith to their king. It was just a simple characteristic that could immediately separate themselves from the rest of the world.
Despite their human like figures and faces, their skin in comparison was pale and weak to the sun…that is why they would usually wear something that could completely cover their whole body. If they were to come out of the clothes, it would show that their skin was as white as ash to a point that it might have been gray.
The person before Hamil was a soldier that had pledge himself under the rule of the Dark king. His faith was as pure as any grand soldier, his ambition was as simple as that of getting his king to look his way with a look of contempt. His whole existence was all for the Dark king himself. His fighting prowess as well was just as befitting of that of a knight.
He was around rank C if he were to be compared to that of a hunter, with his main attribute pointed over to that of the shadows. A skill worthy of the dark beings faith to their king.
Hamil was nervous over if he could actually face of against someone of this caliber…he wasn't sure because he could never compare the descriptions of a book towards that of an actual fight.
But he was also excited for the fact that he might finally be able to push his limits and grow even stronger.
In the first move, Hamil threw the fish towards the leader's direction in a bullet like speed in hopes that it make do something.
In response to this, the leader simply pointed out his sword upfront and let the weapon do it's purpose.
As the fish flew towards the sword, the sword unexpectedly grew a mouth for it to open and lavishly swallowed the fish like a small snack that it was.
"..." seeing this occur before Hamil's eyes made him a bit more cautious over that weapon. All for him to remember that the weapon this person held was described as a 'Serpent Devouring Void' in the book.
He could see that the sword itself was conscious for being able to react to his move so he needed to fight two foes at the same time.
"Endit…Apolo come"
Calling for his weapon, a blue light emitted from his chest and created a shield right before the eyes of the enemy. His right palm also produce a blue light and conjured a black spear out of thin air.
He positioned himself against the leader with the shield covering his body and the spear pointed out to face the enemy, along with this he added coating his entire body with mana.
As the man in the purple tracksuit watched those two face to face, a smirk would gradually appear in his face as he looks to the boy who was eagerly holding his weapon against the leader. He knew for a fact that his leader was a strong man in terms of strength and was even more confident in the area of stealth. He thought that in this dark warehouse with only a limited amount of light being shone by the moon, this fight would not have lasted a minute or two.
He watched with great anticipation for his leader to win against this boy.
But as soon as the boy made his first step…everything changed.
The boy moved and suddenly disappeared.
As if out of nowhere he couldn't be seen.
~ZZZZZZ~
Suddenly a spear came out of nowhere and aimed straight at the left side of the leader.
*Boom!*
Yet he blocked it with the sword he held by his two hands. Although he couldn't react on time to defend himself from that attack, he was still safe because of how the weapon itself moved to protect its owner.
*Thud!*
The strength the boy pushed on with the spear made his arms shake over the pressure.
With one hand on the spear and the other with the shield, the boy followed his attack by bashing his shield straight at the face of the leader.
*Baam!* *Clank*
Both the metal shield and the metal helmet collided with one another yet the head of the leader was for some reason unaffected by the collision of that attack.
He still stood strong and he still stared right into the eyes of the boy.
"..."
"..."
The boy tries to strike again with his shield but this time the leader pushed him away with the sword, creating a distance between them.
They both stood in silence as they waited for one to attack again.
".…"
"...Devour." the leader waited no longer and instead made his move. He activated a skill over his sword and with it, the sword changed into a more gruesome form. It developed fangs and eyes at every inch of the blade. it then turned dark red and stretched into a snake like form.
"Devour!" he screamed his order to the sword and it stretched towards the boy. Like giant snake, it strayed itself towards the boy, the boy however decided to face of against the sword using his shield.
"Shield's Copy!" he screamed out his skill and created a three layers of transparent shield right in front of each other.
"Crush him!" said the man in purple as he felt ecstatic over watching his leader create such a powerful looking attack.
The sword rammed itself to the three layers of shields.
*Bam!* *Break*
*Bam!* *Break*
*Bam!* *Break*
Yet one by one those shields couldn't even last a second to stop the attack.
As the final real shield meet itself with the sword, they both collided with one another and creating a shockwave of force, resulting on the warehouse to shake like it was in an earthquake.
The shaking of abandoned warehouse resulted in it for some old rusty beams to fall one by one from the roof. As it hits the ground, it created a foggy mess that covered most of the view from the leader. It also hid the boy because of this.
"We got him!" The man in purple cheered as he saw the collision of that attack. He thought for sure that the boy was killed by that attack.
"Return!" the leader commanded his sword back to its original form.
As the sword made its way to shorten itself, the leader felt something off from this. The sword was suspiciously more slower that it should have been when it was returning to it's original form. The half its body was still unseen from the fog of dust but as it slowly made its way back from the dust, it revealed itself that it was missing a head.
"...What!" the man in purple was shocked to find the sword headless and broken.
As it returned to its original form, the sword was lift with a broken tip. With a quarter of its length cut off from the top, the sword was now left broken.
".…." the leader stared at the sword with silence.
He stared at it for seconds…unable to comprehend why it happened but.
Finally it dawned on him.
His sword was broken.
The gift given by his king was broken.
This made him show one single emotion.
Fury.
All of a sudden, an explosion of killing intent filled the warehouse and made it suffocating to breath in.
"Gah!?" the man in purple was suffering from this pressure all to a point that made him lose consciousness.
His helmet was dropped to the floor and what he showed in his face was the expression of pure Anger.
He dropped the sword down to the floor with its upmost respect and charged straight at the boy who was still in the foggy dust wall.
The leader covered his arms in a dark coated mana aura and it resulted in forming into a knife like weapon. As he jumped in to the dusty area, his sole purpose was now to just kill this bastard that broke his gift.
But as he tried looking around, no one was found. It was just a bunch of rusty metals that fell on the floor nothing more.
As the dust slowly dissipated, it finally revealed the whole area. But the boy wasn't standing here no more and instead a message was left on the wall.
"!!" the huge snake head of the sword was left hanging stuck to the wall while it was being impaled by the spear he used.
It was a clear deliberation of a taunt.
"Where are you!" he screamed out to the boy, taunting him to come face him head on.
But there was no response.
"Shadow track!" he activated his skill that can able him to find his enemies location by where their shadow was placed. But nothing…the shadow of the boy was not found in the warehouse, only the shadow of his colleague and a few more shadows gathered up in the freezer container. He could tell that those group of shadows were his men that was attacked by the boy.
"Where!"
Suddenly out of nowhere, another iron beam fell from the roof and created another small explosion of dust.
*Boom*
At the exact moment the beam struck the ground, a spear came out of that dusty explosion and aimed for the leader's stomach.
"!?" the leader instantly felt this uncringing feeling of killing intent which made him turn around.
As he did, he was too late to stopping it as he was facing the tip of the spear head. He couldn't react on time and instead he tried to catch the spear with his bare hands. He wasn't fast enough so the spear went through his body.
"Gagh!" he felt an immense pain as the spear would gradually dig itself farther through his body.
".…"
"You dare break my king's gift…" said the man.
Th boy tried pulling out the spear but the leader was unwilling to cooperate and instead kept the spear lunge in his stomach.
"You dare!" the man screamed, as he didn't care much for the pain but more on the person.
".…!"
"I say unto you! Perish for my king!" he screamed over the boy and pulled out something that was placed in his storage ring.
It revealed a sophisticated looking item that seemed to only serve one purpose and three other items that looked similar to that of the bomb the boy last saw in the karaoke bar. Those three bombs fell to the floor while the trigger was left in the palm of the man's hand.
He smiles at the look of shock from the boy who was imposed through this situation.
"Glory to my King!"
"!!"
Without hesitation he pressed this item and resulted for the entire warehouse to explode along with almost all of the pier was enveloped in a hot red scorching explosion.
Its shockwave affected every building that was near the pier. Some windows were broken, the electricity went out, fishing boats were damage and other's sank, one cargo boat nearly flipped itself over from the wave that explosion created and so much more damage was done.
In the end, the whole crew was killed by that explosion. All because of their leader who couldn't control his emotions…
The police arrive moments later as well as the fire department and a few mages to help in the casualties this explosion created.
Around 256 people were injured(normal bystander), 13 were found dead(the crew) and one person was miraculously alive despite his whole body being burned all over.