"Alessandro, how the fuck are you here?"
The boss in black drapings hissed in a low voice.
'I'm sure he didn't leave his shop for today!'
Alessandro kept silent, and took big steps forward, swinging his naked fist on the masked man without further comments. His hand shot through the air like a rifle bullet, its surface flashing with a metallic luster.
Alessandro's eyes glimmered with the treacherous intention of murder.
"You...!"
The masked man couldn't help but exclaim at the sudden attack, before conjuring a strong wind to repress the impeding swing. His motions showed no trace of the lethargic nonchalance from earlier.
He concentrated every ounce of his power to match Alessandro's ferocity.
A fierce clash between the windblast and the straight-forward punch gave voice to thunderous noises, and the windows which weren't lit up yet, surely were by now. Alarmed faces furtively glimpsed at the fierce altercation from behind their curtains, hesitant and clueless as to what to do. They could only watch and shudder, hoping to not be implicated in the deadly scuffle.
The raging giant shot a couple more hatred-stricken punches in eerily silent fury, which the masked man avoided by hook or crook with excellent body movements, aided by the wind barrier and accelerating bursts of winds to deflect the trajectories of the punches.
By now, only 3 of the 5 initial group members were still alive and well, with two hanging lifelessly and mangled against the facade of a nearby house. The boss was more than busy dealing with the onslaught of Alessandro, and the other two were rooted to the ground, motionlessly like freezed wax figures, until a fierce shout shook them out of their daze.
"What the hell are you idiots doing! Capture the girl, immediately!"
"You're both Awakened, what are you even scared about?! They're just kids!"
Finally processing the entirety of the situation, the two urged their Mana and darted towards the group of kids.
"His wife is an Awakened, too! She must be lingering around the area, don't forget about it," the boss reminded with rugged and labored breath.
A low voice growled in front of him, when he finished his sentence.
"Do you really have the time to worry about others?"
Alessandro widened his eyes and threw another fearsome shot with cumulative motion. Once again, the boss conjured a strong wind barrier, but this time, it wouldn't be of any help.
In succinct enunciation, the attacker spat out two words and formed his fist into a sharp palm, resembling a lethal dagger.
"Alloy Stipulation"
His already lustrous, silver hand flashed up into a gaudy mirrorlike alloy and burst apart the windwall in front of him, aiming to take the neck of the culprit behind the kidnapping of his daughter.
"Wh-"
The boss let out a tone of surprise before channeling a massive amount of Mana into a leather armband, a golden miniature bell skillfully treaded onto its strings.
Just a short fraction of a second later, a golden gong materialised from thin air and stopped the possibly lethal stab with a marrow-shuddering ringing upon impact. The sound reverberated through the entire outskirts, even reaching Monsoon City.
"One Life-Saving-Method less," Alessandro uttered in contempt, not a trace of joy running over his features.
The boss could only give him a resentful look before conjuring a row of sharp wind blades, which the giant did not dodge, but instead took on fully with his body shining in a silver luster.
The blades could only leave slight incisions on his skin, leaving the giant with a staid face and trickling drops of crimson blood painting his stature in a feral aura ...
...Meanwhile, the other two evil-doers from the operation squad gapped the distance to their goal unbelievably quickly.
One of the two turned illusory with fog surrounding his figure, while the other conjured razor sharp blade from his elbow.
They looked around in absolute concentration, trying to discern the whereabouts of Corale, who still hasn't shown an inkling of a presence.
There were only about a hundred meters left to reach the group, which escaped to the next street.
Suddenly, the man with the bone blades protruding from his elbow, turned around to face the above, as if he was alarmed by one of his senses.
There, he saw two feline eyes staring at him like a cheetah stalking its prey, free-falling from the air.
Instanteneously, he sliced ahead with his elbow and was met with deep surprise.
The woman stepped on his swinging bone-blade with her palms acting like cat paws, mitigating the lethal force, and using it instead to propel herself forward to the man surrounded by fog.
With a short hop to the ground, she blinked to the second masked man and struck him with a swing of her nails, digging them straight inside the illusory fog.
A painful scream rang from the mist and the foggy man jumped away, holding his rightarm with his left hand.
The feline woman sneered:
"Damned fog... That should have taken your head."
The fog turned red and expanded at the will of the obscured man, who screamed out to his collague:
"I'll take care of this bitch, you go capture the kid."
A bit unwilling, the man who was used as a jumping bracket nodded and added a faint:
"Daure, make her cry for me."
A chuckle resounded from the area, which was by now submerging a big part of the road, including Corale.
"That won't take too long."
The sadistic bandit snickered back and continued to run out of the fog, as if directed by an invisible guide.
"No, you won't!" Corale hissed, and ran after him, but strangely, no matter how far she run, she wouldn't escape the nebula.
A deep worry contoured her face, when she realized that she would not be able to leave without defeating her opponent first.
...
Now that every single person was bound in a fight, the Bone-Blade Man gapped the distance to the group with great progress.
Rushing around the corner, he found them ahead of himself, and immediately locked onto Laurel, who was standing out with her resplendent golden hair swaying in the faint moonlight.
The dust under his soles burst behind when he rushed into another sprint, and with speed that was unattainable by even the likes of Usain Bolt and Justin Gatlin, he was at their heels in a heartbeat.
He reached out his arms with a ferocious look throbbing in his eyes, and when he was about the reach the first wisp of Laurel's golden hair... a wild shriek from the left side disrupted his attention.
Borza let out a deafening cry and turned around to motion in a jump on the masked man, who formed a relieved smile behind the mask:
"Heh, what the hell do you even want to do?"
He raised his bone-blade, which flashed the moonlight in a strike, with the intention to cut through the golden fur, while atleast leaving the golden ape with a deep incision.
But before the swing reached him, his inner senses urged him once again, and made him look to his right, where a heel swung at him in a wide arch, aiming to connect straight to his face.
The masked man tried to hold up his arms in defense and jump back instantly, but at this point, the bandit was victim of inertia and motion, and scraped the dusty ground in his halt, his arms recovering from the swing at the golden ape.
The heel hit him in the temple with a loud crack, and the Bone-Blade man was thrown back against another house.
The kids let out a relieved gasp... Their nerves stood on end the whole time.
Spark took a couple steps to the front to heroically stand in front of the group. Like a last tower of defense, he located himself between the group and the masked man, who by now staggered up and slowly recovered from the kick to his head.
Spark turned around and showed a fierce frown:
"Good work, Borza. Now go on... run ahead. I'll keep him busy."
Jessie screamed out, not accepting the young man's proposal, "NO! Come with us, you can't fight that man, he has already awakened! You stand no chance!"
Spark stood in silence for a few moments, before sighing deeply.
"So you want us all to die?"
His fierce gaze penetrated the air alongside his cold words, before he reiterated:
"Go on, I'll keep him busy. I can handle that much, at least."
Jessie involuntarily shivered and bit her lip until blood trickled down the rosy mounds.
"B-be careful..." she uttered before her eyes widened at her own remark of hypocrisy.
A mundane human should be careful in a fight against Awakened?... This was a testament of death! She didn't know that Spark had broken through, but could somewhat infer that the heel kick he threw, was already outside the boundary of normalcy.
...Nevertheless, it would make little difference in this fight.
She turned around like a rusted hinge, her body shivering when she thought about what she was about to do.
The kids, too, were rooted to the ground, unwilling to leave Spark behind, to face this insurmountable opponent, but in the end... their fear won.
"GO!"
Spark screamed in a shrill voice.
Hearing the cue, their joints and muscles moved on their own, and the group moved ahead, reluctant to part their gaze with the black-haired youth, who unsheathed Celas' iron sword, and let it coruscate in the yellow moonlight.
"Are you sure about this?"
The masked bandit finally managed to sneer, with a hateful tone underlying his voice. He held his temple and was still a bit wobbly on his legs, but his condition improved with every second.
"So heroic," he mockingly laughed out loud.
"You should worry about yourself, first. That kick should've given you a cerebral concussion... Are you sure?... Are you sure, that you can even differentiate left from right?"
The eyes of the bandit shimmered in a dangerous light when he heard Spark's retort, and he scoffed back:
"Don't overestimate your strength, fucking bastard... That was nothing."
Immediately, she shot out and sliced his blade at the young man's body.
Spark, equipped with the active Cochlean Implant, and the newfound agility and strength he had appropriated with his sudden breakthrough, blocked the first slice with his sword, and dodged the incoming fist, and the stab hovering above it, with a twist of his upper body.
Stuck inbetween the blades, he delivered a kick to the attacker's solar plexus, right before he could be caught inside a lethal embrace.
Staggering back a bit, the masked man roared in surprise. He wanted to end it in a single bout, but was skillfully dodged.
That flexibility was definitely not the abilities of a mundan human, he noted. He was at very least in the Middle of the Body Foundation Realm, the blade-man concluded with a grit of his teeth.
Deep humiliation washed over him in that moment because a dull pain extended on his chest, while a sharp pain stabbed at his temple.
The kicks actually hurt him. A Middle-Stage Body Foundation Artist had actually managed to hurt him? Him... a genuine Second-Stage Qi Realm?
There was no greater shame than this!
Like a feral beast, he darted towards the source of humiliation, swinging his bone-blades wildly to form a white net of slashes.
Spark's eyes widened in dark apprehension, as he put great strain on his pivoting leg, to jump to the side with all the power he could muster, but still he couldn't avoid the entirety of the attack.
The edge of the white net hit him on the left side of his body, lacerating deep gashes into his flesh, which sprouted rivers of crimson red liquid.
Even the bones could have snapped in half, if it weren't for the body reformation Spark has undergone. His bones and flesh were firm and robust, but the difference between a Body Foundation and an Element Awakened, a genuine Qi Realm, was like the difference between the night, and the day.
The peculiar state of his body could not bypass the chasm of strength.
Spark fell to the side with a painful groan, his body grieving in sorrow.
In the heaven above to the unequal fight, swaths of black smoke rose ambitiously, formed by the fire that had started to devour The Shelter.
...
In the red fog, the feline woman scanned her surrounding with utmost accuracy. She strained her 5 senses as much as she could. Her breath was labored and rough, but she could faintly hear the same condition applying to her enemy.
They had exchanged a couple of bouts, and by now, Daure, the Fog Elemental, was reluctant to trade anymore.
He cursed inside his head:
'Damnit, that bitch is more sensitive than I thought.'
By now, the fog had turned into a deep red, mirroring the state of its source. The fight was at a standstill until the moment Daure's Mana ran dry.
...
In front of the Shelter, Joey looked at the fire engulfing his tavern with a deep frown.
...Next to him, was the horrifying sight of the charred outlines of what was once a body, now completely burned to dust.
It was Roukey, the Earth-Elemental. Now turned into nothing but charred molecules.
It seemed like the fight had been decided in a heartbeat... That was how the Cultivator World worked...
Live one day, and die another. Cultivators were really short-lived, especially the boisterous and cocky ones.
After a deep sigh, Joey lost no more time and ran alongside the street.
Earlier, he had faintly discerned the screams of his wife and Spark in the distance, so naturally, he immediately took off in that direction, hoping they still were fine.
...
Loud clashes and a gong sound reverberated from the fight between Alessandro and the boss.
The masked Wind Elemental didn't dread it to use any means to keep his life intact. By now, the blacksmith Alessandro had pulled out a pitch-black mace, inscribed with crimson engravings, and swung it at his enemy.
Thunderbolts crackled with every swing he made and the buildings of the area were sometimes hit by the enormous forces.
The residents who could evacuate, already did. The ones who couldn't, hid in their cellar, or at the housecorner with the longest distance to the altercation.
More and more strange treasures, like a golden talisman, or a blue-iron net were sacrificed to offset the difference in strength.
The boss was not even being close to a worthy enemy to the fierce and feral Alessandro, whose face was flushed red like a demon's.
His eyes were a pure white by now, pulsating veins gnawing at the outside of his face. It wouldn't take much longer to defeat the already hurt, and weak culprit.
Every time the Wind-Elemental tried to levitate and fly away, the raging giant conjured a tapestry thunderbolts to enclose his escape route.
...Slowly, a deep feeling of anxiety rose up in the masked man.
...
Joey ran further and further, until clear sounds of an altercation were audible.
The sound of cries, the clash of iron, the screams of pain were getting louder and louder.
He entered a narrow alley to finally change streets, and Spark jumped into view at the end of the lane.
His figure was drowned in crimson blood, spattering the street from countless cruel gashes, and the moonlight shone on him with one of its unfeeling rays.
The liquid glimmered and reflected the yellow ray in an almost poetic sight.
Joey frowned and called out in worry, the temperature around him rising by several degrees:
"Spark! Come he-"
...The last part got stuck in his throat.
His blood freezed and a shudder ran through his every nerve...
At this moment... a malicious Blade of Bone peeked from the left side of the alley, ramming into Spark's insides with a devastating swiftness, eviscerating its contents with a lethal sharpness.
"...Finally got you!" the masked man exclaimed in malicious joy..
His eyes grinned in absolutely terrible darkness when he executed the stab.
...Spark's lungs contracted, unable to draw another breath, as an immolating heat rose up from his abdomen.
He turned around to face the alley, hearing the steps that quickly approached them.
His blurrying view was engulfed in a dark haze, but before it went completely dark, he saw the shocking incredulity expressed on Joey's face.
A hoarse chuckle escaped his lips with a smile when he realized who it was:
"J-joey, my friend... t-the rest is up to y..."
Before he could end his sentence, the air in his lungs was depleted.
His droopy eyes could only close peacefully, as he dropped into a pool of his own blood, languid and without a sign of life.
Joey's face twisted in horror and his pupils vanished in a convulsion, to then be replaced by a blinding white of rage.
A row of dark runes appeared in front of him, but he couldn't care less. His mind was winded by madness.
[Calculated Fury failed to acitvate.]
His figure exploded into red flames, which flickered into a blistering purple almost instanteneously.
Violet flames steepled out of the alley, dodging Spark's body with strange intent.
They crackled with a thousand wistful cries, full of a million faces twisting and shifting in deep sorrow and hatred. Joey transformed into a dreadful figure of insatiable flames and bombarded the masked man in an awful and murderous onslaught.
The black draperies and flesh of the culprit were voraciously devoured, but he could not make a sound, as his body froze in primal fear when he gazed into the whites of the man's eyes.
What he saw the face of a wailing reaper from hell.