Zoran moved Eddie closer to him. Terrified eyes looked back at him. Eddie's mind was in a mess, and he couldn't get the grisly scene out of his head. How could experienced cultivators meet such an end? Was there a monster in this room?
SLAP
Eddie's mind cleared a bit as Zoran slapped him. Only then could he see the bloodstains on Zoran's face. His subconscious knew what happened, but the fear blocked him from realizing it. Zoran killed them all.
"You…you.."
Zoran looked at Eddie and said, "you may be a scumbag, but you are not a killer. Get out of my sight, or you'll suffer a worse death than them."
He pointed at the lifeless bodies of his hired assassins and guards. These were cultivators who were killed, not just any citizen. If they met such a horrible death, then what more could happen to a mortal like Eddie? Zoran pushed Eddie to the corner of the room.
He then took out the Silver Bleeding Diamond from his pockets and held it in his hands. Eddie felt a ringing in his head from his collision with the wall. He was overwhelmed. The deaths, the mysterious monster, and Zoran, he couldn't get a grasp on what happened.
But even with the threat of death, Eddie's eyes couldn't betray his true self. He saw a shining glimpse of the Diamond in Zoran's hands and his desire to obtain it pushed away all the fear and anxiousness in his mind. There was one thing on his mind; get the Diamond.
Eddie rushed to the lustrous reflection of the Diamond like a path given to him by the Beings. He slipped on the blood, stumbling on the flesh and brain matter all over the floor. He didn't care. He crawled towards Zoran with fervor and madness, with his clothes and face covered with human remains. His face dripping with blood made him look insane.
He was close. The Silver Bleeding Diamond was within his grasp. His greatest treasure and his lifelong dream was close to completion. But he didn't know that the tendrils of Miasma wrapped around his foot as he got closer to Zoran. It consumed his flesh and ability to walk, paired with an intense amount of pain by the decay, but he didn't care. It was secondary compared to the Diamond.
Just as he was only a few inches away, he felt his body betray him. The brain could no longer block the pain. He looked down and saw tentacles from death eating away his flesh down to the bones. His feet was just a blackish stump with no evidence of skin, flesh, muscle, or bone. And the tentacles weren't done. It crawled up to his upper body.
But by the time he noticed this, it was already too late. The Miasma had already burrowed deep into his inner organs, destroying him from within.
The pain all came to him in a burst. He couldn't even scream.
His eyes turned bloodshot, his mouth frothed, his body shook with intensity. But even with the deathly pain taking over all his body, Eddie mustered up the courage to say one last thing.
"Bettor…he wanted me to…he's responsible…"
With those last words, Eddie's body decayed like he had been buried for years and years. Then, the Miasma returned happily in Zoran's body, wiggling its body as if it knew that it had done a good job.
Zoran didn't look back at Eddie's dead body and just opened the door to the dining room. He left the massacre scene behind him, with the wealthy whales none the wiser. They didn't even notice that Zoran had blood on his face, they just kept on with their business.
He wiped the blood off and took a seat back at his table. Then, he continued eating his meal for he was interrupted the last time. He consumed the meal and drinks as if it weren't poisoned.
Bettor saw this and frowned. Did that idiot Eddie forget to poison Zoran's food, he speculated. And with him still alive and well, he could only conclude that Eddie was slacking off. He was already planning on firing Eddie as his right hand man once this was over since he didn't need a lazy bum in his payroll.
He approached Zoran and wiped sweat off his forehead. "Are you enjoying your meal, thief?"
Zoran simply chewed his steak properly and swallowed it before he turned to look at Bettor. His large frame encompassed Zoran and blocked him from the view of the other guests.
"I did not steal anything."
Bettor smiled at him and leaned on the chair. "I know you have the Silver Bleeding Diamond."
Zoran took out the item from his pockets and showed its full luster at Bettor. "Are you talking about this?"
Bettor's eyes glowed with greed as he finally saw face-to-face the Diamond that would send the auction into an uproar. This little rock from the underground would fetch him tremendous amounts of profit. With normal items, he would only get 5% commission. But if he obtained the Bleeding Silver Diamond, he would get every single cent of it for himself.
"Yes, yes! If you hand it over to me peacefully, then I won't have the police involved." He tried a scare tactic on Zoran to have him obediently hand over the Diamond.
Zoran heard that before from someone that was now a corpse.
Contrary to Bettor's expectations, Zoran simply looked at him with confidence in his black eyes.
"The police will only find poison in my food."
Zoran said the word 'poison' with more emphasis. As soon as that word was uttered, the dining hall went silent. The wealthy individuals who were only interested in themselves suddenly wanted to pay attention to them.
After all, it was the thing they feared most. They could spend all the money in the world for expert cultivators and master bodyguards, but they can't defend against poison. Even more so if it was in the food that they ALREADY ate. 'Have I been poisoned', was the only thought in their minds.
The prestige and trust built up for years and years of service was slowly crumbling his guests eyes. Sweat covered Bettor's whole body. He was supposed to be the one to discredit Zoran since he was a peasant that the royals would never believe the words of. How could things turn around like this?