The words hit Klark like a whip.
For a moment, he seemed unable to comprehend them.
"Huh? W-What do you mean?"
Dilven clenched his fists, his gaze becoming even harsher.
"After you left," he began, each word landing like a blow, "Lois and Petra came to live at our secret base."
Klark froze, his mind in turmoil.
"W-What?" he stammered, struggling to believe what he was hearing. "B-But that's impossible! Carmen said that-"
"Still haven't figured it out?!" Dilven growled, cutting him off sharply.
He took slow, menacing steps forward, forcing Klark to back away until his shoulders were pressed against the wall.
"That woman manipulated you, Klark! She deceived you! She pretended to have your family hostage to protect the young Prince and get the information she wanted. And let me tell you something else: she might not even be part of the Demonic Womb! And you, like a complete fool, walked right into her trap!"
Klark shook his head, desperately trying to resist the crushing reality bearing down on him.
"N-No, I can't beli-"
He didn't get the chance to finish.
With lightning speed, Dilven grabbed him by the throat with one massive hand and lifted him off the ground as if he weighed nothing.
Without hesitation, he hurled him against the wall behind him.
The impact was devastating. The bricks shattered, leaving deep cracks like scars in the wall.
Klark felt sharp pain shoot through his back as a stream of saliva and blood spilled from his mouth. He coughed weakly, but there was no time to recover.
"Listen to me carefully, Klark!" Dilven leaned in close, his face just inches from his, his voice vibrating with a power that seemed to shake the very air. "Not only have you been useless, but you let yourself be tricked this whole time! You've endangered the entire organization with your stupidity! This mistake should cost you your life, right here and now! And believe me, I wouldn't hesitate for a second!"
Klark tried to speak, but Dilven's fingers tightened around his throat, choking off any words. His hands clawed uselessly at the man's wrist, unable to break free from the grip.
"But…" Dilven continued, his tone more dangerous than ever, "if I came all the way here, it wasn't to punish you, but to deliver a message from the Boss!"
With slow, deliberate movement, Dilven pressed Klark's body further against the wall, making it nearly impossible for him to breathe.
"'Klark Minet,'" Dilven recited, his voice tolling like a funeral bell. "'From the moment you receive my message, you will have exactly one final week: if within seven days you fail to complete your mission, you can say goodbye to your dear family!'"
At those words, Dilven fixed him with an intense glare, his eyes blazing with rage and disdain.
"And this time, Klark, your family is truly at risk of dying!"
Then, with a sharp motion, he released his grip.
Klark collapsed to the ground, coughing violently as he clutched at his throat. Every breath was a blade stabbing into his lungs.
Dilven looked down at him like an executioner who had just postponed the sentencing.
"Hey! What's going on here?"
The voice rang out with authority, breaking the oppressive silence of the alley.
Dilven turned slightly, his piercing gaze landing on the man approaching them.
The newcomer wore a pristine black-and-red military uniform, adorned with the city's crest gleaming on his chest.
'A city guard?' Dilven thought, remaining still. 'Well, with the whole "Sunday Killer" case, it's no surprise law enforcement is patrolling even desolate areas like this.'
The man advanced with firm steps, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it at the first sign of danger.
His eyes narrowed as they settled on Dilven—a figure too large, too menacing to overlook.
"Are you perhaps the Sunday Killer?" the guard demanded, focusing his gaze on the hooded giant, whose face remained obscured by shadows. "Well, it doesn't really matter. Whoever you are, I order you to step away from that man and identify yourself."
The request sounded more like a warning, but Dilven showed no intention of complying.
Instead, he slowly turned towards the guard, his towering figure exuding an aura of silent menace.
With chilling composure, he raised his right arm, extending his open hand towards the guard as if to grab him from a distance.
The guard didn't hesitate. In an instant, he drew his sword, ready to defend himself.
But he didn't even have time to take another step or consider his next move before his sword flew out of his hand, embedding itself in the wall.
"What the-?!" the guard exclaimed, baffled.
Suddenly, the guard's body was yanked towards the towering figure with superhuman force, as though an enormous invisible hand had plucked him from the ground.
In the blink of an eye, the guard's head was trapped in Dilven's deadly grip, caught in the same hand he had raised moments before.
The guard thrashed wildly, panic consuming him as he struggled desperately to free himself from the colossal figure's grasp. He tried to scream, but his words were muffled and incomprehensible, his mouth—along with most of his face—smothered by the hooded giant's massive hand.
Dilven stared at him in silence for a few seconds, his face showing no emotion.
"Pathetic!"
That said, with a decisive and relentless movement, Dilven tightened his grip.
The sound of the skull cracking echoed through the alley walls like the strike of a hammer.
The guard's head exploded in a macabre shower of bone fragments, blood, and grey matter, scattered everywhere like a grotesque mosaic.
The lifeless body of the guard collapsed to the ground with a dull thud, leaving a spreading trail of blood on the cobbled floor.
The remains of the skull and eyes lay scattered around, a grim reminder of the fate awaiting anyone who dared to obstruct Dilven.
Klark, still kneeling, desperately tried to recover. But he could do nothing to avoid the guard's remains from hitting him.
The warm, viscous blood splattered onto him, staining his face and clothes.
Dilven dropped what was left of the head, shaking his hand to rid it of the chunks of flesh and bone still stuck to his right palm.
Then, with a calm and deliberate gesture, he pulled out a large sack from under his cloak and threw it in front of Klark.
"From the Boss," he said, his voice low and threatening. "On these clothes are inscribed runes of invisibility. They will be useful to you."
Klark stared at the sack, still trembling and covered in blood. He tried to speak, but his voice was caught, suffocated by the confusion.
Dilven turned without saying anything more, his black cloak flowing behind him like a living shadow.
He walked towards the end of the alley, his pace slow, yet every movement seemed charged with unstoppable power.
Before leaving for good, however, Dilven paused for a moment and spoke without turning around:
"Don't mess this up, Klark!"
And with those words, the towering hooded figure vanished into thin air, as if swallowed by the darkness itself.
Klark remained still for a moment.
He was breathing heavily, his body still shaking with involuntary tremors as his mind tried to absorb the reality of the situation.
The smell of fresh blood and death surrounded him, while the sack in front of him seemed to pulse with dark energy.
"Ugly bitch!" Klark's voice grew fierce as the realization that he had been played by the servant settled into his mind. "Did she really dare lie to me all this time?!"
Klark jumped to his feet and quickly changed, putting on the new clothes the Captain had given him: black pants, shirt, and shoes. Keeping his old black tie on, he placed the previous bloodstained clothes in his black bag after using them to wipe his face.
He then walked towards the center of the capital to board the royal carriage that was waiting for him and return to the castle. Along the way, he would ask the coachman to stop under the pretext of needing to relieve himself, but with the true intent of throwing his old bloodstained clothes into a trash ditch, where a large fire was always burning deeper down.
But aside from that, two goals now echoed in his mind, an obsessive thought pulsing as strongly as his furious heart:
'I will kill the young Prince… AND THEN IT WILL BE YOUR TURN, CARMEN!'
{ PRESENT… }
The sharp hiss of fabric slicing through the air was relentless.
Klark's movements were a lethal dance, a spiral of fury that drew ever closer to Carmen, but never managed to touch her.
'All this time, you lied to me!' Klark roared inwardly, continuing his barrage of blows. 'You humiliated me in front of the Captain, and as if that weren't enough, now my family is at risk of dying because of you! But today you'll pay dearly, Carmen. I swear it! I swear it on the name of Zeus!'
As Klark's disdain grew, Carmen retreated slowly, her eyes focused and locked on her enemy. With a grace that seemed to defy the laws of physics, she parried every blow with surgical precision, moving like a shadow among the trees.
Whenever necessary, she darted sideways, narrowly avoiding the strikes of Klark's whip-tie.
The towering trees around them, innocent victims of their duel, were shattered and splintered with every blow of the whip-tie, crashing to the ground with a deafening roar.
Klark, already furious and determined, intensified his rage, advancing with increasingly savage movements.
The tie lashed out at everything in its path, relentlessly seeking to reach Carmen, but the assassin's mind, clouded by vengeance, made him less precise.
'Tsz!' Each missed strike only fueled Klark's fury. "You can't run forever!" he shouted, rage burning inside him like an uncontrollable fire as he intensified his attacks once more.
Carmen, however, remained unshaken, skillfully wielding her sword and carefully studying her opponent's every move.
Every lunge from Klark, every strike, every breath was recorded in her mind like a melody she was slowly deciphering.
'It's almost time…!' thought the red-haired servant, ready to seize the opportunity she had been waiting for since the very beginning to bring their fight to an end, once and for all…