Together, Voldrak and Flonda moved around discreetly, asking questions as they waited for night to fall. The family head they would be attacking was called Crutal, one of the main three, and Voldrak didn't think in the slightest that anyone could stop him.
It was pitch black, not a trace of the moon in the sky, when he quietly moved forward with Flonda behind him. His intent was to take out the guards in front of the poorly constructed house, but Flonda insisted on doing it herself. Her footsteps were lighter than one would expect for someone of her size as she stepped forward and swiftly brought the guards to the ground.
Voldrak moved past her, heading straight to the largest house around. He was surprised to see that it had been well-constructed, just as he had noticed with some of the best houses, just as sturdy as the PARADIM building he had fought in.
He didn't hesitate to throw open the doors and stride in after the guards had been tossed to the ground. A nasty grin spread across his face as he moved inward, his footsteps no longer quiet; he wanted whoever was inside to know he was there. In his hands was a small stone sword, which he toyed with, spinning it around with ease through his fingers. It wasn't until he stood a few steps away from the huge bed, with two people lying naked on it, that he came to a full and complete stop, the nasty grin still on his face.
He didn't need to make a sound, as one of them—the man lying down—suddenly startled awake, his eyes instantly locking on Voldrak, fear wiping away any remnants of sleep.
"At least you're not that weak!" Voldrak thought as he watched the man set an intense pair of eyes on him.
"Who are you?" the man shouted, his voice loud enough to have drawn the attention of the guards if they were still awake and not unconscious on the ground. His yell roused the woman beside him, who looked at him with intense fear in her eyes as she scrambled off the bed and to the ground, backing away as though trying to go around him and escape.
"I—I know nothing! I'm just a slave!" she cried, and the muscled man on the bed, with long streams of black hair, sighed, his eyes lazily drifting over the body of his servant before ordering her out.
"You can leave! He's here for me!" The man sighed as he slowly got to his feet, rolling his shoulders as he bent under the bed to pull out a long stone sword.
The slave didn't hesitate as she immediately turned and ran, but Voldrak moved swiftly, just in time to match her steps. He was completely naked and without a weapon, and it took only two seconds for him to tear a hole through her neck, pulling out the bloodied sword as her blood spurted out and she crumpled to the ground.
"Black hides the blood well enough," he mused as he looked down at his clothes and confirmed that no trace of the blood that had clearly splashed on him could be seen. Before he raised his gaze back up, he already felt the anger radiating from the man in front of him, whose eyes burned with a desire to see Voldrak die a painful death.
"I am Crutal, leader of the Crutal family," he growled in a deep voice, his muscles swelling as he gripped the sword tightly in his hands. "You come to kill me? That's expected. But to kill my slave?" He continued as he raised the stone sword and pointed it straight at Voldrak.
"I will rip your heart out of your chest and feed it to the dogs! Your bones, I will grind with my teeth, spit onto the ground, and stamp under my feet!" Crutal took a step closer to Voldrak. "I will do even worse to the sole slave you were granted and make her rue the day she became your slave!" he added, chuckling slightly, his shoulders squared as he now stood just two steps in front of Voldrak. His sword was only inches from Voldrak, who stood naked, showing no concern for covering himself.
"I will fuck her and have her serve me before your body is embraced by the coldness of—" At this point, Voldrak had heard more than enough. He slowly began to channel the dark energy in his soul into his muscles, just as he had done for the beast. He moved forward as the middle-aged man opened his mouth to finish his sentence.
"...death," Voldrak's face was an inch from Crutal's as he buried the stone knife into his neck. But unlike with the man's servant, Voldrak jerked the sword back instead of pulling it out, carving the man's head off his neck without flinching. He lifted the head by its strands of hair, satisfied to see the stunned look plastered on the dead face.
"You talked such a big game, I almost thought there was more to you. But there isn't, is there?" Voldrak muttered, a trace of disappointment in his voice as he stared at the severed head and watched fresh blood continue to drip from it onto the ground. "Everyone in this realm is weak!" he barked, his voice dripping with arrogance as it echoed through the room. He tossed the head aside with a look of distaste on his face.
"Well...it looks like I'm done here!" he sighed, just about to turn around when his skin prickled with danger. The last remnants of the dark energy embedded in his body gave him just enough warning to avoid a long, sharp needle. However, another embedded itself into his shoulder, causing a burning pain. Voldrak refused to show it as he turned his gaze toward the door.
His eyes widened slightly as he watched a woman enter, holding a steel blade to Flonda's back. The lanterns scattered across the room shone just enough light for Voldrak to miss nothing about her figure.
She was slender, and unlike Flonda, her skin seemed to glow as she moved with an elegance Voldrak hadn't seen in the base realm. Her long blonde hair swayed behind her. Her white clothes wrapped around her body in a way that teased at more than the swaths of flesh she deliberately chose to reveal. Her breasts were bound with a thin strip of cloth, so thin that her nipples were visible.
"MEN!" she barked out, a smile playing on her lips, betraying the excitement she felt at being watched. "At least there's no lust in your eyes," she chuckled before giving him a light-hearted smile, one that might have seemed sincere if Voldrak hadn't noticed how slowly Flonda ground her teeth together in pain. It was clear that the woman wasn't just holding the blade to her back—she was slowly pressing it in.
"I don't know who you are, but I'll give you one chance to leave," Voldrak said, more irked than angry as he smoothly pulled the needle from his shoulder and tossed it aside.
In hindsight, he realized that using only a little dark energy would have been enough to kill Crutal. Although he didn't want to use it again, he was confident that even less would be sufficient to deal with the woman in front of him. But then he watched the smile on her face widen, her eyes slitted in mirth as she turned her blue gaze toward him—though in the darkness, it was difficult to tell their true color. She raised her right hand, the one not holding the sword, and spoke.
"I should be the one saying that. And I would, if I weren't sent here to kill you, Voldrak," she said, amusement dancing in her eyes as Voldrak watched her roll her fingers. More long needles shot out of her palm into the air, coated with what he could have sworn was water.
They shouldn't have this much power! he thought to himself as the needles shot straight for him.