Chapter 105 — Outer Region Bloodbath II

[Twenty Minutes Earlier - Outside the Iron Barrel]

The rain had intensified, turning the streets into rivers of filth and debris.

Outside the Iron Barrel pub, roughly twenty men stood guard in various positions.

Some huddled under the building’s awning, trying to stay dry. Others patrolled the perimeter despite the downpour, their Auras providing some protection from the cold.

They were a mixed group from all five organizations, sent to ensure their leaders could meet without interruption.

Alexei, one of Viktor’s enforcers, stood closest to the entrance. He was D rank, experienced and cautious by nature. He’d been doing this kind of work for years and had survived by never underestimating potential threats.

"This weather is absolute shit."

One of Chen Wei’s men, a skinny guy with a perpetual cigarette, complained from beneath the awning.

"We could be inside somewhere warm, but no, we have to stand out here like idiots while they drink expensive alcohol and plan strategies."

"Stop bitching and stay alert."

Alexei’s voice carried authority despite not being the highest ranked guard present.

"The bosses are nervous enough to call this meeting. That means something dangerous is happening. We don’t get paid to be comfortable, we get paid to make sure nobody interrupts."

"You think this Mafia everyone’s talking about is actually a threat? I heard they’re just Academy kids playing gangster."

"Academy kids who apparently absorbed the entire Serpent Gang and killed one of their leaders. Yeah, that sounds like kids playing games to me."

Another guard, one of Maria’s people, spoke up with obvious sarcasm.

"Real kids would’ve gotten themselves killed immediately."

"Maybe they got lucky. Maybe Marco saw an opportunity to use them as puppets. Either way–"

Alexei stopped mid-sentence.

The rain was still falling heavily, creating a constant white noise that made hearing difficult.

But something felt wrong.

His instincts, honed through years of surviving in the criminal underworld, were screaming warnings.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what? It’s pouring rain, genius. Can’t hear shit."

"No, I definitely heard something. Like footsteps, but–"

The guard next to him disappeared.

He didn’t run away or fell down. He just vanished as if he’d never been standing there.

"What the fuck–"

A massive black shape exploded from the shadows.

Kuro, grown to the size of a wolf, his body writhing with dark energy, his beak open impossibly wide.

The raven’s jaws closed around the guard’s entire upper body and he was swallowed whole before he could even scream.

The sound of bones crunching was audible even over the rain.

"CONTACT!"

Alexei shouted, his Aura flaring, his weapon materializing in his hands.

But it was already too late.

Damian emerged from the rain like a ghost, moving with inhuman speed.

His axe wasn’t in his hands. He hadn’t bothered with his primary weapon for this.

Instead, he grabbed an empty alcohol bottle from a nearby trash pile as he passed.

The first guard to react raised his gun, finger tightening on the trigger.

But Damian was faster.

The bottle shattered against the man’s face, glass shards embedding in his eyes and cheeks. He screamed, dropping the gun, his hands going to his ruined face.

Damian caught the falling gun, spun it around, and fired three shots.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Three guards dropped, holes in their foreheads, dead before they hit the ground.

The others scattered, trying to find cover, trying to activate their defensive Auras, trying to coordinate a response.

But Damian was already among them, moving like a predator through sheep.

He grabbed one guard by the throat and slammed him face-first into the brick wall.

Once... Twice... Three times...

The skull cracked on the second impact. The third impact turned it into paste.

Brain matter and bone fragments slid down the wall as Damian released the body.

Another guard tried to attack from behind, a knife glowing with Aura aimed at Damian’s back.

Kuro descended from above, his talons extended, gleaming like blades.

The claws tore through the guard’s throat, severing arteries and windpipe in one strike.

Blood sprayed in an arc as the man fell, gurgling, drowning in his own blood.

Damian picked up a metal pipe from the ground, probably left over from some construction project.

One of Maria’s enforcers, a woman with short-cropped hair and gang tattoos covering her arms, charged at him with a machete.

She was D+ rank, fast and skilled.

It didn’t matter.

Damian sidestepped her slash, grabbed her arm, and spun her around.

The metal pipe drove into her lower back, precisely between two vertebrae.

"AHHHH!!!"

She screamed as her legs gave out... paralyzed from the waist down.

Damian didn’t stop there.

He stepped on her back to hold her down, gripped the pipe with both hands, and drove it straight down through her body.

The pipe entered from her lower back and emerged from her stomach, pinning her to the ground like an insect in a collection.

"Argh!!!"

Her screaming turned to wet, bubbling sounds as internal organs were punctured and began filling with blood.

Alexei, the most experienced guard present, had been trying to organize a defensive formation.

"Fall back! Get inside! We need to warn–"

Damian appeared in front of him.

The movement was so fast Alexei barely registered it before Damian’s hand was wrapped around his throat.

"You’re not warning anyone."

Damian’s voice was calm, almost gentle.

Then he squeezed.

Alexei’s Aura flared desperately, trying to protect him, trying to reinforce his throat enough to prevent crushing.

Damian’s Slaughter Intent crushed the defensive Aura like it was made of paper.

CRACK.

The hyoid bone snapped, the trachea collapsed and the blood vessels burst.

Alexei’s eyes bulged as he tried desperately to breathe through a throat that no longer functioned.

Damian held him there for several long seconds, watching him suffocate, before finally releasing him to collapse on the ground.

The remaining guards were completely panicked now, all formation and discipline gone.

Some tried to run. Others tried to hide. A few stood frozen in terror.

But it made no difference.

Damian moved through them methodically, efficiently, killing each one with whatever weapon was convenient.

A broken bottle to the jugular. A boot to the temple hard enough to snap the neck. A piece of rebar through the eye socket into the brain.

One guard tried to surrender, dropping his weapon and raising his hands.

"Please, I have kids, I was just hired for this job, I don’t even–"

Damian grabbed him by the hair and slammed his face into his own raised knee.

His nose shattered, teeth broke and flew and the orbital bone cracked.

Then he did it again.

And again.

And again...

Until the face was just a pulped mess of blood and broken bone.

Kuro had grown even larger, feeding on the death energy saturating the area.

The raven descended on a cluster of three guards who’d tried to barricade themselves behind a dumpster.

His beak tore through defensive Auras like tissue paper.

His talons shredded flesh and muscle.

His impossible jaws opened wide and swallowed one man whole, armor and all.

The other two screamed and ran.

Damian caught them both.

One he threw into the wall with telekinesis, the impact so hard the brick actually cracked and the body embedded slightly into the surface.

The other he grabbed by the back of the head and drove into a metal support beam.

The beam went through the man’s mouth and out the back of his skull, the point emerging bloody and dripping.

Finally... an eerie silence spread.

The twenty guards were now all dead or dying.

Their blood mixed with the rainwater, creating pink rivers that flowed down the street drains.

Damian stood in the middle of the carnage, rain washing over him, diluting but not removing the blood that covered him completely.

He looked down at his hands, crimson with gore, and took a deep breath, as a creepy smile spread across his face.

"How lovely... How absolutely beautiful..."

His voice was filled with genuine satisfaction.

Music was still playing inside the pub, some old song with a heavy bass line, completely oblivious to the massacre that had just occurred outside.

"I couldn’t kill those stupid Noble students at the Academy without causing massive political problems. But here? Here I can kill as much as I want and nobody gives a shit."

He rolled his neck, joints popping.

"My mind feels so much clearer now. So much more relaxed. There’s something therapeutic about violence when you don’t have to hold back."

After knowing the truth about his past and current life, Damian was starting to change. When he conducted violence now, he didn’t feel like a psychopath, unlike the time when he tortured the terrorists in the school.

But wasn’t someone like him a psychopath? Smiling creepily as he smelled the blood.

When Damian will conduct mass slaughters in the future, he will reflect back to this exact moment. The moment where he let go of all the moral barriers in his mind that still held him back.

Kuro landed on his shoulder, having returned to his normal size, though his feathers were matted with blood and viscera.

"Ready for round two?"

The raven’s eyes glowed brighter in response.

Damian walked toward the pub’s entrance, stepping over bodies, his boots splashing through puddles of blood.

Time to meet the bosses.