Chapter 106 — Outer Region Bloodbath III

Damian pushed open the door to the Iron Barrel pub, and the music immediately washed over him.

Some ancient rock song was playing from speakers mounted in the corners, the bass thumping rhythmically, completely at odds with the carnage he’d just committed outside.

The main room of the pub was surprisingly crowded despite the late hour and terrible weather.

Criminals, lowlifes, dealers, enforcers from various small-time operations all drinking, smoking, playing cards, conducting business.

The kind of people who thrived in the grey areas of society where laws were suggestions and violence was currency.

Damian’s entrance didn’t immediately draw attention.

He was just another blood-soaked figure walking into a criminal establishment. Not exactly unusual in the Outer Region.

But then someone actually looked at him properly.

Saw the amount of blood covering him. Saw Kuro perched on his shoulder with gore dripping from his beak. Saw the completely empty, cold expression in those crimson eyes.

"Holy shit, who’s this kid?"

The nearest table of card players stopped their game, hands drifting toward concealed weapons.

Damian didn’t acknowledge them.

He walked calmly to the bar, his boots leaving bloody footprints on the floor, and grabbed an unopened bottle of whiskey from the counter.

The bartender, a grizzled old man who’d seen everything the criminal world had to offer, opened his mouth to protest.

One look at Damian’s face made him close it again and take a step back.

Damian twisted the cap off and took a long drink straight from the bottle.

Then he turned to face the room, the music still pounding in the background, and smiled.

"Everyone who works for Viktor Slade, Chen Wei, Maria Cortez, Dmitri Volkov, or David Lorenzo has exactly ten seconds to leave this building through the front door."

His voice carried easily despite not being raised, cutting through the music and ambient noise.

"Ten. Nine. Eight."

The room erupted into motion.

Some people bolted for the exit immediately, smart enough to recognize a threat when they saw one.

Others hesitated, looking to their companions for guidance, unsure if this was a serious threat or just some crazy kid.

"Seven. Six. Five."

More movement now, the smarter ones dragging the slower ones toward the door.

"Four. Three. Two."

About half the room had cleared out.

The remaining twenty or so people were either too drunk to process what was happening, too proud to run from a teenager, or genuinely didn’t work for any of the five targeted organizations.

"One."

Damian set the bottle down on the nearest table.

"Wrong choice."

Then he moved.

The closest man, a heavyset enforcer with a scarred face, tried to draw his gun.

Damian grabbed the bottle he’d just set down and swung it like a club.

The glass connected with the man’s temple with a wet crack, shattering on impact.

Blood and whiskey mixed as the enforcer dropped, his skull fractured, whiskey pouring into the open wound.

A woman lunged at Damian from behind with a knife, her movements enhanced by D- rank speed.

Kuro launched from Damian’s shoulder, his small body transforming mid-flight into something larger, more predatory.

The raven’s talons caught her face, claws digging deep into eye sockets.

"AHHH!"

She screamed as Kuro ripped backward, taking her eyes with him.

The woman collapsed, clutching her ruined face, blood pouring between her fingers as she shrieked in agony.

Three men rushed Damian simultaneously from different angles, clearly experienced in coordinated attacks.

Damian’s telekinesis activated.

Chairs, bottles, glasses, anything not nailed down in the immediate area suddenly became projectiles.

One man took a chair to the chest with enough force to shatter his sternum. He went down gasping, unable to breathe, ribs punctured through his lungs.

Another caught a whiskey bottle directly in the face, the glass exploding on impact, shards embedding in his flesh like shrapnel.

The third made it close enough to actually throw a punch.

Damian caught his fist mid-swing, twisted the arm until the elbow joint bent backward with a nauseating pop, then drove his own fist into the man’s throat.

The man’s trachea collapsed as his eyes bulged as he clawed desperately at his throat, trying to draw air that wouldn’t come.

BANG

"Ulugh...glug..."

Damian released him and he fell to his knees, slowly suffocating, making horrible wet gasping sounds.

The bartender had pulled out a shotgun from beneath the counter, his hands shaking as he aimed it at Damian.

"Get the fuck out of my bar, kid, or I swear to God I’ll–"

Damian’s hand shot out.

Telekinesis ripped the shotgun from the bartender’s grip and sent it flying across the room.

Then the same invisible force grabbed the bartender himself and slammed him face-first into his own bar counter.

Once... Twice... Three times.

The wooden surface cracked on the third impact, splinters mixing with blood and teeth.

The bartender slumped unconscious, his face completely destroyed, nose broken, jaw dislocated, several teeth embedded in the wood where his face had struck.

Two enforcers tried to escape through the back exit, having finally recognized that staying was suicide.

Damian grabbed a metal pipe that had been serving as a makeshift curtain rod and hurled it like a javelin.

THWUCK

The pipe flew straight and true, entering through one enforcer’s lower back and emerging from his stomach.

The man looked down at the metal rod protruding from his body in shock, blood already soaking his shirt.

He tried to pull it out, his hands slipping on the blood-slick surface, before his legs gave out and he collapsed.

The second enforcer made it to the back door and actually got it open.

Kuro was faster.

The raven, now grown to the size of a large dog, crashed into the man from behind.

His impossible jaws opened wide and closed around the enforcer’s head.

CRUNCH.

The skull collapsed like an eggshell between Kuro’s beak.

Brain matter and bone fragments scattered across the floor as the headless body twitched and fell.

A dealer who’d been hiding under a table tried to crawl toward the exit, whimpering in terror.

Damian walked over calmly and grabbed him by the ankle.

"Please, please, I’m nobody, I just sell to these guys, I’m not part of any organization, please–"

Damian dragged him back across the floor, the man’s fingernails breaking as he tried to claw at the wooden boards for purchase.

There was a support beam in the middle of the room, thick and sturdy, holding up the second floor.

Damian grabbed the man’s head with both hands and drove it into the beam.

The impact made a hollow thunk sound.

The man groaned, dazed.

Damian did it again.

And again.

And again...

Each impact harder than the last, the beam developing a dark red stain where the head kept connecting.

By the tenth impact, the skull had cracked open.

By the fifteenth, the man had stopped moving.

By the twentieth, there was barely anything recognizable as a head anymore, just a pulped mess of blood, bone, and brain matter smeared across the beam.

Damian released the body and let it crumple to the floor.