Chapter 97 — Beautiful Night II

"Second-year students." Damian’s voice was quiet, almost thoughtful. "I thought it might be Nobles. But I wasn’t sure until now."

The fourth one raised his hand, a combat knife appearing in his grip with a defensive Aura coating.

"Back off! Do you know who–"

Damian moved.

The telekinesis skill activated, and the knife ripped itself from the student’s hand.

Then it reversed direction.

The blade drove straight through his palm, pinning his hand to the wall behind him.

"AHHHH–"

His scream was high-pitched and agonized, echoing off the alley walls.

The fifth one tried to run.

Damian’s hand shot out, telekinesis gripping him like invisible fingers around his throat.

He was dragged backward through the air, his feet kicking uselessly, and slammed down onto the alley floor hard enough to crack the pavement beneath him.

All five of them were now immobilized.

Some were unconscious and some were barely awake... disoriented and in agony.

Damian walked slowly through the alley, examining each face carefully in the moonlight.

Then he pulled out his axe.

The blade caught the light as he crouched in front of the first conscious one, the stocky boy with the shaved head.

"Let me introduce myself properly. I’m Damian Valcor. First year, Section A. You might have heard of me."

His voice was conversational, pleasant even, which made it infinitely worse.

The student’s eyes went wide with recognition and terror.

"You–you’re that commoner who–"

"Yes. That commoner." Damian smiled pleasantly. "And the girl you attacked tonight? Her name is Ariana Sterling. She’s one of mine."

He let that sentence hang in the air while the implications sank in.

"W-we didn’t do anything! She got away before–"

"Before you could finish what you started?"

Damian’s smile didn’t waver.

"Yes, I know. I saw what you almost did to her and I saw what you did to her. The bruises on her throat from where you held her down. The marks on her skin from where you grabbed her. The tears in her clothes from where you tried to rip them off."

He stood up and moved to wake the others, using small amounts of pain to bring them back to consciousness.

"Argh..."

One by one, they came to, groaning, disoriented.

"She couldn’t stop shaking even after I carried her to safety. Even after my professor started healing her, her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. She kept saying ’don’t touch me’ over and over because you broke something inside her."

His voice remained perfectly calm, which made every word more horrifying.

"But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I want to make sure all five of you are awake and paying attention. It would be terribly rude to start without everyone’s full participation."

****

What happened next would haunt that alley forever.

Damian started with the tallest one, the apparent leader.

"You were the one choking her, weren’t you? I can tell by how large your hands are."

The young man’s eyes were wide with terror, tears and snot running down his face.

"Please, I’m sorry, we made a mistake, we’ll never–"

CRACK.

Damian’s boot came down on the man’s ankle, shattering it completely.

"AHHH!"

The scream was immediate, raw, absolutely primal.

"I’m not interested in your apologies. I’m interested in making sure you understand exactly what you did. What you tried to do and what you would have done if she hadn’t escaped."

He moved to the next one.

"You held her left arm down, didn’t you?"

CRACK.

The elbow joint bent backward at an impossible angle, the bone splintering audibly.

"AHHHH–MOOMMM!"

More screaming... Desperate and agonized screaming that nobody would hear in this abandoned part of the city.

Damian worked methodically, breaking bones in sequence, ensuring each of them felt escalating levels of pain.

Knees, Elbows, Shoulders, Ribs...

Each break was precise, calculated to cause maximum pain without killing immediately.

"This is what helplessness feels like. What she felt when you held her down. When you ignored her screaming and struggling. When you decided her suffering didn’t matter because she was just a commoner."

Their Auras flared desperately, trying to activate defensive techniques, trying to heal, trying to do anything.

Damian’s Slaughter Intent crushed them effortlessly, pressing down like a physical weight that made their own Auras sputter and die.

"You’re D+ rank students in your second year. You’ve had training, resources and advantages she never had.

And you used all of that to hurt someone weaker than you... How does it feel now that someone stronger is doing the same to you?"

The one with the knife still pinning his hand to the wall was whimpering, trying to pull free.

Damian walked over and twisted the blade.

"Arghhh!"

The scream was wet and gurgling, as blood poured down the wall.

"This is the hand you used to tear her clothes, right? Let me see it properly."

He yanked the knife free.

The hand came with it, severed cleanly at the wrist.

The student stared at the stump in absolute horror, blood pumping from the wound in rhythmic spurts.

"Fascinating how the body keeps trying to survive even when it’s obvious it’s over, isn’t it?"

Damian examined the severed hand thoughtfully, then set it aside.

"Four more to go..."

The next hour was methodical, brutal, and absolutely merciless.

Damian took his time with each of them, ensuring they felt every moment of what was happening.

When he took the second hand, the victim had already passed out from shock, so Damian waited patiently for him to wake up before continuing.

"I need you conscious for this part. It’s important you understand what’s happening."

The third one tried to bargain, offering money, family connections, anything he could think of.

Damian listened politely while sawing through the wrist with his axe blade, the process slow and agonizing.

"Your family name means nothing to me. Your money means nothing to me. The only thing that matters is that you touched what’s mine. And that has a price."

By the time he reached the fourth victim, the man was already begging for death.

"Please, just kill me, please, I can’t–"

"But we’re not done yet. I still need your hand."

CRACK. SLICE.

"Ahhh...ahh...ah...."

The wet sound of the blade cutting through bone and sinew was accompanied by a scream that finally went silent as the victim’s mind simply shut down to escape the trauma.

The fifth one had been watching all of this, unable to move, his legs broken, witnessing his companions being systematically dismembered.

When Damian finally approached him, the student was already non-responsive, his eyes vacant, lost in psychological shock.

"Shame. I was hoping you’d stay lucid longer."

The axe fell anyway.

Five hands lay in a row, pale and bloodless in the moonlight.

Damian picked up their discarded masks and carefully placed one hand in each mask, folding the fabric around them almost tenderly.

"These trophy presentations should do. I think Ariana will appreciate knowing you’ll never use these hands again."

Then he moved to the final step.

"You know, in my old world, there was a saying about how the eyes are windows to the soul. I always wondered if that was true."

He crouched beside the leader, whose vacant eyes were still technically alive, though barely.

"Let’s find out, shall we?"