Chapter 13: Murders In The Night
As the moonless night covered the sky of the city of Aries, A scream was heard from the residence of the chief of the local newspaper Ronald Grover.
Inside the residence, the old man was bleeding out on his bed with a horrified look on his face as he had just woken up screaming in intense pain; He looked at the source of pain and saw a bloody dagger being drawn out of the wound in his chest, the wound was covered in golden glow overlaid with a purplish glow.
As the old man looked at the wound in disbelief, he visible saw the blood flowing out turn from red to black and felt an unbearable pull in his chest; He was going into cardiac arrest.
As his vision got blurry and his head fell back onto his pillow, he managed to turn it to face the one attacking him and tried to say something with his final breath.
"Who aa..."
Unfortunately before he could complete what he was about to say, His eyes glazed over and his tense body relaxed, with the blood flowing from his chest increasing slightly as he lay on the bed motionless, his face showing an unaccepting look as he lay there dead.
Moments after his death, a blue energy floated out of his chest and went into the chest of the figure standing over his bed.
The figure that was motionlessly watching him bleed out all this while, started shrinking as it turned into a black fluid like substance and melted into the shadows on the ground.
Meanwhile, the lights in the neighboring houses could be seen turning on one by one as some neighbors stepped out to locate the source of the scream, there were many adventurers in this town with most of them being upper bronze rank or lower silver rank, and they could identify the source being the powerless old man that had been living in the town for so many years.
As the neighbors grouped up and attempted entering the house, unaware to them in the shadows on the footpath just outside the house, an obtuse shape that was darker than the shadows surrounding it was moving towards another house.
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The death of Ronald Grover was not the first one that happened that night and it sure as hell wasn't the last, as within 15 minutes from the time his scream had echoed in the surrounding area Mr.Grovers' house, the shadow entered another one, merely 10 buildings away.
At the towns' adventurers' association a sleazy eyed receptionist was sweating from his forehead as he heard the report of the various murders happening across town one by one, He reported this to the branch leader.
The branch leader was a gray haired man with an eye patch over his right eye, a scar could be seen coming from under the eye patch and continued over his misshapen nose; He had a thick gray mustache that was turned upwards at the end and was wearing a red cloak that left his chest exposed.
Across the exposed chest, three wide scars could be seen, looking like scratch marks from a giant wild beast.
This was the same man that had led the meeting to handle the response for the massacre in the tier one towns around 9 years ago.
When the peon sent by the receptionist entered the branch leaders' room after being granted permission to do so, he saw the white haired old man standing and looking out of the window into the neighborhood below, twirling the right end of his mustache with his hand.
"I know about the situation, give me the locations of the attacks known so far" the old man said without turning his head.
"Y-yes Sir!" the peon said, coming out of his state of awe as he looked at the branch leader. He moved towards the hulking figure of a man who stood over 7 feet tall and handed him the report given to him by the receptionist.
"The numbers are all in there" (peon)
"I get it, you may leave, tell the receptionist to inform the response team 1", the old man said, and he opened the window in front of him.
As the peon stood awestruck, the old man jumped out of the window as a green mist began forming under him.
The green mist soon surrounded his feet as he fell downwards a little and then disappeared from view, while the old man had stopped falling and was now seemingly floating in the air.
After he finished looking at the report, he threw it back into the room through the window and made eye contact with the peon as he did.
"I-I'm sorry sir I'll go inform them right away" The peon said as he stumbled clumsily out the door of the branch leaders' office, dropping some of the documents that had been in his hand while scrambling away.
The old man outside sighed and muttered something under his breath before he kicked the air beneath him and flew off into the sky at a surprising speed, The papers in the report lying inside the room flew out of the window due to the change in wind pressure and could be seen by the people entering the adventurers association branch as they scattered in the air and fell slowly to the floor.