In the dark shadows of the alley, Damien noticed some splotching on the ground and wall where the shadow was deeper and sinister. His heart came to a standstill that was much worse than when he took the lives of some beasts for the first time. To confirm his worst fears, he went down to these spots and felt a warm liquid soak into his hands. He trembled as he understood what it could possibly mean.

“It’s blood… but there’s still a chance it’s not of those kids…”

Damien tried his best to keep a positive mindset as the walls of his inner mind quaked. That’s when he heard light footsteps of multiple people coming from the villainous alleyway. Damien’s hopes rose exponentially as his mind tried finding a way out of his desperate mental state. Alas, his last hopes crumbled like the foundation of a poorly built house, it was never going to last. What came next was the voice of a typical snarky and malevolent man.

“It’s pretty late for someone to be snooping around in a place like this, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah. What are you doing here shortly? You don’t want to mingle in our business.”

Each person from their group gave their two cents since they felt empowered by their numbers. They were prodding Damien’s attitude and if he was sneaking around more specifically for them. They came up to him, surrounding him entirely. One of them poked Damien with a scabbard since he wasn’t responding. It made them lose the fun they were having with an isolated target.

“You’re no fun, just like those kids, right fellas? They put up no fight at all!”

“Don’t say that, Deit. I found great joy when we saw their excited little faces turn to agony, especially when they found out about their mother!”

“Right! When they came up to us to try to repay their mother’s debt only to find out she’d long lost her use with us. By the end of it she was just a zombie. Where’s the thrill in that?”

Damien’s mood became increasingly worse as they continued to make fun of their heinous actions. The only reason why they would talk openly about it in front of a stranger was because they felt no threat from him. Damien was emantating any strength but the coldness of his heart slipped into deeper depths beyond what he could comprehend.

“I wonder how they even came about such a sum of money. Makes you wonder if our guy here came to check on them after providing it. You wouldn’t be that wealthy bloke, right?”

The man who was called Deit stooped down to Damien’s level and put his arm around his shoulder. He thought he would feel Damien trembling for his life, however all he felt was a calmness that made him eerie. Deit psyched himself out of the foreboding sensation and continued to jabber onto Damien. Before anything got out of hand, Damien struck his arm out to his side, where Deit was. He grabbed Deit by the neck and lifted him up as he stood up himself. Damien put enough pressure where he would still be able to reply, albeit with some difficulty.

“What did you do to those children?”

The others around him were too stunned to move or speak. Deit tried his hardest to remove Damien’s arm from his neck to no avail. It was like an iron rod that wouldn’t bend. Deit coughed at some blood as he spoke in grunts.

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“We killed them…”

Damien squeezed harder to the point where his hand went through his skin and snapped Deit’s windpipes. Damien let him fall to the floor with no remorse as his loss of morality had long left him with his sense of self. Damien pointed at another among their group, who took a step back from being outed.

“How did you kill them?”

It was like their mouths were sewn shut as no words came out. All they could do is tremble in fear and lose control of their bladders. Damien had no time for their own fears so he took a step forward indicating his stance. The rest of them plopped down to the floor as they tripped over themselves. Damien came up to the one who was the most terrorized and squatted down to be face to face. His eyes were blazing through the darkness of his disguise where he now seemed like an entirely different person.He grabbed his lower jaw and cheeks and forced them open. He moved his mouth to open and close multiple times.

“This is how you talk. How about you start before you end up like him over there.”

The man before Damien couldn’t help but look over to Deit who was now dead. He suffocated on his own blood that came out like a fountain, staining the ground a new color. Seeing that was more than enough to speak, but it was hard when the pressure you felt made you feel like you were drowning.

“W-w-we didn’t personally do it. We just dragged them away from here and handed them over to our boss. I swear that’s the truth!”

It was as if Damien’s eyes were able to peer through any truth or lies when he looked directly at him. He seemed satisfied that he answered truthfully but he was not lenient on their punishment since they were all a part of the equation. Damien placed his hand on the man’s chest and felt his bearing heart working in overtime. Damien slowly activated his Dao with a spark of his Mana, directly pulling in all of the man’s energy. In no time his life was snuffed out. The man was glued to his spot until a strong breeze blew by revealing he was just a pile of ash. Damien pointed at the last person remaining and got the last of the information he needed.

Damien was now looking for a man named Sevit who would entrap poor folk with their loan sharking and then use force to capture them. Then by his own discretion he would use them in any way to make up for some of their debt. For these people that Damien dispatched, they were once regular folk who fell into Sevit’s ploy. However, after time they also became wicked and poisoned by their so-called power. Sevit’s hideout was hidden by the guise of an abandoned factory where they dug below it.

Damien stared ahead at what he heard the last man described as the building. He had no thoughts about his actions nor how he had left their remains laid out for everyone to see. It was as if he was on auto-pilot, being governed by his intense feelings of regret, anger, and disgust. There was nothing at this point that could stop him from enacting revenge even though he didn’t even know those children or their struggles. All he could think about is how it was his fault for giving them the money in the first place. His naivety on how this world truly functions was lacking completely. His team with his friends at the academy shielded him from what was truly a dark reality.

Damien snuck into the building and found the way down to Sevit’s true hideout. He stuck to the shadows while he made no noise. He heard a faint laughter ring through the air followed by a wave of more. Damien knew there were more of them but he wasn’t worried about their strength. He was more worried if there were other prisoners of Sevit’s plots. He focused entirely on his hearing while he filtered out the jovial laughter of the others. Damien very slightly heard the sound of disheveled breathing close by. It was of multiple different people who were barely clinging onto life. He also heard the sound of healthy snoring, believing it to be the guard.

Damien came to find a large beast man with obvious features that originated from an Ape Bloodline. His arms and legs were disproportionately large compared to everything else. He was sound asleep when Damien appeared like a phantom in the darkness and quietly let him go to an eternal sleep. Damien opened the door he was seemingly guarding which caused him to witness a horrific scene. There were a multitude of women of various ages and backgrounds close to death. They had no muscle mass as they looked just like skeletons with skin on them. If he were in his normal state of mind, he would’ve vomited there and then, unable to continue. However, something deep inside Damien was slowly taking over, waiting for him to continue to lose control.

His Flame Core was pulsing relentlessly, trying to pry him away from his state of mind like the wise words of a mother to no success. Deep inside another voice was telling him that the logical solution was to end their suffering, that there was no way back for them after what they had been through. Damien couldn’t help but to instinctively agree with the suggestion, so he took the steps to end it as painlessly as he could. He didn’t care to be exposed anymore since he felt no threats in the vicinity. Sevit would have to be in the Heaven Realm to even put up a good fight.

Damien activated his Dao with the full support of his Mana, instantly vaporizing all the poor suffering souls in the room. It was so fast they would have not felt a single sensation of pain. He brought all of their absorbed energy to a flame he held which illuminated his cold eyes.

“You all gave me your strength to enact this revenge on your behalf. This is the least I can do.”