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Condemned To Death
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15th September, 1507
"Dude, thash guy needs to like, chill out, man. You're not like, thash important." slurred the drunk friend of the pockmarked guard, his words slightly muddled by the alcohol.
"Yeah, no shit, man. I was like, tryin' so hard not to, like, diss him, y'know?" chimed in his equally intoxicated companion, taking a swig from his bottle.
Just as he was about to continue his complaints, he felt a hand gently grip his shoulder. He looked up through drunken eyes and saw a stunningly beautiful girl standing beside him, dressed provocatively in lingerie, smiling seductively at him. His jaw dropped slightly as he took in the sight, excitement coursing through his body.
"Can't take your eyes off me, huh?" the girl teased, running her fingers lightly over his shoulder.
Meanwhile, his friend watched with envy, wondering how this guy managed to attract such a girl.
Suddenly, a soft voice whispered near his ear, "Care to share what's on your mind?" the warm breath tickled his ear. The man jumped a little, scared at someone suddenly sneaking up on him. He turned around to see another equally gorgeous girl standing beside him, dressed in a bikini and high heels.
Stunned, he stammered, "I-is there something you ladies need from us?" his voice a mix of nervousness and excitement at the unexpected situation.
The two girls secretly exchanged a knowing glance, silently communicating their thoughts as they prepared to perform what they had rehearsed 100s of times before.
"I see you guys are enjoying the view," one of the girls remarked with a playful smile.
Her companion followed up, "How about we make some memories together?"
They then simultaneously leaned in close to the men, lightly kissing their cheeks before whispering seductively, "For an unforgettable night."
The two friends exchanged glances, understanding the girls' intentions. Grinning mischievously, they rose from their chairs.
"Kyah!" the girls exclaimed briefly as the men swept them off their feet, one in each arm.
"Watch me blow your brains out," one friend declared confidently, carrying his girl towards the exit in his arms, while the other followed suit with equal determination.
...
Seren watched with a subtle smile on his face as he saw the girls had succeeded, and now it was his turn. The dimly lit tavern buzzed with the chatter of patrons and the clink of glasses, providing the perfect cover for his next move.
He sat at a random table, his eyes scanning the room for his target. He waited patiently for the pockmarked Raven guard who had gone to take a leak, the scent of stale beer and sweat hanging thick in the air.
After about five minutes, the man finally returned, his steps unsteady and his eyes glazed over in a half-drunk state as he stumbled towards his table. When he reached there, he found that both his friends, with whom he had been drinking, were missing.
"Those shitheads don't even care 'bout my feelings, man!" He yelled in an annoyed voice, his words slurring as he dropped his body onto the chair, continuing to indulge himself in alcohol.
Seren tied his long hair into a bun, the strands falling gracefully against his neck. He got up from his seat, his movements fluid and casual, as he silently activated the Luminar crystal and the refraction manipulation concept he had created beforehand.
With measured steps, he approached the drunk pockmarked Raven guard, taking the seat opposite him with a drink in his hand. As the guard looked up from his glass, he saw his friend sitting in front of him with his black hair tied into a bun, wearing the Raven guard’s uniform.
The pockmarked guard's face instantly lit up with joy as he exclaimed in a joyful voice, "Dude, I totally thought you ditched me with the tab!"
Seren took a mouthful of alcohol, slamming the drink onto the table as he tried his best to mimic a drunk expression and imitate a squeaky, yet slightly hoarse voice. "Someone was callin' me from outside, had to check it out for a moment."
"Yeah, yeah, I geddit. But why's your voice all funky-sounding?" The guard questioned, his brow furrowed in confusion.
Seren didn't say anything, allowing the guard to observe him in silence. Then, the guard spoke again, his voice cranky. "I bet you were having s'much fun with a girl, weren't ya? Hic."
Seren only laughed awkwardly in response, letting the Raven guard make the assumptions himself. He started to make small talk with the guard, his mind racing to maintain the illusion.
Unbeknownst to the guard, Seren had first used the Luminar crystal to create a soft light that enveloped his entire body. Then, he employed the refraction manipulation concept to change the wavelength of the light on the electromagnetic spectrum, altering the color of the light. With a complex combination of these two laws, Seren was able to change his appearance, creating light and then manipulating its color to resemble the pockmarked guard's friend who had been there just five minutes ago. Seren could even bend the light to make himself appear taller or more muscular than he truly was.
As Seren and the pockmarked guard continued to chat, the guard's complaints about the hardships of his job filled the air, providing a constant stream of background noise that further concealed Seren's deception.
After some time of getting familiar with the guard's personality, Seren asked casually in a drunken state, "But, like, why're they suddenly bumpin' up relic prices? I mean, come on, an' org... organ... organization this big? No way they'd be strugglin' with their supply chain, right?"
"Honestly, I don't buy it as well," the guard said, his tone becoming contemplative before he became silent, watching the alcohol swirl in his glass.
Seren frowned internally when he saw the guard wasn't speaking anymore and also seemed just as clueless about this whole situation. Just as Seren was about to prompt the guard to say something more, the guard brought his chair closer to the table and leaned toward Seren. It looked like the guard wanted to share a secret, so Seren also leaned in, his ear turned toward the guard. He could smell the awful scent of alcohol emanating from the guard's mouth, but he couldn't care less as he attentively listened.
The guard then whispered in a hoarse voice, no longer drunk, "Recently, the headquarters have started recruiting new ranks in mass."
The guard's expression turned grave as he said in a solemn voice, "We might be on the verge of war with Chimera Vale."
Seren's heart shook instantly as he tried to grapple with the words swirling around his head. 'A war? With Chimera Vale?' Seren was starting to lose his composure internally, but he still kept his facade up as he put on a shocked expression.
Just as Seren's mind was racing through countless possibilities of what the future would hold, he noticed the two drunk friends of the guard entering the bar. 'Shit, those girls couldn’t keep them long,' Seren thought quickly, trying to devise a solution. Suddenly, the Raven guard grabbed Seren by the neck and pulled him closer.
"So, like, there was this girl the other day, you know? An' I was watchin' her, jus' like, watchin' her go by an' stuff. But, man, lemme tell ya, her curves, ohhh, they were amaaazing!" The guard gestured to Seren as his other hand moved in a gentle motion, depicting the girl's body.
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Seren played along, showing an interested expression with a sly grin on his face, but internally, he was racing against time to get out of this situation before the friends reached their table.
"Oh, you mean a girl like that?" Seren pointed behind the guard.
The guard turned his head to look behind, but there was no one there. "What girl?" he said, confused, as he turned his head to look at Seren.
Splash!
Seren splashed the pockmarked guard’s face with the alcohol in his glass.
"AHHHHH!" The guard screamed in pain. "The fuck are you doing!" he yelled in an angry voice as he let go of Seren and grabbed his face in agony. His skin turning red, and inflammation had started forming on his face, and part of his cheek even melted a little.
Seren instantly got up from the chair as he quickly changed his face to a random person's before bolting out of the bar. He brushed past the two friends of the guard, but they were too drunk to notice him.
The two friends joyfully glided toward the pockmarked guard's table. When they saw him, one of them dropped to the seat across from him and said, "Oh, hey there, you're back! Yeah, I'm here, been floatin' around, you know? Hic!"
BAM!
The pockmarked guard's fist connected with a sickening crunch, sending the friend with the black bun tumbling from his chair to the ground, clutching his profusely bleeding nose.
"AH, Shit! Fuck! The hell is wrong with you, man!" the fallen friend yelled, his eyes becoming red and watery from the brutal punch as he looked up at the pockmarked guard in disbelief.
The pockmarked guard didn't stop to listen to his friend's pleas. With a sudden burst of rage, he threw the table in front of him to the side, the glasses and bottles shattering on impact. He then pounced on the fallen friend, straddling him as he rained down a relentless barrage of punches, his knuckles connecting with the friend's face again and again.
"Stop! Stop!" the friend cried out, trying in vain to guard his face with his arms as the pockmarked guard's fists continued their merciless assault.
The other friend stood stunned for a few seconds, watching in horror as the pockmarked guard unleashed his fury, his face beet-red and a portion of his skin seeming to have harsh burns. The tavern descended into chaos, with people scrambling to intervene, some rushing to aid the fallen friend while others tried to restrain the enraged guard.
...
Seren walked the dimly lit streets with a deep frown etched on his face, rubbing his index finger and thumb together as he contemplated the pockmarked guard's ominous words. Previously, Seren had secretly activated his Luminar crystal relic, and shot a concentrated beam of light into his liquor glass, instantly superheating the alcohol inside. He had quickly devised a plan to splash the scorching liquor onto the guard's face, giving him a window of escape from his precarious situation.
'Why are the authorities suddenly wanting to start a war with the Ravens?' Seren tried to untangle the knot of thoughts swirling in his mind. 'Is it because the Ravens are getting too powerful? No, that can't be the case. They wouldn't have worked with them in the first place if they were to be concerned about that.'
Seren continued his aimless wandering through the labyrinthine streets, his saddles echoing hollowly on the cobblestones, attuned only to his troubled thoughts and oblivious to his surroundings. 'I don't have enough information to arrive at an answer yet. The lower-ranking guards and officers likely don't know the full situation, so there is no point in trying to pry it from them.'
By this point, Seren had already reached the rusted iron door he had come through earlier. He didn't open it immediately, instead staring at it in silence, the eternal night of the underground city hanging over him like a shroud.
'A war, huh...' Seren contemplated, his brow furrowed in thought before a subtle, sly grin crept onto his face. 'Good, now I finally have a way to increase my strength rapidly.'
He then pushed open the rusted door as it opened with a creak, walking into the dimly lit tunnel beyond. There was no light this time in the narrow passageway, and only complete darkness surrounded him, swallowing him whole. Seren scanned the inky blackness with his keen senses but noticed nothing out of the ordinary as he began walking forward with no sense of direction, guided only by instinct. The door behind him had already closed on its own with a dull thud, and Seren could no longer see its outline in the gloom.
After walking for a while, Seren's vision slowly started clearing up, the darkness gradually receding. Through the dimness, he could barely make out that he was walking on a stone pavement and surrounding him were two dark walls.
As he continued to walk forward, his vision was eventually restored to its normal lighting. When his sight was fully restored, he found himself in the empty alleyways of Chimera Vale, the crimson moon hung silently in the star-speckled sky, casting an ethereal beauty over the glowing streets in the distance.
'The security is quite tight. I couldn't even tell when I had come back to the surface,' Seren ruminated before taking off the mask and putting it in the storage artifact he had bought earlier.
He then started walking towards the street in a buoyant mood as he thought up how he was going to use the war to his advantage. The crimson moon cast long shadows across the cobblestone streets, creating an eerie atmosphere that seemed to match Seren's scheming thoughts. 'I will first need to find the reason behind the war but thankfully, I will be meeting the receptionist from the relic shop alone tomorrow. I should be able to get the information I nee–'.
Just as Seren was summarising his next plans, he caught sight of something from the corner of his eye that made him stop in his tracks. A slight frown appeared on his face as he thought for a bit before walking backwards a bit at a cross-section in the alleyway. To the alley on his right, he saw a group of homeless men gathered around as one of them flaunted a gold coin in his hand to the others who gazed at him in awe. The glint of the coin shone dimly in the night sky.
Seren looked to the side and saw a motionless body lying on the ground as a bunch of bugs and flies buzzed around it. The sight and sound of the insects was enough to make anyone unaccustomed to these sites double down and recoil in visceral disgust.
Ignoring the rowdy crowd of homeless people, Seren approached the motionless body with measured steps. The distant street lights cast long shadows across the alley, but Seren's eyes, accustomed to the darkness, took in every detail with clinical precision.
He bent down slowly, his expression remaining neutral despite the gruesome sight before him. The body lay awkwardly on the ground, its head covered in human feces. The face was unrecognizable at first glance, obscured by layers of filth.
A potent stench of decay and excrement permeated the air, but Seren's face betrayed no disgust. With his hands, he began to wipe away the feces from the victim's face. His movements were methodical and efficient, showing no hesitation or revulsion as his fingers became stained with the filth.
After clearing away the grime, Seren studied the revealed features. He instantly recognized the man as one of the homeless individuals he had given a gold coin to earlier. His eyes narrowed slightly, the only outward sign of his inner thoughts.
Without pause, Seren placed two fingers near the neck of the homeless man. The skin was cool to the touch, and he detected no pulse. Seren's expression remained unchanged as he confirmed the man's death.
Closing his eyes briefly, Seren took in a deep breath and let out a slow, controlled sigh looking down at the body with an unreadable expression.
As Seren stood over the body, his keen ears picked up the conversation from the group of homeless men nearby. Their words cut through the night air, each syllable dripping with malice and twisted pride.
"Kekeke, that little dipshit was so stupid, saying he wanted to go return the gold coin to the original owner because he didn't deserve it," the homeless man holding the gold coin chuckled, his voice laced with cruel amusement.
"I told him to split it among us brothers who had been with him since day one through thick and thin. I can't believe he would rather choose to give the gold back to that white-haired rich kid instead of sharing it with us," the man continued, his words eliciting nods of agreement from his companions.
"Serves him right, the ungrateful bastard," one of the men spat, his voice thick with contempt.
"Yeah, we're family here. You don't turn your back on family," another chimed in, earning murmurs of approval from the others.
"Tell me brothers! Was I right in my actions?!" The homeless man with the gold coin raised his hands, pride evident in his voice. The chorus of approval that followed was deafening in the quiet alley.
"You did what had to be done, boss!" shouted one man from the back of the group.
"He got what was coming to him!" yelled another, his fist pumping in the air.
"Ahahaha, good, good! I will be sure to split this token of wealth equally among us," the man exclaimed loudly, his voice echoing off the alley walls. The promise of wealth sent a ripple of excitement through the crowd.
"We're gonna eat like kings tonight!" a scrawny man exclaimed, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
"I call dibs on new shoes!" another voice rang out, followed by scattered laughter.
The leader then pointed to one of his companions, singling him out from the group. "And you, over there with the limp arm. Good job with throwing the shit on that traitor's face. Someone like him doesn't deserve to die with respect. I will give you a bigger share than the others."
"Thank you, boss! I'm honored!" the man with the limp arm gushed, his eyes shining with gratitude.
"Lucky bastard," someone muttered under their breath, just loud enough to be heard.
"Brothers! It's time to party tonig–" Just when the homeless man holding the gold coin was about to announce the celebration, he felt a tap on his shoulder that made him stop mid-sentence. The group fell silent, their earlier bravado evaporating as they sensed a new presence in their midst.
His face still smiling heartily, the leader turned around, his eyes meeting the calm gaze of a white-haired man standing before him. The stranger's face bore a light smile, but there was something in his eyes that made the group leader's smile falter for a moment.
"I wish to give you another gift," the white-haired man said softly.
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Condemned To Death
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