Felix walked in to the complete disinterest of the patrons already inside. While most glanced at him before going back to their drink, some lingered much longer, observing whether he would qualify as their next prey.

Unsurprisingly, this establishment was seedy, to say the least. To the back was what one could qualify as a makeshift casino, where multiple patrons were seated around tables playing their games of chances. Occasionally, one could hear a customer rise and shout in a loud and irate voice, claiming their opponents had cheated, to which the most rational response was a punch to the face.

To say this place's security was low was an understatement. Most were left to their own devices. There were no laws to follow and no guards to enforce them. After entering, whether or not one could leave safely was entirely up to them.

Felix spotted the bar to his left and went as Sofia followed him in. While Felix's appearance didn't make waves in this pond of filth, Sofia was a different matter. Most of the patrons were rugged males: either criminals or mercenaries. The few women brave enough to be here were prostitutes attempting to make a quick buck.

Seeing another woman enter, dressed as she was, lit a flame in the hearts of men and their groins. Most men here had been starved of female companionship for a long time and, as such, were plagued by self-destructive tendencies.

One of the biggest men, easily over two meters tall, approached Sofia. His arms were massive, much bigger than Sofia's thighs, while the shabby wooden floor creaked disturbingly with each and every step. His head was bald, fully displaying the hideous scar that spanned the height of his whole face, from his chin to the top of his head, right through his eye.

Judging by the other patrons' reactions, Sofia figured the man to be somewhat of a celebrity in these parts. Still, she saw no reason to entertain his filthy thoughts and opted to follow Felix to the counter instead.

Behind the counter was a small woman who felt entirely out of place here, yet no one seemed to mind, leaving her alone to do her job. Even as she served her customers their drinks, no one so much as looked at her wrongly or made snarky comments, as if doing so would lead to something they couldn't recover from.

The woman wasn’t particularly special; she was a woman you could find anywhere. Her facial features were average at best, and so was her body. She wasn't ugly to say the least, but nobody would look at her were she to walk down the street. She was the epitome of the common Altheran woman. Felix didn't feel much looking at this woman; comparing her to Sofia felt like night and day.

While Sofia was particularly attractive thanks to her heritage, most noble women would be beautiful in their own rights. As Felix was used to interacting with nobles, whether in his capacity as a mercenary or simply in the course of his travels, the same couldn't be said for most men.

To them, even the woman behind the counter could be called beautiful. Many would have tried to woo her if not for her particular backing. Yet, here came Sofia. Most men could only barely control themselves. Some couldn’t even.

Before the bald man could intercept them, Felix stepped before the counter, motioning for the woman's attention. He then spoke with a gentle smile, as if he had worked in customer service all his life.

“Pardon me,” he said. “May I have your attention? Could you ask Johnny to come to the front? I have some business for him. Tell him The Black Death is here to see him.”

Hearing this, most patrons shut up and looked at Felix. Even the bald man stopped dead in his tracks for a few seconds when he heard that name. Sofia could feel the tension in the air as everyone held their breath at the mention of this terrible humanoid plague that had swept the battlefields between the two nations.

Most of those in attendance were mercenaries or had dealt with them. As such, they were more than familiar with that name. The rumours surrounding it were uncountable. Some likened it to a natural disaster, while others to an underground assassination ring.

While rumours spread like wildfires during the last few years of the war, concrete information about this supposed man's appearance was basically non-existent. Yet here was a man claiming to be The Black Death itself.

The bald man burst out laughing, prompting the rest of the room to do the same. Sofia looked around the room in complete shock; this was far from what she had expected. Felix couldn't care less, and his gaze was still fixed on the woman, prompting her to go fetch the manager in the back.

Seeing Felix ignore him, the bald man scoffed and turned his attention to Sofia instead. While ridiculing a man was all fine and good, he much preferred dealing with this beauty. He approached her and sought to put his giant, rugged hand on her soft shoulder but was denied quite categorically.

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Without a word, Sofia spun, avoiding his grasp, before raising her long leg and embedding her knee into the man's side. Unfortunately, the size difference was simply too massive, and the strike was stopped by a wall of muscle.

The man grinned, trapping Sofia's leg in place with his arm. Sofia frowned but was undeterred. She raised her last anchor to the ground, letting herself fall, before she put one hand on the floor, temporarily supporting herself, and swung her leg upwards, striking the man's chin with the tip of her boot. The man’s head spun backwards due to recoil, letting go of Sofia’s leg.

Using the momentum, Sofia swung both legs overhead in an arc, using her hand as a pivot, before reaching the ground again; she then rose gracefully. Seeing this, Felix's eyebrow rose slightly. He considered helping her at first, but it seemed unnecessary. Still, this seemed so removed from what she had shown previously. Felix showed a slight smile; she had hidden her ability quite profoundly.

The man was still reeling from her blow; he shook his head, trying to disperse the dizziness, yet Sofia granted him no time to do so. She plunged forward; her head barely reached the man's chest. Her knee rose in a fury, yet it missed its mark. While he was taken by surprise, the man was no novice; he had seen his fair share of dirty fights. Despite Sofia’s earlier display, the man still looked down on her. This would come back to bite him.

With her plan thwarted and an incoming blow from the man's massive arm, Sofia saw ruthlessness as her only option. Her flexible limbs reached for the back of her leather corset with impressive speed, pulling out two thin but sharp blades no longer than her hands. With nimble movements, Sofia evaded the strike before striking the man's arm repeatedly, severing his tendons. Blood flowed profusely, dyeing the already reddish wooden floor.

The man winced from the pain, yet it didn't stop him from using his second arm as a backup. His fist flew forward, but it also missed its target by a large margin; Sofia wouldn't let this opportunity slip by. She held those two blades between her left hand's fingers, positioning them within the man's arm's path. The tip of those blades dug into the man's skin as the limb flew past, creating two large canyons that overflowed with a crimson liquid.

The man howled before gritting his teeth. His skin hardened somewhat, pressuring on the blades as if a vice. Unable to move them further, Sofia relinquished the ownership of those weapons before pulling out a replacement.

From her boot emerged a long, thin, somewhat flexible piece of metal. Sofia used it as a whip, striking the man without pause, causing countless red marks on his skin. With both hands out of commission, the man had nothing to protect him anymore except the sturdiness of his skin.

With nothing to lose, the man charged Sofia, hoping to ram her using his bulkier physique. Yet, all it accomplished was granting her a larger target. The tip of her metal rod was sharpened to a point. It easily plunged into the man’s skin, in the area between his leg and groin, severing the large artery providing blood to his leg.

The man collapsed from the pain and his lost balance. The man sought to rise using his only barely usable arm, yet all it accomplished was turning him on his back. Now slowly bleeding out and gasping as next to no oxygen reached his organs, the man's eyes pleaded Sofia for mercy. She would only grant a single one: a quick death.

Her gaze was frozen as she slowly approached the man, rod still in hand. Silence permeated the room as most patrons watched the show, slightly amused but bewildered that such a thin woman could be so ruthless. The man had simply wished to have a good time with her, yet all he would receive in return was death.

Sofia scoffed in her heart as she saw all the looks around her. Should she have let herself be taken advantage of like all the other prostitutes around her? Of course not. She was no hooker. Her life had always been in her hands since the fateful day she escaped her clan. She wouldn't relinquish her free will as long as she could fight.

Seeing the determination in her eyes, the man opened his mouth to beg her for leniency, yet his attempt came too late. Sofia plunged the sharp point deep into the man's eye, putting most of her weight into the strike. With so much penetrating power, the metal rod easily reached the brain.

At this point, Sofia stirred wildly before retrieving her weapons. She whipped the metal rod in the air, dislodging the brain matter and caked blood stuck on it before she wiped it on the deceased man's clothes.

Without so much as a flicker of emotion, Sofia turned away from the corpse as she sheathed her weapons, only to see Felix with a big grin. Only the sound of his slow clapping broke the heavy silence. The audience had been stunned into mild apoplexy. They couldn't believe what had happened even when they saw it with their own eyes.

Now, Felix’s claims to be the Black Death would be given much more credence. How strong would the man be if his companion was already so ruthless?

Less than amused by Felix’s expression, she walked past him and ordered a drink at the bar, at which point Felix’s smile only grew wider. Rarely had he seen a woman who was no seasoned veteran be so decisive in her methods.

While death was all too common on the battlefield, even he would think twice before slaughtering a man in cold blood. There was obviously something different about Sofia, something that even serial killers didn't possess: a cold indifference to lives unrelated to her. While he knew Sofia possessed empathy for people close to her, the same couldn't be said for strangers.

To Felix, it didn't feel like simple indifference; it felt more like something was missing altogether. Still, Felix didn't care much about the rabble in this place; none of those here were innocent. If anything, the world might be better off without them. Felix had no intentions of doing anything about it; there was trash everywhere, and he didn't run a charity.

As the audience was still reeling from the heightened emotions of the man’s demise, a man in a snazzy bartender outfit emerged from the back room. He frowned slightly as he saw the man sprawled out on the ground, dirtying the floor with his secretions. Yet, his expression soon returned to normal once he saw Felix; Sofia even spied the hint of a smile.

"You have no reason to bring your trash here and dirty my floor," the man said as he stopped behind the counter.

Felix shrugged as he pointed at Sofia using his thumb.

"Ask her. She's the one who did it," Felix replied, unconcerned.

The man’s eyebrow rose slightly, then looked at Sofia before he smiled. Then, with a wave of his hand, a wind picked up and pushed the corpse along the ground until it left the shop, tumbling into the street, along with all the blood it had shed.

"Now, with that out of the way, let's get to business," the man said as if nothing had happened.