It was silent after the knock. Damian walked slowly towards the door from the pristine white couch of the living room. Nobody was supposed to knock.

Once he made it to the door, he tapped his forehead twice and looked through the small peephole. Behind the door, there was no one to be seen. Only an undisturbed front lawn was visible where bare trees swayed. Their leaves would be returning soon.

"Yo? Someone there?" he called.

'Should I run? No, that's the expectation. If the objective was to catch me, they wouldn't knock,' he thought before performing a few setups.

With reinforcement and enhancement of both the muscles and the senses complete, Damian opened the door. For a moment, he saw nothing. Then there was a flash of something moving at incomprehensible speeds even for his enhanced sight.

'Huh?' Damian's mind stood still as before he could even sense any pain, he was blood floating through the air. Crimson splashed onto his colorful clothes and the smooth white walls.

Fingers. His fingers. The fingers of his left hand, all except for his thumb were gone. Sliced off in a second with no warning or reasoning. Senseless, unfiltered violence.

Damian thumped as he fell back onto the ground, his fingers hitting the ground right after. He couldn't breathe. His bloodshot eyes shook like never before.

At the door stood a man with sharply-fitted jet-black clothes, the only exceptions being his silver belt buckle and crimson gloves. Over it all, the man wore a long and open, black, hooded coat.

Damian grabbed his hand, pain and blood flooding. His eyes darted all over the figure landing on his featureless gloves, sharp shoulders, and finally his gleaming blue eyes. There they stopped.

The man removed his hood and brushed back his golden hair and cocked his head with indifferent eyes before taking off his gloves and shoving them in both sides of the pockets of his textured pants.

Damian had only seen the man's face once before, and despite it having been one and a half years ago, that face had been imprinted in his mind so thoroughly that seeing him now, he could tell just how much he had changed. If before, he had looked like an angel, he now seemed like the physical manifestation of God. His face and body had fully matured. No longer could a single fault be pointed out. His skin was smooth and tan and his features were perfectly cut and symmetrical. He was like a sculpture made by a virtuoso with no hesitation and absolute mastery.

"Don't worry, you can get them reattached," he said before walking past. "Hmm, at least you didn't lie about having a nice place," he remarked nonchalantly.

Only after, he was gone from Damian's sight, could he draw breath again. Quickly thereafter, Damian picked up his finger before rushing to the kitchen for something close to freezing temperature. He scrambled all over with his hand leaking blood all over the tiles on the floor.

He quickly sanitized the wounds before grabbing towels and soaking them in cold water. After wrapping his severed fingers as well as his hand in the towels, he put the other towel into a bag and put it into the water as cold as he could get with his system.

The coolness of the towel helped him cool his panic. He had to get to a doctor within hours. But he had bigger problems.

He walked into his living room and found the problem looking out of the large window and down at the city in the distance, his hands wrapped behind his back.

"Please, allow me to explain," Damian begged pressing on the towel a little harder than necessary.

Aurelius turned to glance at him quickly before gazing back at the city. "No need. You were only doing your job when you gave away my location to the Ruler of Mircrest. And I was an idiot to trust you. You could say I deserved it. I say you deserved that," Aurelius said, nodding to Damian's hand.

Damian gulped as he walked up to the window, careful to keep his distance. He started saying something, but by then it was clear that Aurelius didn't want to hear any more of it. His mind then drifted to the logistics of the situation.

"Oh, I see," he said, raising his chin as he realized it. "You're the liveD."

Aurelius looked at him. Damian wasn't short by any means, but standing next to Aurelius made him feel like a dwarf.

"I was afraid you'd be expecting me, but seeing as how they are still making a fuss about me in Mircrest, I don't blame you," Aurelius said, his tone increasingly weird.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Damian looked down. '100 000 gold is enough to make any man drool. Of course, it would seem like he's still in the country despite you having left almost a year ago,' Damian realized his mistakes while taking hissing breaths. 'And with the rate the liveD has been tearing through Nexus, I should've known it could be no one but him.'

Aurelius' eyes narrowed as he looked at the city. "So... Doresh. The safest place in Arkryk. I should've known you'd be here. That way I could've saved a lot of time and wouldn't have had to converse with any criminals."

Damian raised his gaze. He hadn't heard about anyone asking questions. That could only mean one thing.

Aurelius met his gaze and answered his unasked question. "I fail to see why I should spare any criminal lives only for them to ruin my operations."

Damian gulped. 'He wouldn't engage in a conversation like this only to kill me later, right?'

"Can I ask why you looked for me?" Damian asked, praying inside.

Aurelius inhaled and looked down on the city with hard eyes. "In the next few months, you'll help me prepare an attack on the Supreme of Nexus... and I will end him."

***

Six years past, in the capital of Arkryk, a crowd of people was split as a line of heavily guarded carriages passed through the city.

All were empty except for one, where a man with a young face coupled with dirty-blonde hair and a dark gaze of disdain lounged. He wore rich but thin clothing that shifted loosely over his muscular figure as he looked around, his eyes fluttering from boredom. Then, curiously, a sharp rock came flying in through a window. It hit the floor having been wrapped in a curtain.

The man jumped to his feet and banged on the door, yelling for the guards to stop the carriage. Moments later, the whole line stopped and the door opened. Stairs were brought for the man as he descended from his carriage and looked the crowd over.

People trembling from his mere presence.

"Sir, it's not safe for you to be—"

The man raised a hand and shut the guard's mouth before speaking to the crowd of peasants. "Do not fret, nobody has to get hurt. You see how I have been wronged, yes? My property has been destroyed, and my presence disrespected. I oblige you to hand over the wretched criminal, so this can be solved formally, for without responsibility, we are but animals," the man talked as he walked amongst the crown while he straightened his clothes.

The crowd split as whispers broke out. The man frowned. "If I ignore such a crime, what kind of example would I set for all those who look to me as a guide." Still, no criminal was brought forth. "It seems I will be forced to convict you all." More whispers. Then some yelling, and finally, a boy and his mother were tossed into the clearing that had formed around the man.

The boy had curly hair and a pale birthmark on his right cheek and was but 12 years old, however, his gaze had developed into something so purely negative it was almost admirable. His mother didn't seem aware of it, though. She simply shut her eyes and held onto her son who kept glaring at the man.

"Did you throw the rock boy?"

"He didn't I swear he—"

"I did," the boy interrupted his mother.

"Do you know who I am?" the man asked.

"You're the King of the Rat Bastards," the boy said and spat at his feet.

The man frowned. "Am I now? Says who? Your father?" The boy's face twisted with anger as he tried to get out of his mother's grip. "Oh, I guess the right form is 'said'. Assuming my so-called rat bastards flogged your incompetent father."

The more the boy tried to rip loose, the harder his mother held on. "I'll kill you," the boy seethed. "The last thing you'll see is me looking down at your corpse!"

The man squatted down. "Since you seem confused even now, I shall introduce myself properly. I am Oprheus, the Supreme of Nexus. I killed your father, boy, as I have killed many others before and will kill in the future. And you cannot stop me. Do you know why?"

The boy ground his teeth so loudly that it almost echoed. An amusing sight.

"It is because power is my birthright, and you have none. I'm sure your parents have nurtured you in a way that would suggest you can do the impossible. Hell, you obviously believe it, you brat. But you can't. You're a common child. This conversation I give you now is more special than your entire existence. The world has no spot for the giftless. You, your father, and your mother are all akin to the wind. You are born, you pass through and you die down. I, on the other hand, was crafted to be special. My birthright was to have it all, but I earned it myself, nevertheless. And that is simply because of the specimen I am. Those are the existences you and I behold."

This time the mother glared up at Orpheus as well.

"You may have it all, but you also have a bad heart."

"Oh?" Orpheus raised a brow as the mother stood up. "A bad heart? Then you must have a good one. And the function of a heart is to keep one living and breathing, so tell me... what kind of good heart stops its function so easily?" Orpheus manifested a blade at the tips of his fingers and shoved his hand through the woman's chest.

Her eyes went wide. For her it was sudden. Like Orpheus' hand would have teleported and suddenly she was dead. When he took his hand out, she collapsed as if her legs had turned into liquid. The boy stood still during the exchange before rushing to his mother in a panic.

Orpheus guessed the boy hadn't known his actions did not only merit consequences for him. And although he was ready to die for his stunt, he hadn't imagined her mother's fate. Orpheus shook his head lightly as he loosely flung the filth from his other hand. Such selfishness.

Orpheus looked around to see the shaking crowd. His guards repelled any and all attacks, but it didn't really matter.

Before turning to leave? He glanced down at the boy one last time. "I will forgive you for the window as I see how you grieve but do reform yourself. You may yet have a future ahead of you."

The boy turned his bloodshot eyes to Orpheus. "The gods will punish you"

Orpheus laughed. "No, little boy, the gods have punished you through me. Why else would I have my power if the gods did not want to see this?" Orpheus paused and let the boy gape at the truth of the world. "Exactly. The gods hate weakness. That is why strength prevails in the world. And while you hope for a savior from the heavens, the gods laugh at your suffering, and I do too."