O'Brien loosened his steel grip on the man. He was beginning to look like a cooked prawn and would soon die from asphyxiation.

That would be too clean a death in O'Brien's eyes.

While he didn't have any female relatives to suffer any secondhand trauma from their defilement, his previous girlfriend he thought to be his love was enough.

After seeing it right before his eyes and being forced to watch, every rapist that ended up in his hands had the grudge package of death.

Slow and sweet.

While he didn't feel as much anger as he did back then at the sight of them, having grown used to such acts, it had already become a habit and favorite entertainment of his.

Watching as these previously 'strong' men begged for their lives.

O'Brien even felt slightly excited at the thought of doing so again.

As expected, the peaceful pacifist life wasn't for him.

"Please. They forced me to do this! I didn't want to. They threatened me and my family!" The head grandma was already wet with tears. She looked as if she had only a cup of water for moisture in her entire body, so it was surprising the waterfalls she let loose.

As she grabbed his ankle, pleading her case, O'Brien gave her a bored look.

"Do my eyes look like they're for decoration? You were so cooperative for someone being threatened. I wasn't born yesterday. Don't worry though. You're last."

O'Brien gave a sweeping kick in her gut, sending her flying to the wall with a thud sound.

She continued to bawl her eyes out, but he was unimpressed.

He had killed several seniors, and unlike now where they were all bark and no bite, the ones he met were wily old foxes and annoying cockroaches.

Strong too. Very strong.

With card essence and certain regenerative cards, it was possible to regain one's youthly appearance and vigor. Like sipping from the fountain of youth.

Even just card essence circulating through your body had restorative effects. There was a reason why scientists dubbed it ‘the energy of life evolution’. Even just the card essence without cards was amazing enough and could pioneer human evolution on its lonesome.

A rare breed of lunatics single-mindedly pursued 'higher martial arts' with the blessing of card essence, which they called Heaven and Earth qi.

Through self-discipline, self-exploration, and hard work, certain martial art styles were created and improved upon whose effects and combat ability matched several cards.

Then, several sects and temples were created by these men of discipline, standing at the forefront of the righteous factions.

Had they not succeeded they would be just that; lunatics. But those sons of bitches did it, headed by thousands of years of Chinese discipline and hundreds of years of other various types.

Of those martial arts masters, the old men were to be feared, their skill and experience predated the apocalypse and their newfound powers were a deadly combination.

O'Brien felt his current physique could match one of those martial masters at the same level.

He had been growing incrementally stronger for weeks and now could fight ten men easily without using cards or his card essence.

Amazed by his growth, O'Brien felt taking that risk in the face of death and uncertainty was the best thing he ever did.

One of the men crawled forward with tears and snot dripping down his face, breaking O'Brien out of his train of thought. "Please. Forgive me. I was blinded by lust, I —"

"Ah," O'Brien scoffed with a blank stare, remembering his current job, and stretched his limbs.

With a regretful sigh, he continued, "Sadly, although I can afford it now, I can't heal you since that one's in a bit of a shock over there,” he pointed to Lea, “and the other healing card I have can't be activated currently. Without the 'Thieving Death' , 'Death Surgeon', or a 'Nailed Saint' available nearby, I can't prevent your rapid death either… Pity."

He exhaled in disappointment. "Even Argul Worms and Love Leeches are out of the question, not in this region. Since you're all so weak and not even Card Masters, that makes it worse. I can only prevent you from dying for thirty-five — No, thirty minutes at most. Fifty if I really take my time. I guess that'll have to do."

"Give me a sec." O'Brien whistled to his wolf, having it watch them while he looked around the area for parts. He grabbed random things like steel pipes, shards of dirty plastic and glass, dirt, rusted wires; almost everything he could get his hands on.

‘Should I process them a bit?’

He wondered but eventually shook his head, thinking it would take too much time and energy.

"Wait, wait. Let's talk this out. Yeah, yeah — Those c-cards, I know something. I saw the leader hide a few more than he gave you. The greedy bastard. You should punish him. I know where he keeps them he-yukgh!"

Crawling backward in fear while trying to bargain with O'Brien, the ringleader was greeted with a powerful controlled kick that left him bent in an obtuse angle on O'Brien's outstretched leg.

Picking him up by the collar, O'Brien crushed his toes and went over to lightly twist the ankles of all the others before going back to him.

Soon, ear-piercing screams and howls reminiscent of a pig slaughterhouse echoed in the dim light of the dark before eventually dying down.

*

"Well, that was way quicker than I expected. Too bad."

O'Brien sat down on a mangled body with holes and cuts covering every inch of skin. Blood-stained dirt was stuffed in both nostrils, tiny fragments of glass were in the pupils, and his mouth was gagged with a bloody object with two shriveled hairy orbs. It was a horrible gag, held in place by a tied cloth which might have been a better gag.

Blowing a wave of smoke, O'Brien sat disappointed in himself. "I could've done better. Didn't think I was that rusty, but I guess I got practice." He looked over the six other badly mangled men and one other lightly tortured man all gagged in the same way.

Sadly, O'Brien only managed a max time of twenty-two minutes for the longest person. A lot less than expected.

He ended up getting bored after ten minutes and started with all the others at the same time. He successfully prolonged the total time but two accidentally died without his consent in the process.

"Those were accidents they don't count…" he muttered, looking at the only two corpses.

"You...mon...ster," the barely recognizable ring leader weakly cried out.

"Pots and kettles, Baldy. Pots and kettles."

O'Brien tapped the ringleader's bloody and now plucked bald head, before casually stretching his legs and then dealing the killing blow when he heavily stomped down, crushing his skull and killing him instantly.

The man couldn't feel his life flash before his eyes, but he did feel regret for his actions and peace having been released from this mortal coil. Grateful that he was leaving the same space as that monster.

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"There it is again. What the hell is it? Am I hallucinating?" O'Brien muttered.

Thud.

Thud.

His heart slightly sped up and he felt the strange presence of 'something', but as soon as he felt it, it disappeared like he was grasping smoke.

He went over to kill the six other men and experienced the fleeting sensation again, but it disappeared too quickly each time. He logged the lightly injured man over his shoulder and looked over to the shaking grandmas hugging each other for emotional support.

They all looked at him like he was the devil incarnate.

He grabbed all of them up by the hair with one hand and dragged them over to the four women who had now somewhat recovered and covered up.

Well, they were absolutely traumatized by O'Brien's torture session.

"This isn't TV where you overcome your internal values formed by your parents, environment, and society and finally kill an enemy. The intent to kill and intent not to kill makes a difference when fighting man to man. So here. Kill them."

O'Brien tossed the old women like rag dolls toward Rose, Lea, Jules, and Roya.

The women immediately started begging strongly after hearing O'Brien's words.

"P-please!"

"I have a family, children, grandchildren!"

"I didn't mean it. If I could go back and change things, I would never have come!"

O'Brien took the remaining man from his shoulder and placed him before his teacher.

"I saved this one just for you. He was the one having fun groping you."

As if remembering something, he casually added, "Oh, you don't have to do it if you don't want to. I left only old women since they'd die too quickly if I touched them, even just a little bit like this one here." O'Brien pointed to the sole man as he spoke to Roya who had already killed many people.

"Since she doesn't need hers, I'll give her to you," he said, turning to Rose and kicking Roya's designated old lady towards her.

O'Brien looked at their blank faces and sighed in disappointment.

"Hello? Wake up! You have a decision to make. Give them their due or be 'merciful'. If you don't kill them, then I will no longer train you and find some other way to repay Rose, like an expensive gift item or something. There's a lot of those; natural treasures or special cards. Or, you can just stay there like corpses refusing to do a thing if you don't have the stomach for it."

He waited a while and watched as they stared silently at their counterparts.

"Tsk. What a disappointment."

Well, if they didn't learn with him, they would learn after they eventually parted ways.

O'Brien clicked his tongue with slanted eyes and walked away.

The unmistakable whoosh and thud of a stab broke the heavy silence.

O'Brien turned midway to see Jules impale one of the elderly women with a piece of steel, breaking through her brittle bones in the process.

As the old woman writhed, she kicked her with the Boots of Hermes she had summoned in anger.

"How could you?! How could you hold us down as they did all of that?!" She stomped her to death with each word, brutally ignoring her screams.

O'Brien whistled as he witnessed the brutal murder. He had honestly been expecting vanilla if anything, nothing so hardcore.

Lea hesitated and bit her lips. Staring between O'Brien and the old lady in front of her, she took a deep breath, and slit the lady's throat cleanly with clinical precision.

Rose wiped her skin where the man had touched her, and looked down at her ripe breasts that had red marks and dirty fingerprints on them.

Eventually, a hot feeling burned up inside her, wanting to get out. Her blood boiled both in fury and as a response to something inside her.

Rose's eyes glowed red as larger thorns reappeared on her body as they had when she first awakened. A bloody aura emanated from her like wisps and her thin delicate fingers grew claws before she ripped the man's heart out.

His bleeding heart was absorbed in the air by her body, hugging yellow-stemmed thorns, and a red rose bloomed on one flower.

Sssk!

Rose was slightly taken aback as she watched the man's blood drain away, sucked in by the thorns as well, turning him into a mummified corpse and successfully blooming two more rose heads on her thorns.

‘Come to think of it. What is her Natal Card?’ O'Brien thought to himself. ‘I only know it's of the White Silver grade and has vampiric features, but sucking blood without fang and or mouth contact? It must be pretty powerful.’

Vampires gained strength from blood, so it goes without saying how overpowered one who could suck blood from a distance was.

"I can't do it…" He was drawn back to reality by Rose refusing to kill the old woman.

"She was wrong, yes, but…she has her circumstances.” Rose shook her head, looking at the terrified old woman who had been crying a river before freezing on the spot at her words. “She's just a weak old lady. There's not much she can do to get ahead in times like these."

O'Brien scoffed.

"After all that, you still have this to say…" O'Brien shook his head. “Still so stubborn, I see.”

"Well it's a pass I guess,” he shrugged. “As a reward, you can go back to sleep and Wolfie here will actually do his job as guard wolf and stop getting paid for nothing." O'Brien looked at the curious wolf sniffing the shriveled corpse and approached the remaining elderly woman who was profusely thanking Rose.

But Rose didn't look at her at all. She refused to kill her and forgave her wrongdoing, but she would never forget such a horrible thing.

Of course, O'Brien didn't leave loose ends.

The joyful old woman felt a hand twist her neck in a full 180. She started up at her killer as her brain registered her death.

The cold eyes.

Wheat-coloured skin.

The sharp yet calm visage.

It was Roya who had moved in.

She turned to O'Brien giving him a cold look of displeasure. "We obviously can't go back to sleep. We want to fight. You said you'd bring us around the city."

She wasn't stupid and realized he had something to do with her falling asleep so suspiciously.

O'Brien pretended he was dumb and looked to the others, "Are we in agreement?"

Jules responded in kind and so did Lea after a while. With a glare from Roya, Rose also completed the unanimous vote.

"Well, I want to sleep, so we'll wait anyway," was what O'Brien wanted to say, but he would rather not stave off attempts of his assassination in his sleep since the worthless wolf was only luckily activated and he did not have a second set of activation materials available after three more days.

Valuing his sleep and peace, he approached the women and led them outside.

The morning sun rose over the purple-tinted clouds on the horizon, beginning its ascent in the sky.

The air was fresh but solemn as in front of them was a city in ruins and overflowing with monsters.

***

New Roselee City

Celes led her group of seven through the city, slowly wiping out each group of goblins they met.

"Conserve your card essence,” she instructed. “At this early stage as Card Apprentices, you're all at the lowest level with only light ash grey card essence. Those of you with Red Steel natal cards can last a bit longer with more layers of your aperture penetrated, but at this stage, the difference is not that big. So conserve every bit of essence."

Celes was like an army commander leading her troops through war on her flying tank of a bird.

The Goblins gritted their teeth, unfamiliar with fighting humans but fighting hard nonetheless.

They brandished their clubs in large swings but were easily dodged each time.

"Card essence can be used to reinforce body parts or produce bursts of power, but be careful as this can drain you. Essence Coating is a skill from a card but it can be learned without one with a little training in the right direction. It's your go-to when fighting weaker monsters like goblins without racial skills."

Celes felt a bit proud watching her team evade the Goblin's strikes and place their critical blows in.

They were armed with machetes, but each machete had a light ashy glow to its edge.

At this point, the small groups of goblins didn't require her to interfere and they could manage them quite easily.

They spent the day making a circle around their base and placing markers. Minnie looked around several places with Celes as they evaluated the usefulness of the terrain.

With their base as the center, they were expanding our in all directions.

Now they were killing several birds with one stone by fighting against goblins, increasing their combat experience, training new skills, and reducing the monster population, while they surveyed the land and made plans for their checkpoints, lookout spots, and traps.

As their home field, they had to create more of an advantage for themselves other than knowing the terrain. Turning the entire area into an impregnable fortress was a given if they wanted to maintain a strong position in the city against upcoming enemy forces.

Celes combed Sapphire's feathers as she so often enjoyed and taught her little maneuvers and combination sequences even in their free time.

As she was taking five minutes to go over another maneuver with her trusted partner, she felt the magical emblem on her skin warm up and thoughts were transmitted to her mind.

"Celes, we've met people," Minnie reported, but there was an odd cadence in her voice.

"What is it?" Celes inquired.

Celes felt Minnie's emotions transmitted with her voice through the Spiritual Link Insignia, so she was aware there wasn't any danger, but she was curious as to what was causing such a thick mixture of surprise, confusion, suspicion, and amusement in her best friend.

"One of them seems to be the same as you, a God's Favoured, Blessed One, you know. It's just that... Well, you'll know when you see them."