Arc 7. Death to what came before
Road to a Hero:
Three Chances in Another World
Chapter 5. Natural predator
Right after Gray had asked the barkeep if he knew anything about the Sect of Anarchy, the tone in the room dropped. Gray had already prepared himself for failure, but surprisingly, the barkeep reacted in a way that led him to believe he may know something about them. The barkeep had stopped himself from cleaning, freezing in place. He then quickly returned to wiping down the tables, trying his best to ignore Gray, but he asked again.
Gray: “If you know anything, even if it’s the slightest bit of information, you better tell me.”
The barkeep still tries to act as if nothing is wrong, shrugging his shoulders and even going far enough to try and change his voice.
The barkeep: “Sorry man, I dunno nothing about anything.”
The barkeep turns around, finding Gray standing right in front of him. This causes him to shout and fall over, shaking to his core as Gray slowly approaches him. His coat begins to morph and change into its natural state, the cloak of darkness. He begins to force the spirit mana within the air to distort the light crystals in the room, causing everything to flicker on and off. Then, in an instant, between the lights blinking, he flows the bits of armor from within his cloak around his body.
His mask oozes over his face, his cloak expels from the rest of the black, rubbery goo, and then sharp pieces of metal flow out from within the cloak and go over his fingers, resembling claws. The barkeep, now amidst a scene in a horror movie, is looking upon the Phantom Knight. Gray stares into his eyes, picks him up by the throat and asks one last time.
Gray: “Now, do you wanna say anything?”
The barkeep finally breaks, fairly easily. But instead of claiming anything about working with them or for them, he asks for help.
The barkeep: “I NEED YOUR HELP! BUT YOU CAN’T RAT HIM OUT!”
Gray: “WHO!? RAT WHO OUT!?”
The barkeep: “MY BROTHER! HE GOT INVOLVED WITH THE SECT! HE NEEDS HELP!”
Gray drops the barkeep and begins staring through the window, watching the people outside peering into the bar, running away. He stares at his hands, his constantly shaking, sweating hands. The barkeep, scared for his life, watches as Gray struggles to keep it together. He attempts to stand up, but Gray being on edge, wraps him up in the cloak, pulling him closer.
Gray: “Where is he!?”
The barkeep: “IN THE TRADERS DEPO, NEAR THE NORTH EAST OF THE TOWN! YOU SHOULD SEE THEM PULLING IN TONIGHT! THAT’S ALL I KNOW!”
Gray tightens the grip the cloak has on him, constricting his breathing. He pulls him in even closer, so close that the barkeep's face is reflecting off his mask.
Gray: “....If I ever figure out you’re lying, you’ll wish you hadn’t…”
With that, the barkeep passes out from fear. Gray hears soldiers approaching, so he causes all of the lights to cut off, and he sneaks through the shadows, out through the back exit. Outside, he promptly climbs the building in an instant, sitting down right after. He flows the cloak inside out once more, hiding all of his armor under the fake coat-like appearance he’s morphed the cloak into.
As he sits on the cold roof, feeling the freezing breeze, he notices that the snow begins to fall. While it slowly begins to pile over him, he looks at his silver mask, staring into the reflection of it. His eyes have sunk, his hair has gotten greasy, and even his demeanor has become more hostile. He’s unable to see the Gray Kyojin he tried so hard to connect to, to accept, to trust, he only sees what’s been left behind.
After the sun had begun to set, a few carriages had rolled into town, resting on the outside of a church-like building. Twenty men step out, enter the building, and set up inside. They’re all dressed in large, dark purple cloaks, missing the white masks and dark cloaks the Sect has come to identify with. A while after the sun had set, the snow had stopped falling from the sky, and with the bright moon out, the Sect of Anarchy had awoken. A small crowd of Demi-humans of all ages forms outside of the building, entering it as fast as they can, not noticing an observer nearby.
A few of them feel a bit uncomfortable, but a disturbance with the spirits themselves is blocking the presence of their watcher. Amidst the winter wind, standing atop a tall building across the street, cloaked in black and silver, and coated in the light of the moon is Gray Kyojin, the Phantom Knight, acting as a hunter. He stands tall, looking down on them as the last few civilians enter while a few of the members help them inside. Without their white masks, they don’t seem like mindless things he needs to kill, it's the opposite. These are men, and women, with lives, and a will, that he’s going to stop, no matter what he has to do.
He waits until the last moment, until the two members of the Sect are alone outside, with no idea of his presence. Like an eagle snatching up its prey, he captures them with his cloak, pulling them into the street. He covers their mouths with his cloak, forcing it down their throats. As their windpipes fill their minds go blank, passing out on the spot. He stands on the outside wall of the building, drifting into the astral state to eavesdrop. The inside is overly crowded with both the Anarchists and the citizens, trying to get everything into proper order. After a bit of conversion amongst them, a man dressed in the new coats steps forward, onto a podium. With two large wolven Demi-humans beside him, acting as guards, he begins speaking to everyone as if he’s their preacher.
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“Hello everyone! You are here because you understand the world, and how truly vital it is. It’s filled with hatred, coated in war, soaked in the blood of the innocent, while the people responsible are regarded as the heroes. We have helped so many out of poverty, and slavery, killed such slavers, burned such holmes they were forced from, and killed these “heroes''.``
As he continues to speak over them, Gray can only respond in anger. He stares at everyone, looking at their eyes, and how they’re locked onto the man in front of them. They treat him as if he’s their savior, even though he worked for the same man who took over and almost destroyed their country.
“Today, I stand before you, asking you, wishing you, that you would join us. Together, we’ll regroup, and stand back on top. Almost a year ago now, we lost, we lost a leader, most of our fellow brethren, and our pride. But on New Year's Day, we struck Constal, the Holy City, and now, it’s ours. I don’t ask for you to be strong, I don’t ask for you to be blessed, but I do ask that you allow us to put your trust in you. We used to stand in the shadows and wear those white masks to symbolize that we were all one. But that was a mistake, it only made us look like villains, but with the new outfits you see before you, we’re beginning to change a few things around here.”
Gray falls back into his body, as he suspects that he’s going to learn nothing of importance. Now, back in his body, standing right beside the front door, he looks up. A large stained glass window, the perfect entrance. While everyone else is being confined by maniacs to join their murderous cause, the window behind them bursts open.
Then the jet-black assailant lands in the center, staring down everyone. His presence was a feared existence. Then, his eyes blasted a bright white, just before the room was overcome with an endless, ever-turning, black cloud of drowning smoke.
Gray: “El-Cenic.”
While the room was filled to the brim with smoke, nothing could be heard. With Cenic blinded only to vision, El-Cenic nullified everything. But Gray could move between them, cutting everyone down, no matter their identity. It was a pure blood bath. Organs splattered on the ground, skulls were crushed, blood coating the walls and pooled on the floor, and Gray just kept going. However no one was instantly killed; they were left barely alive and gagging on the floor.
The wolven Demi-humans used their heightened senses to try and attack Gray, but he clung onto them like a tick. He shoved the wrist talons into his chest while the cloak of darkness formed into large tendrils, snapping his arms. He roared out in pain, but it did nothing, as the other Demi-human was quickly cut down. The claw-like pieces of metal around his fingers shoot toward the Demi-human, as the cloak wrapping around his body was stretched around his hands just the same. They shot out like his fingers had stretched over to him, leaving a gash in his neck.
As the smoke began to dissipate, the leader of the meeting was the only one left standing. He looked at the pile of bleeding bodies, his friend drowning in his blood, and the others slowly bleeding out, screaming for their lives. Gray held his hand out, focusing mana around it. It began to hurt, as his hand shook profusely, but eventually, the mana in the air began to heat up, creating a ball of fire made from black flames. He shot it at the Demi-human, catching him aflame. And while he was able to put the flame out, whether or not he was dead wasn’t something Gray could answer. The prospect of murder, taking a life story through Gray like a bolt of violet lightning. However he moved forward while pushing the thoughts away.
The Anarchist held his hand up, trying his best to survive.
Anarchist: “DIGNUM!”
A ball of clumpy dirt forms and shoots from in front of his hand, but Gray doesn't move. Sill in the spiritual state, he begins to disrupt the mana in the air. While he cannot directly control with elemental mana, it still needs to be made within the same domain as the spirits to be cast. Since it’s just a base-level earth spell, it breaks apart before it reaches him, leaving anything the Anarchist can try useless. His men are defeated, his magic doesn't work, and the Phantom Knight is slowly approaching. Gray sends the cloak out, grabbing him by his leg, and slowly pulls him in. The Anarchist begins clawing at the ground, screaming for his life, but his vision turns black, and he’s quickly knocked unconscious. While Gray picks him up, he shuts off his spiritual sense and turns around. The bloody mess that he had made flows back to the front of his mind, but it pools back down just the same.
He had to take a string of long breaths, as he was close to throwing up. He looked down at his shaking hands, trying his best to regain his composure. As he goes to leave with the leader of the meet-up, a young man, a pig Demi-human, crawls out of the pile of bodies with a broken shoulder.
Gray: “You, you’re with the bartender, right?”
The boy hesitates to answer, staring down this bloody avenger. But when Gray clenches his fist, flows mana into the small energy crystal within the wrist talon, and unsheaths it. The boy then spits out all the words he can, as fast as he can.
“YES! How did you know!?”
Gray tilts his head to the boy, watching as he struggles to hold back his tears while he holds his smashed shoulder.
Gray: “You look pretty similar. Sorry about the shoulder by the way.”
Gray walks over to the scared boy, plants his hand over his shoulder, and focuses a bit of mana around it.
Gray: “Vortic.”
The spirits begin to glow green, coating the boy's shoulder. It helps the bones fit back into place, his muscles rebuild a bit faster and lastly welds it together. While it didn’t instantly heal the wound, it nulled the pain while also assisting with the healing process.
Gray: “Now, why were they messing with you? And make sure to get everything. Don’t leave anything out.”
“They gave me some money a year back, but I didn’t join. I don’t have much money, so when they demanded more coins than I had originally given them, my brother demanded I deny them…but that only made it worse. They were going to force me to join, but I said if I gathered some Demi-humans, they’d let me go scot-free.”
Gray: “Well run off, before things get even more messy.”
Gray turns his back to the boy, listening to him spring out of the building, leaving him alone with the unconscious Anarchist.
Then, a few hours later, the Anarchist comes to. The sun has begun to rise, letting the calm blue sky pan over him, as well as Gray. Upon the tallest building in the town, he holds the man by the throat, using the claws on his fingers to stab into his neck. Filled with fear, confusion, and shock, he begins screaming while he stares at Gray’s face. He looks at his reflection in the mask, finding brushes all over his body.
“LET ME GO! PLEASE! I’LL LEAVE THE SECT! I’LL TELL YOU WHAT YOU WANT! JUST PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!”
Gray: “THEN TALK! WHERE ARE THE OTHER SECT MEMBERS!? WHAT ARE THEY PLANNING!? WHY ARE YOU HERE!?”
The man looks down, looking at his legs dangling in the air, struggling to breathe. But, with a strong will to live, he tries his best to tell Gray what he wants.
“I’M IN LE BON BECAUSE OF THAT PIG KID! HE OWD ME! AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE PLANNING, I’M NOT A HIGHER-UP!”
Gray: “SO WHERE ARE THEY!? I NEED A MAP, A LOCATION! ANYTHING!”
“YOU WON’T FIND THEM HERE! I’M NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE IN WALGONIA! I JUST WANTED TO SHOW I COULD HELP! BUT I QUIT! IF YOU WANNA GO FIND THEM, GO TO RAVORIA! ALL I KNOW IS THAT, SINCE RAVORIA IS ON THE BRINK OF COLLAPSE, THEY PLAN ON TAKING THE AREA, ALONG WITH ALL OF ITS PEOPLE! THAT’S IT! I SWEAR!”
Gray stares him in his eyes, and he believes him. He sends out a pulse of spirit mana before he lessens the grip he has on the Anarchist's throat. The cultist is relieved, but because Gray has no need for him any longer, he thinks of dropping him. Killing was something he had thought about over and over, coming to a conclusion a while ago. He wouldn’t kill unless it was absolutely necessary, so he let Arthur live but killed Caesar. However, he will put his morals aside if that furthers the goal, like when he killed Chimera. And this is his goal, to rid the world of this fake anarchy. So with the cloak pulling at his mind he wavers. Resisting and contemplating so much in just a few seconds. But his anger wins him over, even for just a second, and he loses grasp with himself, dropping him. Gray doesn't say or think anything. Just letting his eyes widen to see what he just did. The man's screams fill the area before they stop with a splat. He hits the ground head-first, crushing his skull and killing him on impact.
After a few seconds, a crowd begins to form, screaming out in horror. The man had fallen right on top of a child's snowman, covering the snow in his blood. Gray is unsettled, but when Dema arrives, he coats the area in a dark shadow of the large dragon. Everyone looks up, watching as he gets onto her and flies away, with the intent to go straight to Ravoria. No stops, no thinking, just to continue the mission.
End of Chapter Five