I summoned as large of a giant spike as I could and fired it as fast as I could at the boss. He drew his sword in an instant and a glowing yellow shield appeared around him.
The giant spike struck the shield in a flash of light. When the light dimmed, the giant spike had broken through the shield. He was pushing it back with the flat of his sword.
I took control of the giant spike again and pushed it against his sword as hard as I could. He held on for a few seconds before his arms started to buckle and the bone spike pushed his sword back until it was resting against his chest.
Then, instead of just guiding the spike around the sword that he wasn't even holding anymore, I continued to press against it. I pressed against it and pressed against it until it began to fold under the pressure.
In a matter of seconds, the sword folded in half around the bone spike and the bone spike shot through the boss's body and out the back, hitting the wall in a splatter of blood.
I dispelled the spike and the bloody misshapen sword clattered to the ground. Yellow healing magic rushed into his wound. He looked down at the gaping hole in his body and then at me.
"How, did you?" He said.
"The strong conquer the weak. It's just the way things are. Right?" I said.
"I suppose that's fair." The boss fell forward onto the table, dead. The yellow healing magic was dispelled. I guess it wasn't enough.
"Alright, who's next?" I said.
Nico looked at me in horror and said, "Fuck this. I'm out." She disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
"Me too," Bruno said. He smashed through the wall into the next room.
"Me as well," Dulce said. She walked through the hole Bruno made.
I looked at Stylus who hadn't done or said anything yet. He was just trembling and looking at me with fear in his eyes.
"Stylus, you stay here. This company is under new management. I'll be back," I said.
"Uh, yes sir!" He said.
I walked out of the door behind me and looked around. I didn't see the rogue anywhere. I ran to the other side of the wall to see if Dulce and Bruno were still nearby but they were already gone somehow.
I checked the stairwell and I couldn't hear or see anyone walking down it, so they had to still be on this floor. It seemed like it was time to upgrade my Evil Eye.
It might make me better at tracking evil, which was exactly what I needed to do.
'System take my saved justice points and spend all of them on upgrading Evil Eye.'
[You have upgraded Evil Eye 13 times, gaining: Evil Thermal Vision, and See Evil Through Obstacles (100 feet, 200 feet, 300 feet, 400 feet, 500 feet, 600 feet, 700 feet, 800 feet, 900 feet, 1,000 feet, 1,100 feet, 1,200 feet)]
[Evil Thermal Vision: Can see the body heat signatures of evil, allowing you to see them in the dark or through magical concealment]
[See Evil Through Obstacles: Allows you to see evil through any obstacles, up to 1,200 feet]
That was certainly an upgrade. Worth the 13 points. I looked around and I could see 3 heat signatures on this floor. One was short. That was Nico. One was tall and burly. That was Bruno. And one was average height and spindly. That was Dulce.
I figured I'd go for the most predictable one first, so I went after Bruno. The hallway I walked down was lit up. I could see Bruno hiding in the room right where the hallway turned right. That way he could strike me from behind without me seeing it coming.
Unfortunately for him, I could already see him. I sent a giant spike through several walls and through the wall he was hiding behind. I heard a loud clang and saw Bruno stumble out of the room he had been hiding in.
He pulled 3 crystals out of his pocket and crushed them in his fist. Red, blue, and green light entered his body through his arm and into his chest.
He glowed brilliantly for a moment and then it was gone. The only thing still glowing were his eyes. They glowed white.
I sent another giant spike at him, but he swatted it away with his massive war hammer. It made another clanging noise. Abandoning the giant spike approach, I used Break Bones for the first time, slowly weakening his lower leg bone until it broke.
He still kept coming at me. He was mostly hopping but he seemed to have great balance. I summoned a bone shield and put it up in front of me as he brought his hammer down on me. The strike shattered the shield and broke my arm. I heard it as the bones broke.
I summoned a bone platform beneath me and made it go backward. The bone platform moved fast. Bruno couldn't keep up. I slowed down to make him think he might be able to catch up with me. This was to keep him chasing me.
Then I summoned 20 bone spikes and sent them into his body. He swatted a few away, but many of them hit their marks. Blood stained his shirt. His hopping slowed down.
I sent another 20 spikes at him and he took them all. By this point, he was just struggling to stay upright. His shirt was drenched with blood. He stopped hopping. Then he fell over and bled out on the ground.
[You have defeated a great evil, earning 3 justice points. Roll, Upgrade, or Save?]
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
'Save.'
[Saved]
[You have killed twice in the last minute, earning 10 dark aura (-80)]
I looked around and decided to go after Nico next. She seemed like the most likely to try to escape. I removed Bruno's pants. Not for the reason you're thinking.
It just was the only piece of clothing he was wearing that wasn't soaked with blood. Using bone spikes, I shredded the pants into strips and made a makeshift sling for my arm.
I would probably gain some sort of healing ability that could at least mend bones after a level-up, but for now, this would have to do. I walked towards the room in which I could see Nico hiding on the ceiling.
When I got close to the room Nico was hiding in, I tried to get her from outside the room like I had with Bruno. I figured she'd have a defense against it but it didn't hurt to try.
I summoned a giant spike and sent it through two walls at her form hiding on the ceiling. Like I expected, it didn't get her. Her form disappeared and reappeared on the ground.
I turned the corner to look into the room from the doorway. All the doors to the other rooms were open, so it would've been suspicious for her to close this one.
She was standing on the ground in her mix of black leather armor and black cloak. She had the hood up to darken her face, but I could see her face clearly with my thermal vision. She was scared.
I almost felt bad, but then I looked at the nature of her dark deeds. Murdering families. Robbery was just an afterthought. She targeted families that seemed happy and content.
She hated seeing their happy lives when she grew up with a shitty family who treated her like garbage and eventually abandoned her on the streets.
They went to a city they never visited under the false pretense of a rare family outing. Then in the middle of the outing, after they had treated her nicely all day and she felt safe, they disappeared when she was using the restroom.
She spent days, months, and years looking for them. They never came for her. Once she had acclimated to her environment and learned how to steal to get by, she saved up money.
She saved up money until she could afford to rent a carriage to take out to the country. She headed out in the general direction she knew her family's farm was. West.
She stopped the carriage when she saw something that felt like a familiar landmark. It was a crossroads where the signs were weathered down. Only one sign had visible lettering on it and it just read, "Tree." There wasn't a tree in sight.
She made the carriage visit every farm in the area. As the sun was going down and the carriage driver told her they had to leave to make it back before her rent period was up, she made him visit one last farm.
It was exactly the way she remembered it. The barn was just as worn down as before. The door was hanging off its hinges and the family carriage was sitting in the usual ruts it created in the dirt.
She knocked on the door and her father answered it.
"Um, hello? Are you lost, little girl?" He said. He didn't recognize her.
"Daddy, it's me, Nicolette. Oh, I'm so happy to see you!" She hugged his leg and cried.
"Nicolette? How did you find us?" He said.
"I paid for a carriage to come out west and I saw the "Tree" sign. I checked every farm in the area until I found ours," she said, sniffling.
"Nicolette, we left you in the city for a reason. We don't want you anymore! Get off me and get out of here!" He kicked her off his leg violently.
Nicolette stumbled and fell. "What? But I thought you just lost track of me. How could you leave me there? Do you know how hard it was to survive on the streets?"
"I do. I do know how hard it is to survive on the streets in the city. We didn't plan on you surviving. It's not murder if you abandon your kid and they die of starvation," he said.
"It's just an accident. If someone asked about you we just said, 'We lost her and couldn't find her anywhere. We're worried sick about her. I hope she turns up.' Works every time."
Nicolette wiped her tears away and said, "You bastard!"
She took a knife from the back of her waistband. She held it behind her back and walked up to him.
"I told you to get out of here!" He yelled.
Nicolette stabbed the knife into her father's lower leg.
"Ah, fuck!" He yelled. He tried to kick her away, but latched onto his leg, harder than before, and wouldn't let go.
She pulled out the knife and stabbed him in the leg again and again. Once she was done with his lower leg, she stabbed his upper leg and dragged the knife through it.
Finally, he kicked her off, but as soon as he did, his leg buckled underneath him and he fell to the floor.
Nicolette jumped on him and stabbed him in the neck. "Die, Daddy!"
"Nicolette. You just weren't the boy we wanted. It wasn't personal," he said gargling on blood.
"Well, it's personal for me!" She stabbed him in the eye and his body went limp.
She walked up the stairs and entered her parents' bedroom. Her mother was in bed reading a book. Her mother looked at her with a hint of recognition.
"Nicolette? Is that you?" She said. "Why are you all wet?"
The clothes Nicolette wore were black from dirt and soot. Her mother didn't realize it was blood.
"Mommy? Did you abandon me too?" She said.
"Abandon you child? We would never abandon you. What makes you say that?" Her mother said.
"Daddy told me you abandoned me. You didn't want me anymore. He told me to leave." Nicolette inched closer to her mother. She stood right beside the bed with her hands behind her back.
"He was lying, hunny! It was a joke. Just a joke," her mother said, her eyes widening. "Where is your father?" Nicolette wasn't great at recognizing emotions yet, but she saw fear in her mother's eyes.
"He's in heaven, mommy," she said.
Her mother's hand wrapped around her throat. "What did you do child? What did you do?!"
"Mommy, did you abandon me?" Nicolette looked at her mother with tears welling up in her eyes.
"Child, we had to. We-" her mother was cut off.
Nicolette had stabbed up under her chin so she couldn't speak anymore. "Goodnight Mommy," she said.
She pulled the knife out and slit her mother's throat. Her mother choked and bled out in front of her.
"Goodbye Mommy," Nicolette said. She left the room and went into her old room. Everything was set up just as it was before. Her clothes were even still in the dresser.
She took her bloody clothes off, wiped herself clean of blood with clean clothes, and put a new set of clothes on. She grabbed some clothes and tied them in a bundle with a sheet.
She walked downstairs and out the front door, closing it behind her. She got back in the carriage.
"Wrong house. They gave me some food and sent me on my way. Let's go back," she said.
"Yes, ma'am," the driver said.
After that, she took to killing and robbing families. She got so good at it that a local mercenary group hired her to do wet work for them.
And that was the person who stood in front of me. Tragic backstory, but a merciless killer all the same.
"Your murdering days are over Nico. I'm sorry your parents sucked, but that doesn't make what you do ok," I said.
She grinned. "Stop me. If you can." She pulled out 6 crystals, 3 in each hand. 5 were glowing bright blue, but the 6th was clear. She crushed them in her hands and disappeared.