“So, Mr. Isaac…are you ready to die again?”
Mr. Isaac didn't answer Katie. He didn't have the time to spare. Instead, he waved at the 12 mangled bodies and, with a swift move, tossed them into the distorted space above the altar one by one. Katie could’ve stopped him, but she didn't. Instead, she sat back and watched as those students, most of them her classmates, were sacrificed alive.
She saw Kyle. She even saw Vivian. They gazed at her, begging her to help them, but she ignored them. Of course, she didn't just sit back and do nothing! What was she? A fool? A heartless psychopath! No...as she waited, she found herself a dead Dasher and sat down in a pool of its blood.
She didn't do nothing. She did something.
Finally, after all 12 sacrifices were made, Mr. Isaac turned back and confronted Katie. At that moment, the teacher and the student locked eyes, and Mr. Isaac saw the silent fury in Katie’s pupils. He saw the pain, the guilt, and the utter agony.
And then, he sighed. No weapon or armor was formed, nor were Chaos Descendants materialized. Instead, he almost looked peaceful.
Katie stood up from the Dasher corpse. Her body was covered more by blood and gore than by the black leather jacket as she slowly approached Mr. Isaac. Her Knife was in her hand. She didn't come to a stop until Mr. Isaac himself was within her reach.
Mr. Isaac was the first to speak up, breaking the terrifying silence.
“Where is Caitlin?”
“She’s dead.” The answer came quickly.
“Oh.” Mr. Isaac tilted his head. “Then I take it I’m not getting out of this alive.”
“Nope.”
“That’s too bad.” Mr. Isaac replied quietly before pointing at the altar behind him. “Then again, I had no intention of living through this. I assume you know all about my sacrifice ritual to the Chaos Domain, thanks to that damn traitor?”
“I do.” Katie was trembling. Every cell in her body wanted her to charge forward and carve the man before him into a million pieces. She wanted it so much that every moment standing back and not doing so was excruciating, but that was exactly why she was still talking. She wanted to savor this moment. This pain. She wanted to ready herself for the final kill. “Trade souls for a Chaos Descendant to be jammed inside you. Feel free to quote that however you want.”
Mr. Isaac snickered. “Well, thanks to your intervention, my plan was foiled, but I still made a pact with the Chaos Domain, just a slightly different one. In exchange for my sacrifice, a portal will be opened right here in ten minutes. A portal to the Chaos Domain itself. Soon...seas of Chaos Descendants will flood out. They will be weaker at first, but as these vanguards deliver death and despair to the inhabitants of this world, the portal will be expended until eventually, legions capable of tearing this world itself apart will come across.”
“These legions will not obey my command, nor that of anyone else. The only thing they’re after...is blood.”
“If the Dark Pantheon or another faction reacts quickly enough to launch a counterassault, maybe only New York will be destroyed. If they fail to notice this, well…” He grinned cruelly. “not everyone gets to die with the screams of billions as the background music.”
“Hmmm…” Katie did her best to reach back into her memories amidst all the pain and pleasure she was experiencing. Oh...she really couldn’t hold this anymore. “I doubt the Dark Pantheon will be too happy about this.”
“True, which is why any second now a Lord may appear out of nowhere and brutalize me for this. Then again, as you said, I’m not leaving here alive either way. Might as well go out with a bang.” The teacher’s eyes flickered. “But you, Katie...you don’t have to die like this. I admit that you’re powerful, but you’re nothing in front of the Chaos Domain or the Dark Pantheon Lords. If either faction gets their hand on you, they will make you scream and beg for mercy.”
It took Katie a solid moment to realize Mr. Isaac was trying to scare her. “That...that is not helping to change my mind.”
“Ok…” Mr. Isaac wanted to slap himself. He could’ve done a lot better than that! “Well, they will make you their bitch and their slave!”
“Again, not helping.”
“Fine! They will imprison you forever…” Mr. Isaac finally came up with the killing blow. “And they will make sure you never feel an ounce of pain for the rest of your life! There, scared now?”
“Kind of.” Katie shuddered, partially due to the pain she was feeling and partially due to the threat. No pain? How...how could anyone be so cruel?
“Good.” Mr. Isaac finally took a breath of relief. At least Katie had a weakness… “So, get out of here while you can, and if you want to kill me…” He tapped his chest. “just do it quickly. I wouldn’t bother with any torture if I were you…”
He was peaceful. It was as if he had already accepted his fate.
Katie nodded slowly, as if convinced. Suddenly, she cracked a smile so wide it would make Joker proud.
“Then it’s damn terrific that you’re not me.”
Mr. Isaac’s expression changed as he tried to teleport away, but it was too late. In fact, there was a reason why he stayed behind and asked for a quick death instead of trying to run at the first second. Before he could disappear, Katie grabbed onto his collar with lightning speed and jammed her Knife into his shoulder, shutting down any attempt by him to flee.
“And all those arguments you made…” She pulled Mr. Isaac closer until she could see every inch of pain on the man’s face. “they just make me a lot more excited.”
Mr. Isaac screamed. The Knife in his body scorched not only his body but also his soul, but he knew too damn well this was just the beginning. If he tortured because it was his job, then Katie tortured because she was addicted to it. Oh, how naive he was when he thought dying quickly was possible!
With one hand twisting the Knife, Katie slowly reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a syringe. A syringe filled with a substance Mr. Isaac immediately recognized. It was...Formula 6! Oh god!
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“Found this in one of your games in a classroom.” Katie grinned as she saw fear climb onto Mr. Isaac’s face. A welcomed sight. “Well...I actually found a dozen of these, but I used most of them on myself before coming here. Selfish...I know. I’m sorry...but look at it this way!” She jammed the syringe into Mr. Isaac’s neck and pushed the substance in despite his best attempts to struggle. “At least one is better than none! You should be grateful!”
As soon as the substance entered his body, Katie saw the man’s expression change. He started shaking uncontrollably as he had a taste of his own medicine. Formula 6 only worked on the physical body, and Mr. Isaac could ignore some physical pain due to his nature, but this was just way too much! In fact, the amount of pain he was experiencing alone could kill most human beings from the sheer shock!
The undead teacher collapsed on the ground. In a futile attempt to ease the suffering, he rolled across the floor, trying to distract himself. Did it work? Well...it was a futile attempt, so… All thoughts of escape have left his body, replaced by a single desire.
“Kill me…” He screamed desperately. The calm and collected look he once had was nowhere to be seen. “Please! I beg you! Do it!”
In the middle of the corpse-filled campus and towering over the screaming man on the ground, Katie let out a chuckle. “Keep begging, and I may change my mind.” She instructed before kneeling beside Mr. Isaac and yanking him up from the ground so she could admire his agony up close. The terror on his face. The twitched expression on his cheeks. Oh...it was such a feast!
Letting out another scream, Mr. Isaac, now driven mad by the excruciating torture, made one last stand. A black blade formed in his hand. He struck out. Not at Katie...no, he wasn’t that mad. He was going for himself, but before his blade could cut across his body, Katie grabbed onto the weapon and ran it through herself instead.
“Come on…” Barely shaken, she chastised as despair once again consumed Mr. Isaac. “Not like this! Did I say you can die yet?”
As a punishment for attempting to take his own life, she removed his entire right arm, extracting a new wave of sharp screams from the monster.
Finally, after stretching her neck briefly, Katie officially started working. Yeah...as far as she could see, removing his arm and jamming a knife inside of him was just foreplay!
For the next ten minutes, Katie slowly and methodically dissected Mr. Isaac piece by piece while keeping him fully alive and awake. She dug out his insides and used them to paint a gorgeous picture on the ground. Dismemberment? Disembowelment? Flaying? Those were just the basics as Katie got more and more creative with her methods.
For more than once, Mr. Isaac tried to kill himself, only to find those attempts dwarfed by Katie. While pain only made Katie stronger, it completed prevented Mr. Isaac from focusing. He could still do a few tricks, like summoning a weapon, but elegant things like teleportation or soul extraction? Not a chance. He was too busy screaming for that!
Soon, death became a luxury. Escape became impossible. Katie made sure for every ounce of pain Caitlin felt, Mr. Isaac felt it tenfold.
For as long as he could, Mr. Isaac begged for mercy, something that Katie was more than happy to deny him. After all, even if she wasn’t pleased by his screams...how many people have Mr. Isaac tortured and killed? How many souls has he sacrificed to what was essentially Hell on steroids? Mercy? He never showed any of the innocent, defenseless students he killed a shred of mercy. So why would he think he would get any from Katie?
Finally, the man could no longer scream. Just as Katie removed another piece of what was left of his jaw, the intake of pain that she had been feeding off him was gone.
And just like that, Mr. Isaac was dead.
“Shit!” Katie swore in utter rage. She hasn’t had nearly enough fun yet! Yes...Mr. Isaac was in a thousand different pieces across the ten-meter radius, but...but she had so many more methods in mind that she wanted to try out on him! It had only been a few minutes! He deserved to be tortured for so much longer! If it was up to her, she would keep him alive for eternity!
Unfortunately, Katie didn't have too long to figuratively and literally punish herself for being such a torture amateur. A silent explosion went off at the altar not far away, and Katie watched in silence as a screen five meters wide and three meters tall exploded across the elevated stage.
The screen was colorless, yet it was of all the colors at once. It was solid, but also liquid, gas, and plasma at the same time. It obeyed no laws of physics, yet it also stood by the laws of physics of every single world in a billion worlds. It defied logic, for it represented utter chaos and anarchy. This was the Chaos Portal, the gateway connecting this world and the hell that was the Chaos Domain.
And soon, an army would make its way from the Chaos Domain into this world, growing larger and more powerful with every single kill until perhaps even the Dark Pantheon itself would fall before it. Of course, if what Mr. Isaac said was true, then this portal could be stopped...if any faction in this world reacted in time.
Judging by the lack of armies to counter this portal, Katie assumed no one noticed what was going on here. In other words, if she didn't stop this portal, this world itself would burn.
With the fate of the world in hand, Katie held onto her Knife, readied herself...and knelt down, removed Mr. Isaac’s head from his body, and turned to head back to the main academic building.
What? She had a promise to fulfill! Saving the world could wait!
----------------------------------------
Katie quietly set Mr. Isaac’s severed head down beside Caitlin’s body. Slowly, she leaned back on Caitlin’s cold body before holding onto the blonde’s right and only hand.
“There, Caitlin…” Katie gestured at the head. Mr. Isaac’s eyes were still open. “There you go. One decapitated head of an undead teacher, delivered as promised. Look at the expression on his face...oh how he screamed and begged for mercy! Yes! Mr. Isaac...begging for mercy like a pathetic dog! If only...if only you could’ve heard it! You would’ve loved it...maybe? I dunno...”
When no reply came, Katie chuckled. The otherwise friendly gesture sounded surprisingly terrifying in the blood and gut soaked classroom, especially when it came from a girl covered in red that was laying beside a long-dead body. Then again, it wasn’t like anyone was there to watch.
Finally, Katie stopped. She looked down at Caitlin’s hands. From the torn nails to the cuts and bruises here and there, the hand was hardly aesthetically pleasing, but to Katie, it was the most beautiful thing in the world. Slowly, as the growling of nightmarish beasts started echoing across the campus, Katie leaned down and kissed the hand. She ran her tongue across every inch of Caitlin’s hand, from the tip of every nail down to her purple wrist.
“A lot of Chaos Descendants will enter this world soon...well, if they haven’t already.” She said quietly to someone who could never answer her back. “They will kill a lot of people, and maybe they’ll even destroy this world altogether. Who knows?”
“On one hand, I am entirely compelled to just let it happen. I mean...imagine the reactions by the Sect of Ascension or the Dark Pantheon! They’ll be so pissed! Plus, what’s the point for me to live in a world without you? You...you told me to do what makes me happy. What I want. Well, guess what? What I want...is to follow you to the graves.”
She waited for an answer. She really did. When Caitlin never answered, Katie snickered at herself.
“Of course, I can’t really die, can I? And if this world does get destroyed, what will happen to me? Will I just get pulled back to this so-called Chaos Domain? Or will I just get stuck in the vacuum of space forever? Both options sound insanely fun, but then again...spending an eternity like that will get boring sooner or later.”
“So tell me, Caitlin...what should I do?”
The growls outside got louder and louder, and Katie could sense the beasts were getting impatient. In fact, she was surprised they haven’t broken out of the campus already. When no answer came, she turned to Caitlin and ran her finger down Caitlin’s cold cheeks.
“How about this, Caitlin? Let’s do this like the old times. Just once more, give me a kiss...and I’ll kill everything that comes through the portal.”
One second passed. And then ten. And then sixty. Finally, Katie leaned forward and gave Caitlin a gentle kiss on the forehead before getting back up. Slowly, she rang her Knife across her left forearm, spilling puddles of blood onto Caitlin’s soft, dead cheeks before making a final declaration.
“Goodbye, Caitlin.”
Outside the building, countless Chaos Descendants screeched into the sky, unaware of the terrible fate soon to descend upon them.