Chương 173: 86 - SCORCHED EARTH

Ellie Brazer knelt in front of a tree—a tree that would serve as a tombstone for Martha Kilgrove. At its base were a picture and a candle she had lit in remembrance of the abbott's wife. It was Ellie's idea of a funeral, though Arthur had objected to the idea.

"There are plenty of dead." That meant no time to mourn. But that never felt right to her. No one ever truly left this Earth without leaving a mark on it. She wanted to believe that was truer now than ever before, with so many being passed to God's final judgment. If she didn't want them to be forgotten, then she had to mourn them. Even if it was on her own. She sighed within her moment of silence.

"I came here searching for meaning, and all I found was more meaninglessness. It's all just suffering, isn't it? No matter what I do, I just can't escape it. Maybe you weren't the one who was corrupted..." Suddenly she felt a deep pit in her stomach, an aching sorrow that made her want to vomit and cry all at once. But she held it all in, remembering the strange coin she had buried underneath the same tree. She stared at it in its jar, wondering what it meant and why things like that had corrupted so many people.

A clashing of leaves jolted her to attention, but before she could react, she was struck hard on the side of the head, knocking her to the ground. She nearly lost consciousness from the blow. Someone had hit her.

"How many points did Nrv say each person was worth?" a man said. His voice was muffled by a mask with a bloody, smiley face.

"I don't know. Like 5 or 6. Probably not shit since they're all lootless." Ellie struggled to her feet and ran as quickly as she could. A long, metal chain wrapped around her neck, and the NRV man yanked the other end. Then she was on the ground, gasping for air as the pull of the chain felt like it was collapsing her lung. The man holding the chain put his boot to her chest to make sure she stayed down.

"Well, maybe she'll be my prize then. What use is it just killing them all, huh?" A shockwave of rage and terror blasted both men to the ground. No one had seen where it came from, but it felt like the aftermath of a nuke hitting a nearby town, and it made them all freeze.

"What the hell was that?" T'balt had Monan by the throat within a colossal crater. Monan was naked, body fresh as it was just revived by a second chance. He was utterly obliterated by an explosion the size of the Vatican. But T'balt wasn't going to be satisfied with just killing him once in this iteration. So he squeezed his throat until blood trickled down his fingernails. Monan, mouth bloodied and half dead, struggled against his strength and the aura of smoke wafting from his pores.

"T… please… stop… Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I was just trying to have a little fun. Truth is… I was jealous of your family, and I lost my mind. But you're a good kid. This isn't you. Don't lose your mind with me." He wasn't let go. But there was a slight hesitation. Not in T'balt's face or his grip or his body. Just in the fact that this life hadn't been reset yet. And Monan laughed, hysterically, uncontrollably, infuriatingly.

"IS THAT WHAT YOU WANNA HEAR, YOU LITTLE BITCH! NAH BROTHER! KILL ME AGAIN! I KILLED YOUR LITTLE GIRL! HAVE ANOTHER ONE! I DARE YOU!! CUZ I'D JUST DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND A—" T'balt felt the man's neck snap between his fingers.

"I'm telling you, I hear voices in my head. They make me do and say things that I can't control… I need help." Monan pretended to cry underneath his muffled laughs. That was until a sword was stabbed into his fake crying eyes.

"I had a change of heart… I'm a better man now. T'balt, you taught me the error of my ways. I promise I'm on the straight and narrow for here on out." He was drowned in a pit of quicksand.

"Dismembering? I've ridden that ride way too many times to give a shit. Come on, even your attempt at getting back at me is fucking pathetic." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Ah damn. I left my one liner in my car. Can you take this one? Something along the lines of KISS MY ASS WITH THIS PUSSY SHIT!"

"She's never coming back, you know. Never. And I took that from you. But that must not mean anything to you, huh. You're actually glad I did it… That's why you were so quiet when I dragged her to the back, and I—." Each time, Monan had some snide comment, and each time, T'balt killed him, more brutally than the last. Crushing, burying alive, burning, flaying… tortures a sober mind would've never dreamed of. Now, every day, it was T'balt's own hands performing acts of unsolicited violence upon the devil himself.

And each time, the Devil laughed at his face. Mitas Corlander was the owner of Corlander Automotive and one of the most powerful men in the world, the old and the new. Yet, he toiled on the floor of his office in the Hunter's Club mansion, trying to stop blood from a wound he couldn't see. A dark-haired man stood over him with merely a knife, branded with his own blood, and yet he didn't seem to care, even though his wrists bled with the force of a kitchen faucet.

"I need something stronger than that. Something painful but meticulous. Maim. Don't kill." T'balt healed his arm and then proceeded to cut the other one, unflinching.

"I don't know… what you expect me—""You're running out of time, Mitas. If you don't give me something before you die, I'm gonna have to get more creative the next time I see you."

"Wait, wait… Just let me heal myself, and we can negotiate." T'balt tilted his head, but before he could respond, another man charged through the door. There was hesitation on his face as, in the hall behind him, a score of RazorWind soldiers were dead. There were no reinforcements coming, and so German Casas elected to put his life on the line.

"If loot is what you want, then that's what we can give you. We have plenty. Just name what you want."

"I already have what I can name. I need something different. Something better." German kept his distance, listing off several pieces of loot that he knew might satisfy what the young man was looking for. But when he saw that his list was only making him angrier, he resorted to his last course of action: pulling a gun and going for the head. T'balt appeared behind him, thunder following his steps.

"That was the wrong choice." He slammed his elbow into the side of German's neck, causing the man to fall. Dead or unconscious, he didn't bother to check. But he heard a large pile of coins spilling out onto the floor, and when Corlander revived, it was with none of his power. T'balt wondered if the man's older body just wasn't as durable as his own and healed the gash in his wrist. He grabbed Corlander and threw him into a wall hard and far from where he might collect the Collector again.

"Looks like you have a second chance to tell me what I want to know." The old man cowered, shaking his head.

"I don't know anything… please."

"T'balt…" He paused at the sound of his own name and braced himself. However, Uriel walked into the room with no intent of a fight. He held his hands up, presenting his body without weapon and even turned to present his neck without loot. Just the Redeemer, not even the Bestower, which T'balt had only once seen him without. Uriel was back to his long white hair and black and white robes, barefoot as if he'd emerged from his own library.

"What do you want?" T'balt asked coldly. Uriel looked around, at the bodies, at the blood, the destruction.

"It isn't working, is it?" Corlander scurried away past Uriel and out the door like a wounded animal. T'balt didn't chase him. Instead, he searched through the pile of loot he left behind.

"He isn't fighting back… Doesn't even equip a single piece of loot. He's making fun of me. Because he knows I can't actually hurt him… I need to find a way to hurt him."

"Dying isn't going to bother someone like Monan. He's done it so many times, I'm sure the pain of it is trivial," Uriel said.

"In essence, I've discovered that with certain people, their tolerance of pain is directly correlated with their fear of dying. You'll never hurt him going down this path." T'balt stepped towards him.

"Then how?" Uriel shook his head.

"You don't. Not at all. Just quit this…"

"Or what? I'll get hurt? Someone will die? I'll lose something I can't get back?" Uriel paused, noticing the erratic look in his dark eyes. It made them think of himself.

"Yes… You still have those things. Pieces of you that will never return once you let them go. My greatest regret was losing control of myself, which is ironic to say. Before that, I had felt the least control of my life that I had ever felt. My wife… my life… was taken from me, and I could do nothing to stop it. So when I decided to kill, I felt powerful. I felt I had wrestled control back… but it wasn't me.

It was a beast using my hands to strip me of my sanity and make me do something that I would've never done if not for that beast called rage… It's just a mask for helplessness, T'balt. You can pretend you're doing what's right, but that's never what ends up happening. Just more pain." T'balt took a look at his hands, turned burgundy by his own fresh blood.

"I'm not under any pretense that this is the right thing to do. I'm doing what I want… And what I want is to make Monan feel the same pain I felt." He picked up the Collector and equipped it, feeling his blood surge. Uriel sighed, seeing his battle was lost as T'balt teleported away from him.

"Perhaps that was the same line of thinking that made Monan do what he did." T'balt appeared back in his basement. In his grandparents' basement, in a house barely touched by Zero Day. At the thunder, Monan opened his eyes as he was held suspended and nailed to the wall. He was missing an eye, and half his skin had been peeled down to the bone. Still he smiled.

"Welcome back, buddy." T'balt closed the door behind him.