Chương 12: Death Walks in Pajamas

The figure's eyes swept across the tavern with a glacial slowness, moving from table to table. His amber irises caught the lamplight, highlighting their dead and empty look. They moved from table to table with an almost mechanical feeling. And when those dead eyes passed over Scillo's table, his breath caught in his throat. It felt like staring deep into an abyss, like a corpse that had just risen from the dead was staring straight at him.

Scillo's hands gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles went white. His cup of ale sat forgotten, the liquid inside rippling from the trembling in his fingers. This person wasn't even preparing to attack. This person was already attacking just by existing in the same space as him! The pressure was immense and suffocating. It was like the very air around this figure was heavier and denser, infused with matter, making Scillo's lungs struggle to even draw a single breath.

His lungs burned, and the walls of the tavern suddenly seemed so claustrophobic. This was… Death. The word came unbidden to Scillo's mind. This person reeked of death. Not like a smell, but the extreme sensation of it. Almost like standing next to a mass grave after a plague, staring down at the thousands of mutilated, glassy-eyed corpses. Except this effect had been magnified a thousand times. How many people has this person killed? The thought was logically absurd.

The figure looked barely older than Scillo had been when he'd first joined the organization. The guy was thin, with unremarkable features, and wearing clothes that suggested that he was undergoing extreme poverty. But Scillo knew—with an horrible certainty—that this person had killed before. Many, many times before, so much that death seemed to cling to him like a shadow. Was this what prey felt when facing a predator?

There was surprisingly not the flash of terror you expect, but instead the deep, primal recognition that you were in the presence of something that has evolved specifically to end your life. Across the table, Pavett had also gone completely still. His usual grin had vanished. His hand, which had been casually spinning a knife, had stopped, the blade hanging frozen between his fingers as he stared at the figure in the doorway.

"What..." Pavett whispered incredulously.

"What the fuck is that?" Across from them, Liatra didn't respond. For the first time since Scillo had known her, Liatra looked genuinely afraid. Her hand had moved to one of the vials at her belt, gripping it so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. Her pale eyes were fixed on the figure with a panicked intensity. The figure took a step forward. It was just one singular step, yet the pressure increased by twofolds. Scillo felt it like a physical weight pressing down on his chest, making it hard to breathe.

His vision swam at the edges. His hands, still frozen on the table, began to tremble. And the absolute, undeniable certainty that something fundamentally dangerous had just entered their space began filling his entire body. Around them, the other patrons had started to notice. A few people near the back stood up slowly, stumbling toward the front exit, trying not to attract the boy's attention. The figure's eyes continued their sweep, moving methodically from table to table.

When they landed on Scillo's group, they stopped. And just stared. Scillo's lungs seized up. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move, he couldn't even think. And in that moment, Scillo understood that this person knew who they were. He knew why they were here, what they were doing here, and who they were here with. He knew everything. The figure's head tilted slightly to the side, like a bird examining an insect. But to Scillo, it felt like watching a guillotine blade being raised above his neck.

The figure took another step forward, and the pressure tripled. Scillo gasped, his lungs finally managing to draw in air, but it felt thick and heavy, like trying to breathe underwater. His heart was hammering against his ribs so hard he thought it might burst. His hands were shaking so badly, and his teeth were chattering audibly. Every muscle in his body was locked up, rigid with terror. Is this how I die? The figure's expression never changed. Those dead eyes never blinked.

That face remained as emotionless as a cold marble statue. But Scillo could feel an intense aura emitting from him like heat from a furnace. No, not just radiating. It was pouring out in torrents. Killing intent. Pure, undiluted, absolutely certain killing intent. This person had come here to kill them! Scillo's hand finally managed to move under the fear of dying, trembling as it touched his [Adhesion] rune on his forearm.

"Li—Latra," he whispered, his voice cracking. His lips were quivering and trembling so badly he could barely form the words.

"Liatra, w—what do we—" The figure smiled. It wasn't a real smile, and it didn't reach those insipid amber eyes. It was just a slight upward curve of the lips, completely hollow and devoid of any emotion. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. But somehow, that smile was the most terrifying thing Scillo had ever seen. This person wasn't just going to kill them. This person was also going to thoroughly enjoy it!

◈◈◈◈ Lio watched the three agents frozen in terror at their table with mild interest. The young one on the left had finally managed to touch his rune, but nothing happened. And Lio wasn't worried that something would happen anyway. Most runes required some level of concentration to activate, which he had just stripped these three of. Though, the woman with the weird pale skin had managed something more impressive. Despite the pressure bearing down on her, she'd actually managed to uncap one of her water vials.

Her hand shook so violently that half the contents had sloshed onto the table, but she'd done it. Lio mentally congratulated her. She must've gone through some harsh training to maintain that level of mental strength. The third one had gone completely rigid. His eyes were wide and glassy, pupils dilated so far they'd nearly swallowed the iris. The guy was in shock, probably. The pendant on Lio's chest pulsated, and a white-hot agony lanced through his sternum.

It felt like someone had shoved a branding iron directly against his heart. He took another step forward. The young one made a pathetic, whimpering sound. His eyes were streaming rivulets of tears now, though Lio doubted the boy even realized it. It was just the regular pure physiological response to overwhelming stress. Another pulsation occurred, and the agony peaked. Lio's vision flickered at the edges, white spots dancing across his field of view. His fingers went numb, then tingled, then numb again.

Still, he continued forward without breaking character. The artifact causing the pain was called Death's Breath. When he bought it, the black market dealer had laughed in his face. And Lio couldn't really blame him, as this really was useless for normal people. The artifact had been created roughly eighty years ago by a Delver named Morthos Kine—a man who'd managed to descend all the way to Floor 31 and returned with knowledge that had driven him partially insane.

According to the fragmented records Lio had found, Morthos had become obsessed with quantifying death itself. He'd believed that death left behind a residue, and that energy accumulated in those who witnessed it. Though most scholars had dismissed him as a madman, Morthos had been right. He'd spent fifteen years developing the methodology, using runes and materials harvested from Ghenna's depths to create artifacts that could use this 'death energy.'

And Death's Breath had been his masterwork, an artifact capable of amplifying one's death energy until it could produce overwhelming fear in anyone nearby. For the base material, he had used an obsidian from Floor 28 that he had discovered had unique properties. The stone actively absorbed the spiritual residue of death, holding it like a battery. This stone was also what resulted in the heavy presence of the undead in that specific Floor.

For the catalyst, he'd used the extracted essence of creatures called Dread Stirges, parasitic monsters from Floor 19 that fed exclusively on fear. He'd killed seven of them, drained their blood, and distilled it down to a single drop of pure concentrated essence, which was absorbed into the obsidian through a week-long submersion process. And finally, Morthos had used his own rune, [Link].

It let him forge a permanent connection between himself and an object, so that whatever he felt or experienced could be absorbed into it and stored there indefinitely. The process to create it had been brutal. For six straight hours, Morthos had to press the obsidian against his chest and meditated on death—what the concept meant, his own personal experiences, what came after it. It was spiritually exhausting, but it had worked. The overall concept was brilliant. A masterwork of artifact creation.

The problem was that Morthos had vastly overestimated how much death energy normal humans could accumulate. Even executioners who'd killed hundreds barely generated enough to make the pendant warm. Soldiers who'd survived brutal wars could maybe induce mild discomfort in a small room. Morthos himself—a man who'd witnessed horrors in Ghenna's depths that had literally driven him mad—could only make people feel vaguely uneasy. Therefore, the artifact had been a complete failure.

Morthos had died broke and alone in a fourth Ring tenement, his life's work dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic. The pendant had been sold off with his other possessions, passed from collector to collector. Eventually, it had ended up in a black market shop, being priced at around three silver Rels. But what Morthos hadn't accounted for was the existence of someone like Lio.

From Morthos's scientific notes, Lio knew the theoretical maximum the pendant could process was roughly equivalent to fifty deaths witnessed directly. That was the upper limit Morthos had calculated based on the materials and runes involved. However, Lio was feeding it something closer to ten thousand. The artifact was essentially overloading, forcing death energy through channels that were never meant to handle this volume. Almost like trying to force an entire ocean to go through a single garden hose.

Hence the excruciating pain. In front of him, the woman with pale skin had actually managed to stand up. Her hand was still clutching one of her water vials, knuckles bone-white. She was trying to say something, but no sound was coming out. The cocky one had slumped forward onto the table, his forehead pressed against the wood. His shoulders were shaking, and Lio could see his fingers digging into his arms, drawing pinpricks of blood. The young one had actually wet himself.

A dark stain was spreading across the front of his pants, pooling and dripping the urine down onto the floor. Lio observed all this while raising an single eyebrow, Morthos would have been fascinated by these results. The pendant shuddered again. This time the pain was so intense that Lio's vision actually went white for a moment. His heart stuttered, skipping a beat, then raced to catch back up. That's not good. The pain was approaching the threshold where even he would need to deactivate the artifact soon.

His mental pain resistance could easily deal with this, yet his physical body couldn't. He had about a few more minutes before his organs started shutting down. But not yet. He still had some questions to ask. Lio stopped directly beside their table, and leaned toward the young one who pissed his pants.

"You came here looking for someone, right?" Lio asked quietly. All three of them flinched at the sound of his voice, jerking away like they'd been hit with lightning.

"The girl," Lio continued, his tone remaining calm and casual despite the pure agony tearing through his chest.

"What does your organization want with her?" The young one's head snapped up, his tear-streaked face horribly twisted in terror. His mouth opened, but only a strangled whimper came out. The woman only shook her head in rapid motions, making a strange grunting sound. But the cocky one suddenly moved. His head lifted slowly, and Lio could see his eyes now, blazing with desperation. They were bloodshot, wild, with broken blood vessels creating red spiderwebs across the whites.

Sweat poured down his face in streams, dripping onto the table.

"She—" he choked out, his voice hoarse and quivering.

"She knows about the—" Black veins erupted across his neck. They spread with horrifying speed, crawling up from his chest like living things, like worms. The cocky one's eyes went wide with shock and pain, his hands flying to his throat.

"No—wait—I didn't—" The dark veins reached his face, spreading across his cheeks in branching patterns. Blood began pouring and spurting from his nose in thick streams, splattering onto the table.

"I wasn't—I didn't say it—" His body convulsed violently, like he was having a heart attack. The chair tipped backward, sending him crashing to the floor. His limbs jerked and spasmed, his feet slamming against the wooden boards. The young one screamed in panic at the sight, while the woman stumbled backward, her water vial falling from her hand and shattering on the floor. Lio watched the cocky one seize on the ground, purplish blood now leaking from his ears and the corners of his eyes.

The black veins had spread across his entire face now, turning his skin into a dark, mottled mess. The man's back arched one final time, his spine bending at an unnatural angle. Then he went completely still.