Chương 55: Checkmate

Lio's features were twisted into one of horror and worry, as he stepped closer, his tone tender.

"Hey," he coaxed gently.

"It's alright. I've got you." Lamb's trembling hand reached further out. Up close, Lio could observe the rune's effect in an almost clinical manner, even if his mental state didn't change in the slightest. The compulsion pressed at the edges of his drugged mind, but it found nothing to grip. He crouched, bringing himself down to Lamb's eye level.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, letting concern colour his every word. Lamb's breathing was raspy and unsteady. He shuffled closer, his hunched shoulders shaking, his outstretched hand trembling. Lio reached out, clasping his hand. Then Lamb struck, a thin sliver stiletto having found its way into his hands. It was fast. Unnerving fast, at such a speed that Lio doubted that even he, if he hadn't known about Lamb, could've stopped it.

The slash was angled upward toward the throat, the power of [Absolute Slaughter]'s 500% amplification behind it. But Lio was, in fact, prepared for it. His hand shot up and caught Lamb's wrist. The sheer kinetic energy of the 500% modifier caused Lio's arm to shudder, forcing the heels of his boots into the earth, but he didn't buckle. A long silence followed. Lamb's eyes, now visible at this distance, widened with shock. Lio stared back at him coldly, letting the concern dissolve off his face.

Lamb's face cycled through disbelief, terror and confusion. Lio found himself morbidly amused as he watched. This was his new plan, borne from his understanding of who Lamb was. Job had found Lamb with nothing, and had given him a singular purpose in return. An identity based on killing, and the killings were made possible because of his rune. Due to this, [Absolute Slaughter] wasn't just a rune to Lamb. No, it might as well be his very identity. This was Lamb's most major weakness.

No matter how much of a genius Job had been, he had mistakenly built Lamb's entire psychology on a single pedestal. Remove it, and everything above comes collapsing down. And that was the end goal of Lio's new plan. Make Lamb go feral. And now that Lio had already cracked the pedestal, all that was left to do was widen the injury even further.

"Is that all?" Lio asked in a frigid tone. Lamb flinched like he'd been struck, wrenching his wrist free and stumbling backwards, his composure now completely gone. His eyes swept Lio's face, hunting for the compulsion that should have been there. But Lio's eyes were like two black glass beads, reflecting nothing. Lamb whimpered. Lio didn't say anything as he straightened up and began to close the distance. A bit more…

"How?" Lamb scrambled back, trying to stay away as Lio continued moving forward, his eyes still frantically searching Lio's face.

"How are you doing that? Why aren't you—" He stopped, shaking his head violently.

"No, no. Look at me again. You have to look at me properly. You have to feel it." A thin smirk curving his lips, Lio looked at him dead-on. Lamb shrieked in fear. Lio's eyes were cold and vapid, devoid of any pitying that [Absolute Slaughter] should have produced. Lamb's face crumpled.

"But it always works," he mumbled. He pressed both fists against his temples, his breathing becoming even more ragged.

"It works. It works. It works, it works, it works—" He was saying it like a prayer, as if he thought that if he repeated it enough, it would become reality. Lamb sobbed, as he desperately pulled at his hair. Then he began trembling, making a strange, inhumane sound in the back of his throat, and began to rock back and forth.

"I am pitiable," he shrieked.

"I have always been pitiable. That is the only true thing about me. Job said so! I'm pitiable!" His nails dug deeper into his scalp, thin lines of dark blood beginning to trickle down from his hairline, dripping down his jaw. His small frame shuddered as he let out a low moan. Then suddenly, he stopped rocking, dropping his hands from his head. Then, slowly, he raised his eyes to meet Lio's one more time. Lio sneered. There we go.

The pupils of Lamb's eyes had swallowed the iris entirely, blown wide and bloodshot, and he let out a growl, the sound of it barely human. The terror had vanished, having been devoured by something else. Madness. Lamb bared his teeth in a terrible snarl.

"Your name," he demanded. The rasp in his voice was long gone.

"What is your name?" Lio looked back at him. Then he smiled, reached into his coat, and dropped the brass lighter into the trail of lamp oil at his feet. The flame blazed to life immediately, running hungrily along the soaked path. It consumed everything, racing between the vine rows, climbing the dry Amberpulp husks, until the entire field was a clearing of towering, orange heat. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

The sky was now choked with thick, oily smoke. Within seconds, the silence of the night was obliterated by the violent crackling of Amberpulp plants exploding and imploding under the heat. In the center of this inferno, the light was blinding. And in that light, Lio looked back at Lamb, the corners of his lips curling into a smirk.

"Lackspur Lavigne," he lied in a pleasant tone.

"Nice to meet you." Lamb stared at him, the dancing flames reflected in his dark eyes. Then he dashed forward, and Lio moved to meet him. The ensuing fight was animalistic and desperate. Lamb aimed his first strike at Lio's solar plexus. The 500% amplification was gone now, but Job's training was still entirely alive. Lio sidestepped it, and pushed Lamb's extended arm to break his balance. But Lamb recovered instantly, spinning to let the kinetic energy slide off, and drove his elbow backward toward Lio's jaw.

Lio ducked under it, feeling the displaced air across the top of his head. This guy was fast. Lio slid back, giving himself some time to read and analyze Lamb's fighting style. It truly was compact and ruthless, every movement designed to close distance and deliver maximum damage in minimum time. An assassin's fighting style. Lamb feinted left, then drove his knee upward toward Lio's midsection. Lio caught it on his forearm, sliding back again.

But this time, Lamb followed immediately, not giving him a moment to rest, slamming three strikes at his chest. Lio blocked them quickly, then moved sideways, putting a vine row between them. Lamb just tore through it, snarling. The man was truly fighting with everything he had. His mental state had now completely unraveled, and the only thing keeping him together was one singular goal. Killing Lio. Lio activated [Mach Heart], carrying him three feet to the right just as Lamb's fist came down.

The fire around them was enormous now, the smoke thickening overhead. Burning Amberpulp clusters dropped from the vines hissing and popping as the water inside them boiled. The light was absolutely blinding, flying embers licking their skin and hair. Lamb lunged again, this time grabbing for Lio's collar. Lio let him grip it and used the position for his own advantage, pulling Lamb forward into his own momentum and whirling around sharply, which should have sent him stumbling past.

But Lamb's grip didn't break, and the pull instead yanked Lio sideways with him, the two of them spinning together until Lamb managed to get his forearm across Lio's throat from behind. Lio grimaced, as Lamb's forearm began to choke him. Quickly, he slammed his elbow back into Lamb's ribs again and again until the grip loosened, then dropped and twisted free. He coughed, massaging his raw throat. Looking down, he checked his status.

His arm was bleeding from some heavily split skin, while his ribs had suffered tremendously. His skin was also pocketed with black marks from embers scalding him. Not the best. But across from him, Lamb was in even worse condition. A cut above his eyebrow from where he'd taken the vine row to the face was running blood into his left eye, and he was severely limping. But his expression hadn't changed at all. He was good. If only, Lio mused, he hadn't had such a weak mind, he would've been so much more extraordinary.

Lamb went low, going for the legs, trying to take the fight to the ground where his squat build would have the advantage. Lio let him get close enough, then activated [Mach Heart] again at the last possible moment, sliding past Lamb. Lamb spun immediately, bringing his hands up defensively. They stood facing each other in the center of the burning field. Around them, the fire was doing its work beautifully.

Then the silence was shattered, Trestfall's fire bell beginning to toll loudly, sending rhythmic peals shrieking through the night. Shouts erupted from the settlement—a rising tide of voices followed by the thuds of multiple stampeding feet. A mob was already coalescing at the perimeter of the fire, a sea of wide eyes, drawn weapons, and pails of water. Guards, Trestfall residents, and Delvers surged forward, drawn like moths to the apocalyptic light Lio had ignited.

Lamb was momentarily distracted, his eyes flicking towards the incoming crowd. A rookie mistake borne from his shattering mind. And that was all Lio needed. He activated [Mach Heart] and dove headlong into the wall of roaring fire and choking black smoke. He burst out the other side with his face and body covered in soot, his clothes smoldering. Without a second's pause, he triggered the rune again, the kinetic surge propelling him away from the heat.

With a frantic slide, he tumbled into a narrow irrigation channel nearby. The water was shallow and smelled of rot, but he didn't care. He began slathering himself in the thick, stinking sludge, the black mud masking himself and his burnt smell. He worked feverishly, transforming himself into a ghost of the earth. Once the camouflage was complete, he went perfectly still. He pressed his back against the cool, damp wall of the channel, pulling a curtain of overhanging Amberpulp vines over his head.

Then, he began to observe the sight before him. The guards arrived first, ahead of the crowd, four of them rounding the field's eastern corner at a full sprint, their swords drawn. Behind them came the first wave of residents, clustering at the field's edge. Some were carrying buckets and pails full of water. Lio grimly smiled at the sight of Lamb standing in the center of the burning field, his small figure utterly still. The flames flickered around him as he turned slowly toward the approaching guards.

The leading guard saw him and stopped, the ability of [Absolute Slaughter] taking hold of him. The man's aggressive posture dissolved completely, his expression turning tender.

"Hey," the man said, his voice completely gentle.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt?" The three guards behind him exchanged a bewildered look. From their perspective, they were watching their colleague approach a clearly unstable man like he was coaxing a crying child.

"Wentham," one of them said cautiously.

"What are you—" Before the guard could finish, Lamb struck with his stiletto, slitting the first guard's throat in a clean line. For an instant, nothing followed. The 500% amplification had made Lamb's attack so fast that the body hadn't even realized that it had been cut. Then the man finally collapsed, blood running late down his collar. The remaining three guards didn't hesitate. Without the rune's compulsion clouding them, they rushed him together, raising their swords and spears high.

It didn't take long for Lamb to clean them up. His fighting style, even if it was fit for an assassin, was still more than enough to deal with the guards. He went through all three of them in under thirty seconds, slitting each of their throats in quick succession. The crowd, arriving just in time to see this, quickly began to scatter. People began sprinting in every direction, screaming, colliding with each other.

Those who had runes activated them frantically, the air crackling with poorly directed power as panicked Delvers tried their best to respond. And Lamb walked through them, slowly killing them one by one. [Absolute Slaughter] locked onto each new target as they came close enough, their instincts inverting at the worst possible moment. One at a time. More guards arrived from the guard post, six of them in a V formation with their captain at the front, a grey haired woman with sharp blue eyes. She pointed at Lamb.

"Capture him," she said.

"Make sure not to—" But then, [Absolute Slaughter] found her. Her voice faltered as her brows furrowed.

"Wait," she said.

"Wait, no, he's just a kid—" The guards looked at each other in complete confusion as their captain walked toward the clearly dangerous man with open hands. Then she went down too. Lio watched a second crowd arrive from the main street, larger this time, another mix of residents and Delvers. He watched the pattern repeat itself over and over, one person at a time going down in a pool of blood and agony. A massacre.

Lamb stood in the middle of the carnage, his clothes and face drenched with blood, as he tilted his head back and let out a raw, animalistic howl.

"LACKSPUR LAVIGNE!" Lamb shrieked, his voice unhinged.

"LACKSPUR LAVIGNE, SHOW YOURSELF!" He sounded absolutely furious. From his rooftop Lio watched the Mayor's residence two streets east, its windows blazing with light, groups of guards rushing outside, moving toward the chaos. Lio smirked. Then he turned around, and began heading toward the Mayor's residence. After all, the Prosperous Mantle wasn't going to collect itself.