Walk Hard

I groaned as I was shaken from my slumber, the entirety of my bed being roughly jerked from side to side beneath me more than sufficient to throw off any lingering drowsiness. My attempts to get up on my own were clearly insufficient, given I wasn't halfway through throwing my thin, scratchy blanket off myself before the entire bed was thrown on its side and I rolled onto the hard tile below.

I landed on my hands and knees, my blanket and pillows falling lightly around me as the relatively lightweight metal frame of my bed crashed down inches from my fingers. I was midway through throwing myself to the side when my tail was seized by someone even my Paranoia barely noticed, and I was hoisted into the air.

I bit back a snarl of indignation as I was raised up until I was eye level with the bored, wine-red eyes of my assailant. The only reason I wasn't running my mouth was the creeping dread of realizing that even when he was shaking my bed, even with Paranoia and my own damn eyes focused directly on the bald bastard as he held me aloft, he still only barely registered as being present. Even staring straight at him, my senses seemed to want to slide away and ignore him.

He quirked a hairless brow as I resolutely met his gaze. "Hmm, you sleep too deeply and depend far too much on Paranoia for your situational awareness, but that you can even bear to look at me shows you do have some potential at least." Without so much as a word of warning, he unceremoniously dropped me on my head, "Mind you, locking eyes with an unknown is rarely a good decision; try that shit on a gorgon and you'll be in for a bad, if short, day."

I glared up at him, rubbing my head irritably as I rose to my feet. He snorted in the face of my obvious ire, his respondent sneer fitting perfectly on his pale, aristocratic face. "Pheh, don't just glare at me like a impotent child; if you have a problem with me, knife me in the back or get over it." His eyes were cold, reminding me less of wine and more of bottomless pools of blood splattered over ice and snow as he sneered imperiously down at me.

I snarled, meeting his icy gaze with unflinching anger. Several long seconds passed in silence save for the angry buzzing of my flies before I sighed and conceded the pointless pissing match. Much as it rankled the tattered remnants of my pride to admit, I wasn't sure I could take this guy and I wasn't about to immediately throw away whatever goodwill I had with this gang to find out.

The tall man nodded sharply, "Good. Pride has its place but our profession is rarely served well by an overabundance of it.” He turned and began walking out of the room without so much as a word, though he did pause at the doorway to look back at me with an expectant look. I stifled a grimace, a large part of me railing against having my obedience expected even as I stood up to follow him into the hall. I took the opportunity to get a better look at him as we walked, making sure to pay attention to my Paranoia at the same time.

He was tall, closer to seven than six feet, and incredibly thin. He wore a skintight black bodysuit covered in pouches and strapped on blades beneath a thin hooded cloak, with what appeared to be some sort of cloth shoes and gloves. Every single piece of his ensemble was pure black, though every piece was formed of multiple shades of balck arranged in something close to a camo pattern that I could only assume was meant to break up his outline in the dark. The only part of him that wasn’t various shades of black was the chalk white skin of his exposed head, though I could see what looked like a veil of some kind inside his hood that would likely cover that when he needed to. As much as I wanted to call him an edgy prick for dressing all in black, I couldn’t say such an outfit wouldn’t actually be practical for an assassin and spy.

Which only made me like him even less, though I could admit (if only to myself) that I was just looking for reasons to dislike him.

I seethed in silence as we walked, idly noting numerous gangsters loitering around what seemed to be the living quarters; some were just waking up, others were headed to bed, and yet more were just hanging around chatting aimlessly with other mooks. I tried listening in on a few conversations as we walked past, hoping to glean some useful information from them; I wasn’t expecting much from vacuous watercooler talk, but given I knew almost absolutely nothing about this world even what these people consider mundane information could prove useful to me.

I was startled out of listening to a conversation on the finer points of dealing various drugs to children by a hum from my travel guide, causing me to come to the terrified revelation that I had nearly forgotten he was there as we walked together. “Hmm, you reflexively kill your scent every few seconds and have the presence of mind to eavesdrop as we walk, but you have yet to question who I am and where we're going.”

I abruptly stopped walking, ignoring that bastard turning around to watch me with a blank expression. My eyes narrowed as I met his gaze, though I wasn’t certain if I was more angry at him for tricking me or myself for falling for it; I had allowed his projected and assumed authority to draw me in.

I swallowed my rage through gritted teeth, “Who are you then? And where are we going?”

He gave a thin smile, revealing rows of needle-like teeth behind his thin lips. “I, am Rokharth Bonlaan, master of espionage and assassination for the Burnpike Lords. We have been taking a very roundabout route to the courtyard, where your training will properly begin." His eyes seemed to smoulder with unearthly light for a moment as the shadows around me darkened, "I find myself remarkably unimpressed by your performance so far…”

I met his gaze, my lips curling back over my teeth as fat flies rose around me like a dark cloud. I may have been pressganged into this fucking band of thieves and killers, but I’m not about to put up with bullshit like this. Snarling in indgination, I Observed the uppity bald bastard.

Name: Rokharth Bonlaan

Race: Ancient Vampire

Main Title: King Nothing

Level: 782

Hp: 83,324/83,324

Sp: 64,128/64,128

Mp: 34,476/34,476

Main Trait: Inconsequential: He always seems to blend into the background, slipping beneath the notice of those around him and seeming unworthy of investigation even when noticed. Only the most disciplined or strong willed can pierce this veil, though the more attention he draws to himself the easier it gets.

My blood ran cold as the highest stats I had ever seen showed me just how small a pond I had been playing in. I couldn’t stop my eyes from flying wide and from the widening smirk on the monster standing before me, he had definitely noticed.

Zildan knew he had many flaws; he was reckless, he often didn’t think things through well enough, he slacked off when he had a free moment, and he could be a bit overeager to fulfil his duty at times. However, he was always adamant that he was not stupid. Being decidedly not stupid, he could recognize a battle he couldn’t win even if he was unwilling to cut and run. Perhaps, if he was fully healthy, rested, and equipped he may just have been able to pull out a narrow victory here; as is, his head was swimming, he was down one arm, he hadn’t slept in what felt like days, he was almost out of mana, and he would be willing to swear up and down had more broken bones than intact ones.

He knew damn well that attempting to fight a Blighthulk boosted by the presence of aetherium in close quarters was little more than a particularly painful method of suicide in his condition. He didn’t have the mana or the time to conjure enough starlight to erase this monstrosity, and he knew that anything less than complete destruction would be little more than a delaying action so long as there was Blighted material for the sin against all that was good in the world to heal from. If he wanted any chance of fulfilling his duty, let alone surviving this with his soul intact, he would need to utilize his last resort.

All this went through his mind as he watched the grey behemoth fly through the air in what felt like slow motion, its massive fist growing ever closer to his head. He rolled toward the airborne creature, passing under it before it hit the ground. The sheer power behind the creature’s fist cratered the ground, flinging him into the air even from the five feet he had managed to roll away from the point of impact. Long training in aerial mobility allowed him to twist his uncontrolled flight into an almost elegant pirouette to land on his feet, where he immediately dropped to one knee and pulled a short, thick, and wickedly curved obsidian blade from his left boot.

His master had called it a guthook, and showed him exactly why when they prepared the ritual he was about to finish; it was designed to cut open one’s abdomen without damaging the organs and muscle beneath. He swallowed heavily, ignoring his dry throat and the feeling of his burned bones scratching against his skin as he pulled up his shirt with what was left of his bottom two fingers. He barely glanced at the embodiment of all he despises, feeling any hesitance drain away as his black eyes met its soulless grey.

He could see the faintest spark of a twisted intellect working behind those eyes, and some part of him swore he could see a glimmer of concerned recognition as it saw the twisting symbol painted across his stomach. He met its gaze with a smile, drove his blade into his flesh, and opened his guts to the air in one quick slice.

He couldn’t help but laugh as the smell of brimstone met his nose and hellfire exploded out from his slit open stomach.