Pietro didn't appear to have any idea how to handle watching his E-rank bodyguard get eaten by a mask. Which...I mean, that was fair. I wasn't really sure how to process that either. It had been horrifying. Still, I was much more interested in putting down this arrogant little pissant who had brought a whole crew of zombies to wipe out me and my friends just because I put down his child stealing psycho of an underling.

"Y-you...what do you want to do?" He said shakily as he saw me approach. I admit I was pretty gratified seeing him pale and back up. "I'm here for the tournament!" He said desperately. "You can't kill a member of a five faction alliance team, the Black Sorrow Cult won't let you off!" His words had the ring of something he desperately wanted to believe. An old truth that had turned against him and that he was trying hard to hold onto.

I got the feeling he was the kind of person who did this sort of thing often. He was used to throwing his weight around, as if that wasn't obvious, but more than that he was used to his background saving him when he fucked it up. Now his bodyguard was dead, seemingly killed by someone at the same level as him, and the only people he had close enough to help were being obstructed by our forces.

It had taken me a minute to understand how he could possibly be dumb enough to do this. To bring these people down here to try to kill us in a place as dangerous as this one, but then I considered it from another angle. Considering how strong someone pathetic like Pietro could be with a good job, that E-ranker was probably substantially more dangerous than any random fighter from a backwater like Callus. He might have even had some gear at D-rank of something as an emergency measure.

In the face of a mask created by a B-ranker it had all been for nothing, and that itself showed how easily deeper foundations could let someone do whatever they wanted. Without backing from Zeke I'd have been fucked, and Pietro really could have gotten away with this without even a slap on the wrist. Unfortunately for him, he'd run into someone even more connected than him.

Clicking my tongue, I shook my head. "Sorry to tell you this." I said stopping about five or ten feet from him. "But no one cares. This is the WCP, and more importantly a dark district. Where you came from doesn't matter here. Fuck around and find out is the only rule in this place." I gestured around to all the now uncertain looking zombies, of which there were far fewer than there had been to start. "You got that first part down, now it's time to find out. Tell me, what do you think that's going to be like?"

Pietro was shaking as he stared at me, eyes desperately scanning around for an escape. He was actually strong enough that if he went all out he might be able to beat me in my current condition, but he was so paralyzed by fear he couldn't seem to even conceptualize fighting back. He wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. The forces arrayed against his own army of corpses were keeping him penned in. I was about to mockingly comment on that when I was interrupted by a loud explosion of flames and lightning off to one side. I was preparing to be attacked when a muffled voice I didn't recognize called out. "Sorry."

Another voice, this one easily identifiable as Cark bellowed. "Gods damn it, which one of your dipshits let Quentin use the Thunderfire Cannon?" I turned to glare at him and he cleared his throat. "Sorry Sol!" I heard him muttering to Sage in the background. "When I said to give one of them the Thunderfire Cannon I obviously didn't mean Quentin. He has absolutely no ability to aim at all." He paused, obviously listening to a response I somehow couldn't hear. "I don't know, Lyle? Brent? Allison? Fucking WENDELL? Literally anyone else."

Turning forcefully and ignoring my friend, I took a deep breath and focused back on Pietro. "Sorry about that." I said with a blank expression. "Ignore them. You were about to beg for your life. Probably offer me tons of money or some treasures that would be useful for my growth?" I gestured leadingly, letting him pick up where I was going, and I saw his eyes widen with hopeful excitement.

"Y-yes! Of course." His old arrogance started to come back. "Naturally any conditions can be talked about. You're in the better position, so getting some benefits is natural. What kind of resources were you hoping for? Gems? Elixirs? I could just pay you in chits? I'm sure I can find something to satisfy you."

I listened to him chatter on for about ten minutes, listing off all the valuable things he could take out and getting more and more agitated by my seeming ambivalence. Honestly some of the stuff sounded pretty good, but I didn't make a sound, didn't even smile, I just waited, and let him go on and on until finally, he couldn't take it anymore. "WHAT?" He screamed frantically. "What do you want? I can get you anything. I'll call my father right away, I'll have him find whatever you need. Just TELL ME!"

I finally smiled at him, but it wasn't reassuring or pleasant. It was cold and brutal. I didn't even need to see myself in a mirror to know how terrible it was. I didn't think I had that kind of expression in me. His face went even paler and he started to back up. "What do I want?" I asked calmly. "I want lots of things Pietro. I want those kids to have their childhoods back. I want the headless bodies of the 'puppets' Aiden killed resurrected. I want my friend's sister to be able to sleep without a nightlight on because she's so scared someone will sneak into her room at night and take her away again. Can your father give me any of those things?"

This wasn't a game. This wasn't even cultivation. I enjoyed struggling for resources, fighting, I didn't even take being screwed over to heart most of the time. That was just business. That was life as an Ascendant. But this? The Heartrippers, Cass, the other kids? That was wrong. It was disgusting, and I'd forced myself to ignore how angry it made me for far too long. If he'd stayed away I might have kept on burying it. Kept on living in denial. But Pietro had to come out and poke the bear, to pardon a slightly on the nose metaphor.

Based on the expression on his face that was when he finally figured out I was going to kill him. There was nothing he could possibly do to stop it. He turned and tried to run then, not even looking for a way out, just trying to force his way past everyone, throwing out his hands to release an explosion of dark power to drive back anyone in his way. He slammed headfirst into a pitch black wall of shadow courtesy of Callie.

It would have been sad watching him scratching uselessly at it, trying to get away, if I didn't hate him so damn much. As it was it I just found it pathetic. I walked up to him calmly, and I marveled at the way I felt right now. I'd been pissed before. I'd even been enraged. But this wasn't like that. I was murderous. Literally. I wondered how much of this was recursion, because I was sure this would have terrified me a few months ago. Now it just left me cold.

I raised my cane, still with multiple blows left in Afterburner. I focused, and with soul strength I didn't even know I had, bolstered by the cold fury burning in my gut, I forced the skill to condense. I layered all those blows together forcing them into a single strike, I used Mercy Kill, I used another of my triple strength density shifted attacks, and I WANTED to use a gravity burst too, but I knew it would be too much.

It was fine though. I had enough power. I whirled the cane around between my fingers, using Balam to build up speed, and then brought it smashing down on the back of Pietro's head like a hammer with every ounce of Might in my body. The dark shield flared, but the blaze of my poison fire and the strength of the attack cracked and then shattered it, the blow continuing down to crash into his head.

Much like my own armor the robe was F-ranked, but also like my won armor it was specialized in dispersing cutting and energy attacks. Cloth, even super durable cloth, doesn't do a ton to stop blunt force. I felt his head cave in under the blow and he slumped to the ground. Maybe not dead yet, but getting there.

The last time I'd killed someone like this I'd been in battle, and the time before I'd blacked out right after. I'd never just...murdered someone. Not even someone who deserved it. I felt strange. Empty. Callie sidled up next to me, slipping under my arm and pulling me against her. I heard the sound of the corpses being forced to surrender. The Darkling Institute members who were controlling them weren't idiots. They had no backing and no support. Continuing the fight would just be asking to get got.

As for me, I was just...tired. My head hurt, I felt cold and empty. I just wanted this to be over. I'd had enough of Doomtown. I wanted to go back up the the Pavilion and spend the next week with my friends. Granting them wishes and doing stupid shit at the circus and spending time with my girlfriend and going on dates and checking on Cass and literally anything except be HERE for even another minute.

Sadly that wasn't an option. We were here for the auction and I wanted to make sure we got something out of it. We kept Mordaunt and Rahm, I was planning to ransom them for something good. They'd tried to kill us for money so it was only fair we got paid for kicking their ass. Unfortunately we did NOT get to keep the hammer, and we couldn't justify buying the damn thing considering it was only useful to one person at a time, so Benny got all sulky about it.

We did manage to get our hands on a blank G-rank Skill Crystal, which was what we'd come here for. I suspect some of the other bidders might have cut us a break as thanks for dealing with Pietro, or we might not have even gotten that, but it pretty much cleaned us out. Once we got it we unanimously decided to leave. No one was really in the mood for the auction anymore. Even Abel and Lament were unhappy, since their opponents had surrendered along with the corpses.

The walk back up to G-district was silent as we mulled over everything that had happened in Doomtown. It had been...a lot. We'd fought, bled, thankfully none of us had died, but despite the fact that we had an overwhelming victory it didn't feel like a win. I forced myself to snap out of it. We hadn't lost anything. Had gained plenty. We'd made friends, formed alliances, got stronger. We were ready. We would win the tournament, get to the Moonsong Glade, get stronger and leave Callus to explore the rest of the system, then the cluster, then the whole damn galaxy. Nothing was over. This was only the beginning, and it could have gone a lot worse. So why did I still have this gnawing sensation of dread in my stomach?