Chapter 17:
First Blood
The Children of Eris
Ryan couldn’t remember the last time he had been this angry before.
His arm ached, his wrist hurt like hell, his neck was bleeding and, worst of all, he had been humiliated in front of his own men by a single man and his wife.
“Who the hell does that bastard think he is?” Ryan grumbled loudly to his men as they walked down the back alleys. “Thinks he’s a big shot just because he used to be an adventurer.”
It had all happened to quickly for Ryan to fully understand what had happened.
The Sons of Tartarus had absolutely been in control of that entire situation, there was no doubt about it. The staff were scared stiff, the wife was clearly uncomfortable with them being there and, though he tried to hide it, Curtis would have been shaken by having so many armed enemies around him.
How the hell did we end up running with our tails between our legs and with a stupid contract like that signed?!
Ryan threw his non-broken fist into the wall and then kicked it a few times. Once he had gotten out his anger, he took a few, long deep breaths and calmed himself down.
“What do you want to do, Ryan?” One of his men asked.
“What we always do to people who cross us,” Ryan growled. “We’ll come back tonight and rough it up. Let’s see how arrogant that Curtis git is once we’ve destroyed his tavern and beaten his wife.”
As they said that, someone laughed loudly behind them.
The men turned around and found Curtis’s wife, Olivia stood there, clutching her stomach and laughing hard at them.
“What’s so funny?” Ryan demanded.
Olivia wiped a tear from her eye and stood upright, a hand on her hip and a nasty smile on her face. “You worms. You’re more pathetic than I thought. You get beaten up so easily and then talk about how you’re going to win next time. If that isn’t something a bunch of weaklings say after losing an unwinnable fight, I don’t know what is.”
Ryan grunted and let out a low laugh, drawing his sword. “Seems like you don’t understand what an unwinnable fight is, lady. In case you can’t count, there are eight of us and one of you.” Ryan smirked. “Actually, there’s a bit more than that now.”
From behind Olivia came six more men and from behind Ryan came another eight, bringing their total up to twenty-two.
“Change of plans, lads,” Ryan said. “We’ll have our way with her and leave her for dead here. That ought to send Curtis a message not to fuck with us.”
Even after hearing that and seeing more men surround her, Olivia didn’t stop smiling. In fact, her smile changed into a more cruel, sadistic smile that made Ryan inadvertently take a single step back.
“Ah, it’s been so long since I got to let loose,” Olivia purred, opening her mouth slightly to reveal razor sharp fangs. “Forgive me, Dark Lord, but I can’t help it!”
A second later, something zoomed towards Ryan’s group, cutting four of the men beside him clean in two, spraying their blood and guts over their comrades.
It wasn’t until their torsos dropped onto the ground that Ryan and the Sons of Tartarus were able to grasp what had just happened.
“You vermin really do know how to piss people off, if nothing else,” Olivia whispered with a cold, violent glare and the crack of her whip.
A magical aura surrounded her and her clothes tore to shreds, revealing a much skimpier outfit and bat-like wings.
“I thought I could hold it in, but you guys just pissed me off too much,” Olivia muttered. “I could handle it if you were only talking about Mímir and I, but then you went and threatened the Dark Lord.”
“W-who?” Ryan weakly asked.
“You said you would reduce me to a state where even the one who loves me couldn’t stand to look at me, right?” Olivia’s blood-red aura flared and a few of them men’s legs gave out on them, collapsing them onto the floor. “I thought I’d be generous and return the same courtesy to you maggots!”
Olivia swung her whip forwards at Ryan’s men again, shredding three more into two pieces, severing them right down their nose in half, and then leapt forwards towards Ryan. She kicked him hard in the stomach with her heel, piercing his stomach and dropping him onto his knees. She quickly withdrew her heel and swept it towards the eight men behind Ryan, sending them flying from the blast generated by her swing.
Olivia then cracked her whip at them, wrapping it around their legs and then tightening her grip, breaking their legs. She then dragged them towards her with a powerful, violent pull.
They landed roughly on their legs and screamed wildly, begging for mercy, a few tried to crawl away but her whip found them again. It sliced open their backs, leaving them paralysed, unable to do anything but scream as their pain overwhelmed them.
As for the men that had been behind Olivia, they had been killed shortly after Olivia had revealed her true form to them.
Impaled in their necks were thin knives tied to strings and, holding those strings, was Curtis.
Ryan looked down at the blood gushing from his stomach and vomited up blood. He looked up as Olivia circled in front of him, her cruel smile back on her lips. She wrapped her fingers around his skull; then, with her razor-sharp finger nails, she dug into the top of his head and pulled his scalp off, tossing it carelessly behind her.
And just like that, twenty-two members of one of the toughest and most infamous underworld organisations in the Holy Empire had been killed.
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