Killer

Jarathia | Ember Valley

Mansions loom like cliffs, glass and stone stacked into a canyon of wealth. A few hundred guards line the boulevard, armor glinting under the full moon’s glare. Beside them stands the toothless mage, lips wet, eyes bright with malice.

Jerome strolls up opposite, alone.

“Oh.” he says, amused. “I see.”

Shields lift. Barrels and spearheads swing toward his chest.

“I suppose you’re surprised I didn’t bring support.” He goes on, entirely unbothered. “But the reason is quite simple.”

The toothless mage squints. “You… know—”

“Of course.” Jerome’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “A last-minute change to thin our troops. I’m here to give Mersa room to breathe, with the reinforcements.”

He draws his silver sword. Metal liquefies, rippling down the blade like quicksilver.

“It WAS last minute…” He admits, voice flattening. “I didn’t expect THAT! That HE betrayed us! Jule, that bastard!”

The mage barks a laugh and jerks his staff up. “Shi—kar—I—”

Wind scythes swirl toward Jerome.

“Toothless?” Jerome says, head cocked. “You can’t even speak your incantations? Ridiculous.”

He shrugs off his shirt. Scars crosshatch his torso—old, pale, merciless. He fills his lungs.

“Guards,” he calls, calm as a bell, “this is a battle between mages. Watch—or die! But running is HIGHLY forbidden!”

They rush him anyway.

“Liquidity—Toxic World.”

His blade kisses the street. Silver fragments spray outward, a glittering rain that soaks stone and leather boots alike. The first rank coughs—once, twice—then blood spatters on the cobblestone. Bodies crumple where they stand.

Jerome steps through the growing silence.

“Liquidity—Endless Blade.”

The sword lengthens, a seamless lance of living metal. He swings. The boulevard splits from curb to curb, a perfect canyon carved in an instant, and the shockwave hurls the toothless mage backward as the Ceral District holds its breath.

The toothless mage reacts in time, hissing an incantation between ruined gums. “El—raz—shh—ildo.”

A bulwark of force blooms before him, catching the silver gleam of Jerome’s lengthened blade.

Jerome jumps back, gaze flicking to the guards—men still dropping one by one, coughing red, the silver poison-laced ground taking hold. Heat lashes across his spine. A firestorm coils around him like a cage.

From beyond the blaze the mage wheezes another fragment, “A—shh—try—” and the flames thicken, trying to shear a chunk from Jerome’s side.

He pulls the liquid blade into a shield and vaults upward through the inferno. “Liquidity—Crush.”

Silver floods his veins. He twists midair—below, the toothless mage croaks, “Ane mor—” and a colossal red spear congeals in front of him. It launches with a sonic crack.

Jerome meets it head-on. The impact rips rooftiles free, scything across the boulevard. The spear slowly grinds through his guard, shards biting deep into his chest—yet he drives on.

“Enigma – GIANT!“ he casts. The blade grows gigantic—and he swings.

The silver edge finds flesh and cleaves the toothless mage cleanly in two.

Jerome lands.

“Argh—” he staggers, clutching his stomach as blood slicks his fingers. He turns, stumbling toward Jule’s townhouse.

He kicks the door open with enough force that it flies right off the hinges, disappearing inside the building.

A knife slides between his ribs from behind.

Jerome twists, rips the blade free, and faces Jule—wide-eyed, terrified. One punch crashes into Jule’s jaw and porcelain teeth skitter across the floor. But Jerome follows it up with another—his fists meeting flesh, again and again and again.

“WHY? WHY? WHY?”

Jule chokes, blood bubbling past his lips. He snaps his fingers—the blood spilling over his chin ripples, hardening into a crimson knife that whips toward Jerome.

Jerome snatches it out of the air and throws it into the floorboards, pinning the writhing blood in place.

“I want to be a noble,” Jule gasps, “I want to be more than this misery!”

“Your parents are rich! We could have won—BUT YOU—”

“Rich?” Jule spits more red. “If they learn more—if they DO more—we die! Even Torvea lost! You CAN’T win!”

Another blow from Jerome—Jule’s chin splits anew.

“NO ONE ASKED YOU!” Jerome shouts.

Silence follows. Jule slumps, unconscious.

Jerome straightens, breathing ragged, and steps into the living room. Two bodies lie there—Jule’s parents—stiff and cooling. Jerome kneels, closing their eyes with blood-slick fingers.

He slides down the wall and sits, vision tunneling. “I can’t kill him.” he mutters. “He didn’t know any better… he’d fix things from the inside. Right?”

A cough tears free—more blood leaving Jerome’s body.

“Enigmatic Fire.”

He presses heat into his open wound. Flesh sears—the smell of burning fills the room. Jerome grits his teeth and glares the pain into silence.

Then he staggers back into the foyer and looms over Jule.

A bloodshot eye cracks open.

“If you ever touch one of us—EVER—I swear you’ll die!” Jerome growls. “You’ll bleed out. I’ll make sure. EVERY last drop! UNDERSTAND? You’ll do anything to keep us SAFE from those bastards! DO YOU UNDERSTAND? YOU KEEP HER SAVE!”

He slams the flat of his blade against Jule’s mouth, the last porcelain tooth rattling out onto the tile. “NOD! If not, this’ll be your last breath…”

Jule nods, shaking.

Jerome wrenches the blade free, turns, and stumbles outside into the alleys, slumping. He lifts his voice to carry high throughout the streets.

“They were your PARENTS, idiot! Was it worth it?”

Guards stare from where they’ve fallen, some propped on elbows, some sprawled amid silver-slick cobblestone.

“Answer me, guards!” Jerome roars. “Are you fine killing the people trying to SAVE you?”

One guard coughs from the ground. “We only want to protect Jarathia.”

“LIES!” Jerome’s voice cracks. “If that’s true, why kill the scientists—people who GENUINELY wanted to help?”

“They were criminals!” A guard rasps. “They wanted… to sow panic.”

Something cold settles behind Jerome’s ribs.

“Yeah.” He says, quieter. “And so you killed my parents. I guess when people believe nonsense hard enough, they’ll do anything for it. Facts don’t exist in that kind of world.” He stares at his red-slick hands. “Did I really need to paint this path of bloodshed? Is my fate to be the villain now? Do I really have to kill all of my ideals, just because the people only listen to violence?”

He breathes in deep, steadying himself.

“Mersa, you were right. It takes so much time to change them.” His voice hardens. “And we don’t have it.”

He tips his head up to the moonlight, then glances back toward the townhouse. “Jule—if you don’t yet take my threat seriously… you better watch closely.”

As if he heard him, Jule crawls to the doorway and collapses there.

“Enigma—Final Wrath!”

Silver surges along his blade until the whole street reflects its gleam, and Jerome drives the sword into the earth. Light detonates outward. In a single, precise sweep, every guard within sight falls still—heads bowed as if in prayer, bodies folding in unison.

Jule gasps, breath ragged and loud.

“This is the path you forced me onto.” Jerome says, voice flat, empty. “I’ll learn to be comfortable with killing—because I’ll be the counterforce that Jarathia needs!”

Jarathia | Ember Valley

The district sprawls out in tiers of blackened stone. Buildings lie cut open, mist hanging in the sky—yet three gigantic houses still stand, defiant against their ruined surroundings.

At the valley’s central square, the giant waits. Moonlight slicks his shoulders and his breaths steam out as slow, heavy clouds.

Chisa faces him across the cracked cobblestones, axe resting against her thigh, lightning prickling along her skin like impatient rain.

“I see,” the giant rumbles, “you came alone. So you knew about the ambush. But as you see, I’m also al—”

Lightning races across Chisa’s skin. She surges forward, axe in both hands. The giant snaps up to intercept her with a kick—bone cracks under the blow as she powers through it. Pain twists his face as he counters, a fist slamming into her mid-dash. Chisa skids backward, boots crackling sparks over the ground.

“You were aiming for my neck.” He growls. “What madness. I didn’t—”

Her axe spins from her hand—she throws it with full power. He reacts too late. The blade kisses his face and drives through it. One eye bursts.

“Argh!”

Chisa’s voice is flat. “I’m here to kill you. That’s all. Honestly, it’s a mercy.”

She strides closer.

“You forced this on us both!” She says, wrenching the axe free as the giant grapples with the haft. “And you talk too much.”

He strains, but she doesn’t hesitate and swings the axe free of his grip.

“Interesting…” She murmurs. “You don’t intend to kill me? Enslave me, then? Wrong choice. I could never be a good slave. I accidentally kill everyone who tries to own me—EVERYONE! The nobles’ leash only sharpened my teeth, so I could rip it…”

For a heartbeat he sees her as she is—a teenager haloed in a demonic current, ready to kill anyone.

He panics—she plants a heel in his gut. Air explodes out of his lungs and he drops to one knee.

“I was wrong to talk…” he rasps. “You’re different. A killer—killer—killer—”

He throws his head back, voice booming. “I am Mercury Strand! And I will end your onslaught!”

He raises his arms to the moon—muscle surges, veins bulge, skin splits with heat. “I need to find a new woman for my—”

Chisa swings.

One clean cut—

—his left arm thuds to the ground.

Mercury bows, scoops up the severed limb and squeezes. Flesh buckles and hardens into an obscene, organic club.

He charges.

Axe meets club. Blood splatters.

Clash
Clash
Clash

Chisa yields ground, then leaps—twirling up high, blade’s edge tracking his throat. Mercury smiles through the pain—the club still gushes blood, then calcifies mid-swing into a brutal axe. He buries it in Chisa’s abdomen.

“—Argh!”

She screams. He hammers her into the ground. A ragged hole yawns in her belly as he wrenches the weapon free.

“Bloody onslaughts lack honor and passion,” Mercury says, settling to the ground as if to talk, “pure slaughter is not my style. According to medical texts, you should survive another five minutes. So we can talk now.”

Chisa’s vision swims. “It… hurts, damn it!”

She looks up—and for a moment, recalls…

A bald child in a schoolyard, arms full of books, mocked by his classmates. She stood in front of him. A shield.

The memory flickers, then fades. She laughs once, hoarse.

“This island is truly perverse.” she says. “You’re strong. Smart. And still, you fight to destroy the country even more. Ridiculous. Why did Raven die? Why did Torvea leave the last message he did? Why did my parents warn everyone, but die themselves? Why—?”

“Because we don’t TALK!” Mercury says. “It’s simple.”

“We tried.” She coughs up blood. “We were children. We tried every time—but no one listens to children. Or to science. Only to comfort. Leave the poor and powerless with nothing and watch as even more get poor and lose power. A chain reaction no one wants to face. After WE die, who’s next? Who’ll be their next sacrifice? They’re selling us—our souls—for what? The cycle never ends—”

“You talk too much for nothing.” Mercury says, intrigued despite himself. “I thought you were a true warrior! I thought you would acknowledge my strength and then fall madly in love with me!”

The air snaps, a small purple lightning crackling to life.

Chisa appears at his chest, her axe poking out of his back, sunk straight through his heart.

He gawks. “How—?”

“If I charge and don’t release, the energy stores up in me,” she whispers, blood at her lips, “then I can release it all at once. You should have killed me before you started talking.”

He slumps. She holds his gaze.

“Was it worth it—trying to talk?”

“No.” He breathes. “It just… hurts.”

“Someone has to do this for us, Mercury. I am sorry—” she says.

“You are— the girl from the school?”

“I’m sorry.”

She draws the axe free and, with a clean, almost gentle stroke, takes off his head, placing it on the ground.

Lightning crawls along the haft—she turns that charge inward, cauterising her wounds. The stink of burnt flesh flies on the wind.

Chisa sinks onto the cracked street, staring up into the torn sky. “I’m a killer.” She whispers, voice thin. “That’s all I know how to be.”

She hugs the axe tight, eyes closing.

“Mersa,” she whispers, “it’s your turn now.”