Chapter 61: Fiend Dace!
"You are going after him? Have you lost your mind?"
To Brann, Dace was no longer human.
He was the kind of thing that belonged in nightmares.
"The strength he showed that night was beyond any ordinary Awakened Warrior. Even the bastard who comes around collecting protection money would not be enough to fill his stomach."
"Listen to me."
Brann clutched Joren as though the boy might rush out the instant he let go.
"You are still young. Give yourself time. Ten years. Twenty."
"You will become someone powerful."
"Revenge can wait until then."
Brann looked crude, greedy, and worldly, but the concern in his face was real.
Joren patted the hand gripping his collar.
"I did not come back to hide."
"I came back to take out the trash."
His gaze moved around the damp maintenance room.
Mold hung thick in the air. This was no place to recover. Stay long enough and even a healthy man would fall ill.
Joren raised his wrist and tapped the tactical watch.
A string of commands flowed across the screen. A temporary electronic pass appeared, followed by a set of coordinates.
"Take this."
He turned the display toward Brann.
"Save the address or scan it into your phone."
Brann pulled out a phone with a shattered screen and scanned the code with trembling hands.
Beep.
A simple navigation route appeared.
The destination meant nothing to him.
"A safe house?"
"Something like that."
It was, in fact, the safest place in all of Norcrest.
Two peak Rank Five fighters were stationed there.
Its defense systems were the best in the city, thousands of elite Awakened Warriors guarded the compound, and enough heavy firepower covered the area to flatten an army.
If that place was not safe, then Norcrest itself was already finished.
"The guards will stop you at the entrance."
"Show them this pass and tell them I sent you."
"I have already arranged a doctor. They can repair your arm."
Brann stared at the red marker on his screen.
His throat tightened.
"Brother... is that place expensive?"
His hand drifted toward his empty pocket.
The slaughterhouse was gone. Most of his money had vanished while he was running for his life.
He had nothing left.
"It will not cost you anything."
"Just get there."
Joren gave his broad shoulder a pat.
"All right."
Brann gritted his teeth and pocketed the phone.
"I will go now."
Then he looked up at Joren, his expression tangled.
"Be careful."
"If you cannot beat him, run."
"There is no shame in that."
Joren did not turn around.
He only raised one hand behind him.
"I am leaving."
Whoosh!
His tall figure became a black blur and vanished into the tunnel.
Brann never even saw him move.
"Good grief..."
He rubbed his eyes, held his broken arm against his body, and staggered toward the exit.
All the while, he kept checking the route on his phone.
"If Joren says it is safe, then it is safe."
He had no idea the coordinates led directly to Alkaid Authority headquarters.
...
Second basement level beneath an abandoned school building in Norcrest.
The structure had once served as an air raid shelter during wartime.
Crunch.
Crack.
Bones broke in the darkness.
The wet sounds carried through the room like a large animal feeding.
Hector Tyren stood beside the iron door.
He wore a finely tailored dark gray suit. His polished shoes gleamed even in the dim light.
He drew a spotless white handkerchief from his breast pocket and covered his nose and mouth.
"Did it work?"
His voice stayed low.
In the corner, the enormous shadow stopped moving.
It turned.
A pair of vertical pupils opened in the dark, glowing with cold green light.
Dace spat out a chewed fragment of bone.
It had once belonged to the thigh of a specially trained student.
Ten minutes earlier, that same student had followed Hector underground with excitement written all over his face, convinced he had been selected for a confidential training program.
Hector looked at the scattered remains.
Something complicated passed through his eyes.
This was the twelfth.
Every victim had been one of the better students from a major academy.
Hector had gone to extraordinary lengths to pave the way for his nephew.
He forged official training documents from Alkaid Authority.
He told the students’ parents that this was a chance to change their children’s fate, but the program had to remain completely secret and all outside contact was forbidden.
The parents thanked him endlessly.
The students arrived full of hope.
Then one by one, they became food for Dace.
Dace rose.
He had once stood around one meter eighty.
Now he was closer to two and a half meters tall.
Dark blue scales covered most of his body, especially the transformed right arm.
That arm had become a grotesque claw lined with hooked barbs.
Each breath sent a faint Shockwave through the air around him.
His voice had turned raw and distorted.
"I have broken through... Rank Four."
He clenched the claw.
Bang!
The air burst in his palm.
Hector’s face lit up.
"Good."
"Very good."
"You did not disappoint me, Dace."
"A Rank Four commander class fighter would rank among the top hundred even across all of Norcrest."
"Once you advance again and reach Rank Five, Antares Command and Alkaid Authority alike will have to bow to House Hurst."
Dace showed no trace of pleasure.
He lowered his head and looked at the body that had not yet gone cold.
The green light in his eyes deepened.
"Not enough."
Hector paused.
"What is not enough?"
"The blood of these weaklings is too impure."
"I need something cleaner."
Dace extended a long tongue and slowly licked the blood from the corner of his mouth.
The movement was grotesque, almost graceful.
Then his head snapped toward Hector.
"Joren."
"Where is he?"
Hector had spent the past few days arranging fresh victims and had not kept up with Antares Command intelligence.
"He has not returned."
"He may already be dead."
Dace roared.
Dust poured from the ceiling.
"I can feel it."
"That bastard is still alive."
"I was the one who swallowed the forbidden flesh."
"I was the one who endured pain worse than death."
"I want him to watch while I tear out his heart and eat it."
Before Joren, Dace had been the center of attention at school.
He would have taken the Strategic Exemption Quota and entered a top martial university without difficulty.
Instead, he had become a monster hiding beneath the city, feeding on raw flesh in the dark.
All of it was Joren’s fault.
The hatred had already sunk into every cell of his body.
Then Hector’s phone rang.
He answered.
A voice came through the receiver.
"Joren is back."