The stench of acid rain had not yet dissipated, but a new downpour was already pouring from the sky.
The rains of Nostramo spared no one among the workers. In fact, they spared no one except the aristocrats.
So this stench would probably never disappear.
Like a torn wound on his left palm, left by a factory machine. Even after healing, it left a scar that was pierced by convulsive pain from time to time.
Josef stared silently at the words.
Three lines of black letters occupied only a small part of the wall made of rotten wood.
Li had written them with large gaps between the symbols. Josef understood why he did it, but he couldn't understand what they meant.
However, this did not stop him from examining the inscription again and again, and then, dipping his finger in a puddle of acid rain, trying to repeat it on the wall.
Unlike Josef, Li had a bright mind. Not like most of them – he remembered a lot.
For example, the guard shift schedule at the factory or how to trick them to get more food. But the fact that he remembered these words truly amazed Josef.
He still remembered the shock he felt when he heard the news, and some kind of hidden schadenfreude.
Yes, the latter feeling was remembered even better than the shock.
He didn't know the name of this emotion, but he understood its essence.
Seeing their death was pleasant. More pleasant even than receiving a full ration.
"Josef!"
Someone called him from outside again. Josef turned and saw a pale face, glistening with sweat, in the darkness.
"They killed again!" the newcomer rasped, lowering his voice.
"It's the Great Purge today," Josef replied.
He hadn't closed the door – in the slums during the rain, doors were generally not closed if you didn't want to suffocate from the stench.
"No, no, it's not them. It's him!" The man waved his hands excitedly. "It's him!"
"How do you know?"
Although agitated himself, Josef still asked: "Many people die during the Great Purge… Haven't you heard the old men? They say dozens die every night."
"This is different!"
The man shook his head stubbornly, and his eyes sparkled under his tangled black hair.
"You'll see – and you'll understand everything. It's definitely him, no doubt!"
"...Is Li there?" Josef asked.
He was still hesitating, but he was already starting to dress.
"So Li found him! Didn't you know, Josef? He didn't sleep all night, wandering around the neighborhood."
"And they didn't touch him?"
"They're all dead!"
A pained smile appeared on the speaker's face.
"From Nington Avenue to Northern Third Quarter – all of them! Li is now on Nington Avenue!"
Josef's eyes widened. After a few seconds of silence, he sharply pushed the intruder away and rushed out of the slums.
The rain lashed his face, burning his skin, but Josef didn't care.
He had never run so fast. Before, his body simply wouldn't have withstood such a load. But now he didn't care about anything. He wanted only one thing – to see with his own eyes. Twelve minutes later, almost falling from exhaustion, Josef saw.
"Eternal Night…"
He muttered in a quiet, broken voice. People crowded around. Thin, ghostly shadows stood under the acid rain and silently watched the blazing flames reflected in their dark eyes.
Some new feeling was born in his soul.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" someone nearby asked quietly.
He turned and saw Li.
"Beautiful, right?" he repeated with a smile.
Behind him, the ruins blazed and crackled. The acid rain couldn't extinguish this fire that engulfed everything: from the gang hideouts to the dark alleys. The flames did not die down.
"I don't know what beauty is," Josef said. "I only feel…"
"What do you feel?"
"This fire…" Josef turned away. An incomprehensible emotion squeezed his throat, and his voice trembled.
He was not born naturally. He had no relatives, none of his loved ones had died at the hands of gangs. In theory, he should have no reason to hate them or react to their deaths in any way. But now he desperately wanted to cry.
Not from grief.
Li raised his head. Acid rain streamed down his pale face. The flames illuminated his dark eyes. After a pause, he said quietly:
"So they can be killed too," he said slowly. "Josef, they… do you understand? They…"
Li turned away.
"They are also mortal," he finished hoarsely.
…
"House Scryvok will not forgive you!"
A man in a scarlet jacket growled angrily.
He lay on the floor, clutching some black, elongated object in his right hand. Darkness reigned around, but the smell of blood was so thick that one could drown in it.
He barked into the darkness, trying to drown out his fear with anger. From the beginning of the massacre, he had only heard gunshots and the screams of his men, but the face of the attacker… he never saw it.
He needed to scream, otherwise he would simply go mad.
"House Scryvok has fallen. News reaches you with a delay, sir."
A soft reply came from the darkness. The voice, like a bucket of ice water, extinguished the flame of his rage.
"Allow me to repeat for you: House Scryvok has fallen. As has your gang. As have all the gangs in Quintus tonight…"
The man trembled. He wanted to say something, but his body betrayed him.
A chilling cold poured from the darkness, freezing everything, almost stopping even his thoughts.
And then the one in the darkness spoke again. The voice was soft, as if in a friendly conversation, but the man sobbed – his instincts screamed of danger.
"Seventy-second, you know? Your gang is the seventy-second…"
A quiet chuckle echoed in the darkness.
"A funny number. It means nothing on its own, but now it is you. One number, one gang, hundreds of lives…"
"And it took me less than ten minutes to wipe them off the face of the earth."
"Are you scared, Mr. Leather Jacket? You don't know who I am. You don't know how I killed everyone in the main hall… Do you want to know?"
Without waiting for an answer, the man emerged from the shadows.
His eyes sparkled with an icy light. The man rolled his eyes and at that moment lost consciousness, his mind ripped away, leaving only exposed, fragile nerves.
He screamed. His right hand unclenched, the object rolled across the floor and was gently picked up by the one standing in the shadows.
"Detonator."
He chuckled again.
"A gang leader who booby-traps his own room… I admire you, Mr. Leather Jacket."
The only response was a scream.
Kariél slowly approached, the detonator in his hand, raised his foot, and cut off the scream.
And then he stopped smiling.
A tall giant stood in the darkness, head bowed, breathing evenly and deeply.
Seventy-second.
How many more? Seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five…
He had already scoured most of the city, and they seemed endless.
And more importantly… Kariél understood perfectly: until the main problem is solved, gangs cannot be eradicated.
This was no longer a question that could be solved by simple slaughter. From his point of view, gangs were like a cancerous tumor. But cancer cells needed a diseased organ.
Where was the focus of the disease?
Kariél had an answer, but no time.
Time.
He mentally uttered the word, but not in Nostramo or High Gothic, but in another language.
His feelings were now hidden from everyone, and at the same time so obvious that they could be read in his eyes.
But no one would see them. He didn't need them to be seen, to break out.
Kariél was used to keeping everything to himself, and he didn't want to get rid of it. He knew it was an unhealthy state, but this burden gave him a sense of being alive.
Turning, he left the room. The corridor was wide and high – one of the few buildings where he didn't have to stoop. Corpses lay everywhere, with different expressions on their faces, but the blood had stained everything one color.
Kariél calmly walked to the elevator shaft, stooped, entered, and simply jumped down.
Twelve floors no longer required any cushioning for him. He landed on the metal roof, broke through it, and found himself on the ground.
Bodies lay everywhere in the main hall. He looked around and found one special corpse among the many dead. Kariél bent down and took an incendiary grenade from his belt.
He didn't need oil to intensify the fire. Human fat was enough to spread the flames.
How ridiculous.
Kariél pressed the button on the grenade, walked out the door with a bitter smile, and threw it accurately into the pile of bodies. Instantly, an explosion erupted, followed by flames that blazed with a crackle.
Yes, very funny. His bitter smile turned into a cold and indifferent one – this planet needed the executioner's slaughter to find at least a moment of semblance of normal life.
His hands were bloody up to the elbows, mired in sin…
A murderer, a monster… something that considered itself human.
Closing his eyes, he took another deep breath, and then ruthlessly cut off all his thoughts, leaving only one goal.
Despite everything, tonight he would finish off all the gangs of Quintus. Even if it didn't solve the problem at its root, it was better than letting the darkness spread further.
***
Read the story months before public release — early chapters are on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Granulan