The torch in Silas's hand crackled, greedily devouring the oxygen. Vapor from the deep purple puddle of Black-Lotus continued to rise, creating visual distortions in the stuffy warehouse air. Time seemed to stop ticking.
I stared at the wretched man before me with a calculative gaze.
"Lower that torch, Silas," I said with a chillingly cold and rational tone. "You do not need to die tonight. Hand over the keys to this warehouse. I will give you enough gold coins to escape and ensure you cross the borders of Aethelgard before sunrise. You can start a new life."
Silas stood frozen for a moment. Yet, that logical offer completely failed to penetrate his sanity.
Instead, the man in the silk shirt let out a hoarse laugh. The sound was ear-piercingly shrill and born purely of absolute despair. Tears of terror mixed with cold sweat streamed down his face, which was covered in rotting bruises.
"You understand nothing, Draven!" shrieked Silas, his voice cracking. The torch in his hand trembled violently. "You think escaping is an option? If you seize this warehouse tonight, Orvelis will not grant me a quick death. He will hunt me to the ends of the earth. He will flay me alive, summon the most expensive healers to mend my body, and then flay me again until I beg for death weeping tears of blood!"
Silas stared at the purple puddle beneath his feet with an insane smile. "Here, I am the one who controls how I die! I will not give Orvelis that satisfaction!"
I narrowed my eyes. This negotiation had hit a dead end. Silas was no longer driven by courage or loyalty. The man was entirely controlled by absolute terror.
Orvelis Nightbane had instilled a fear so deeply rooted that his subordinates would rather blow themselves up than ever meet his eyes again.
Realizing there was no way out of this conversation, I glanced at Ragnar from the corner of my eye. I gave a silent signal.
Charge him now!
Ragnar nodded slowly and prepared to propel his leg muscles. However, fueled by the adrenaline of despair, Silas acted much faster than we anticipated.
Silas did not drop his torch into the deadly puddle. Instead, he used his left hand to pull a small glass bottle from beneath his silk robe.
The bottle contained pure, undiluted Black-Lotus concentrate. Silas bit the cork stopper off, then downed the thick black liquid in a single gulp.
"Do not let him swallow it!" shouted Virelith from a distance.
It was too late. The next second, the glass bottle shattered on the stone floor. Silas shrieked in pain mixed with a deadly ecstasy.
The veins on his neck and face instantly bulged thickly. They turned pitch black like rotting tree roots creeping beneath his skin.
The blood vessels in both his eyes burst simultaneously, turning his pupils and sclera into a sea of blazing blood red amidst the darkness.
His bones cracked loudly. The muscles in his arms and chest expanded forcibly, tearing the seams of his silk shirt with a horrifying ripping sound.
Silas lost his human sanity in a matter of seconds. He had now metamorphosed into a true Berserker.
In his last remaining shred of sanity, Silas did not throw his torch into the Black-Lotus puddle at his feet. He threw the wooden torch far across the room, aiming right at a stack of dry wheat sacks in the corner of the warehouse.
The fire instantly ignited brightly, devouring the wheat sacks. The flames began to creep slowly along the wooden shelves and the dusty floor.
Silas had just created a time bomb. The fire would continue to spread, finding its way to the Black-Lotus puddle in the center of the room. We had to kill him and extinguish that fire before it was too late.
Silas roared, cleaving the air. His voice no longer sounded like a human; it was the roar of a wounded wild beast. He charged at me with a speed entirely illogical for his newly enlarged body size.
"Ragnar! Attack from his flank!" I ordered while drawing the Blood-Iron sword from my back.
But before Ragnar could step forward to help me, the sound of wooden doors slamming open echoed from the west wing of the warehouse. Dozens of Silas's mercenary guards burst in. Their eyes were just as red as their master's. They were all under the influence of Black-Lotus.
"Kael! There is a pack of mad dogs at the west door!" shouted Ragnar in panic. The giant man was forced to redirect his sword swing to block the attack of the first guard leaping at him.
"Virelith! Protect Ragnar! Form a circular defense and hold them there!" I shouted back, issuing commands. "Let me handle this monster alone!"
I refocused my attention on the main threat before me. Silas was already very close. He swung his right arm, now as hard and thick as a tree trunk, straight toward my head. The gust of wind from his swing felt like it was cutting my face.
I knew perfectly well that my adolescent body would not be able to parry a direct blow from such a massive mass.
My tactical brain took over. I gripped the hilt of the Blood-Iron sword with both hands and drove the tip of its blade with all my might into a gap in the stone floor before me. I used it like a protective steel pillar.
The impact of Silas's arm struck the flat side of my greatsword with a deafening metallic clang.
The vibration of the collision traveled up my entire arm. I was pushed back one meter. My boots scraped hard against the stone floor, sparking tiny embers.
Yet, I did not let go of my sword. I used the planted sword as a pivot to jump and spin my body toward Silas's blind spot on his right.
Silas momentarily lost his balance due to his blocked strike. Capitalizing on that precious momentum, I drew a trench dagger from my belt using my left hand. I thrust the sharp blade straight into the side of Silas's neck.
This was a deadly precision attack. But a bitter reality slapped me.
My steel dagger was stopped. Silas's muscles, mutated by the Black-Lotus syrup, proved to be far too dense. The sensation was like stabbing thick tire rubber plated in steel. The tip of my dagger only penetrated an inch, refusing to pierce his main artery.
Silas roared in anger upon feeling the small bite on his neck. He twisted his body violently and retaliated with an incredibly fast backhand swing.
That giant backhand struck my chest squarely. I was launched flying through the air, crashing into a pile of empty wooden barrels until they splintered into pieces.
My body was crushed. Sharp pieces of wood pierced my back. Strangely, however, my eyes remained wide open. Thanks to the Nerve Suppressant Serum formulated by Virelith, I felt absolutely no pain.
I immediately got back to my feet without wasting a single second, ignoring the wood splinters embedded in my cloak.
I stared at Silas, who was charging to attack me again. I needed massive power to drive that monster back. An ordinary sword would not pierce his skin, let alone a dagger. I retrieved the Blood-Iron sword lying nearby.
I gripped the long hilt of the giant sword with both hands. I widened my stance, finding the firmest footing on the stone floor.
I rotated my waist backward to its absolute limit, gathering all the momentum a human body could generate, and swung the heavy steel sword straight sideways toward Silas's left knee.
The heavy blade of my sword successfully struck Silas's knee dead on. The sound of cracking bone rumbled loudly. Silas staggered wildly to the side as his left leg lost its support. The attack was a massive success.
However, there was a fatal price I had to pay for this absence of pain.
I had swung the giant weapon beyond the physical elasticity limit of my fragile adolescent body. There were no pain signals from the brain warning me to hold back my strength.
I felt no stinging whatsoever. I purely heard a popping sound from within my own body.
CRACK!
The sound was incredibly wet, loud, and horrifying, coming from inside my right shoulder. The next second, when my brain automatically commanded my right hand to raise the sword again to slash Silas's neck, the arm did not respond.
I turned with a look of horror. My right arm fell limply to my side like a severed rope. My fingers opened uncontrollably. The hilt of the Blood-Iron sword slipped from my right hand and fell clattering to the stone floor.
My bicep muscle and the ligaments in my right shoulder had completely torn due to the forced swing earlier. My hand was completely dead.
I took a deep breath, stabilizing my heartbeat. Panic would not bring my arm back. I now had to fight with only one functioning left hand against a giant rampaging monster recovering its balance.
I exhaled roughly. With my right arm shattered internally, the Blood-Iron sword was now merely a dead weight I could not lift with one hand.
I kicked the greatsword away. I would rely purely on my left hand and the trench dagger held in a reverse grip.
In the corner of the room, the fire from the wheat sacks began to grow, licking the wooden ceiling. The heat started to boil the air inside the warehouse. Thin smoke began to sting my eyes. Our time was almost up.
Silas noticed my limply hanging right arm. The monster laughed madly, his mouth foaming with a reddish hue. He charged forward, closing the distance between us, his two black-clawed hands preparing to tear my body in half.
I did not dodge. My brain calculated distance, speed, and mass with absolute calmness. Instead of stepping back, I stepped forward to meet that savage lunge.
This was a pawn sacrifice in a chess game of death. I deliberately tilted my left shoulder backward, leaving the defense of my left ribs wide open to welcome Silas's attack.
Silas's thick claws sank deeply into my waist and left ribs. The sound of tearing flesh echoed clearly. Fresh blood spurted out, staining my shirt. Silas roared in triumph for successfully tearing into his prey.
But that victory lasted only a second.
I looked straight into Silas's savage red eyes. My face was as cold as ice. I did not blink, did not scream, and did not show the slightest expression of pain.
My lack of a human reaction caused Silas, who was in a berserker state, to feel a momentary tremor of fear. The silence I offered was far more terrifying than a scream.
While his claws were still buried deep within my body, Silas had unconsciously halted his own momentum. He was anchored to my body. This was my death trap.
"A very poor move," I whispered softly in front of his face.
I acted with lightning speed. I tightly grabbed the collar of Silas's torn silk shirt with my remaining left hand.
I immediately dropped my entire body weight backward toward the stone floor. My back hit the floor hard. At the same time, I planted my left boot squarely into Silas's solar plexus.
Using the massive momentum of Silas's charge, combined with the pull of my left hand and the strong push of my left leg from below, I executed a deadly throw. I launched Silas's giant body over my head through the air.
Silas's body flew spinning uncontrollably in the air due to that sacrifice throw. He flew several meters backward from my original position.
Silas fell, hitting the stone floor with an incredibly loud thud. The man landed right in the middle of the pure Black-Lotus puddle, which was emitting dense, highly flammable vapor. The dangerous purple liquid splashed high, drenching his entire back and hair.
As soon as my throw was completed, I immediately rolled hard to the side, away from where Silas fell. I pressed my side, which had a wide gaping hole pouring out fresh blood endlessly. My blood stained the floor with every step I crawled backward.
Silas growled in anger. He rolled in the purple puddle, supporting his body with two trembling hands. The monster tried to rise from the pungent-smelling liquid soaking his clothes. His red eyes glared at me with deep-seated vengeance.
But nature had its own plans tonight.
Above our heads, the wooden ceiling support that had been devoured by the fire finally surrendered to fate. The sharp cracking sound of breaking wood echoed loudly over the noise of the battle.
A glowing ember the size of a thumb broke loose from the snapped wood. The bright red ember drifted down slowly through the warehouse air, which was vibrating violently from the heat. The ember floated and spun in a gripping silence, descending surely, aiming right at Silas's back, which was still soaked in the deadly purple liquid.
My eyes widened, tracking the ember's trajectory. Time seemed to truly stop. There were no more clinking sounds of swords, no more of Silas's roars, no more of Ragnar's shouts from the west door. Everything was silent.
The bright ember continued to descend, drawing closer, and touched the surface of the dense Black-Lotus liquid on the broker's back in one most lethal kiss of death. Absolute silence took over the room for one final millisecond.
Right before the hell in the East Sector exploded and incinerated everything.