[Dark Constituent Stability: 0.]
[Abyssal Wyrmling has taken control.]
[Dark mana escaping.]
Suddenly, the shadows in the dark street moved. They began to crawl toward Elio like living oil, coiling around his limbs.
His hazel eyes changed, replaced by twin pools of absolute blackness.
A thick, dark matter began to pour from his skin, drifting out like a living snake and reaching for anything living.
That was dark mana.
Elio suddenly started yelling, his hands clawing at his ragged tunic like a savage beast. His skin hurt as if it were on fire, burning and itching as if exposed to the wildest radiation.
"Aaahhh! It hurts! It burns! Stop it!" Elio screamed and clawed, desperately seeking ways to end the pain, but all to no avail.
"Is he acting or…" The words of the thug were cut short when they saw something forming from the shadows.
For a heartbeat, a pair of imperceptible black wings had unfurled, and two menacing red eyes burned through the gloom, something powerful and dark that tore at the very fabric of Elio's consciousness.
The dark mana poured in ferocious quantities, the shadows reaching for the thugs, the obscurity with bestial features still trying to manifest from the shadows.
But as quickly as the thing tried to manifest, it failed, the shadows recoiling back into Elio's body.
Those glowing red eyes though… They were enough to startle the men.
However, Elio was already gone.
He stood up slowly, his movements silent and fluid. His face was no longer twisted in grief, instead, it was pulled into a permanent, chillingly evil grin.
The darkness in his eyes flickered with a predatory intent.
The four thugs stepped back, their own beasts beginning to react inside their consciousness. The dark matter escaping Elio's body was like a poison to them, irritating their mana and filling them with an instinctual dread.
"I knew it! He has a shady business!" the first rogue shouted, reaching out to grab Elio's throat.
Elio's hand moved faster than the man could see. He caught the rogue's wrist with a grip that felt like crushing iron. The evil grin on Elio's face didn't twitch, not even when he twisted the man's arm with a sudden, violent motion.
A sickening crack of snapping bone echoed through the street.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" The rogue let out a piercing scream, his arm hanging at a useless, jagged angle.
That was enough sight. The leader reacted immediately.
"Get him!" the leader roared, his voice cracking with fear as he ordered the two men by his sides.
The two thugs lunged. They didn't fuse with their beasts, neither did they summon their beasts, thinking he's a kid they could deal with easily.
They never reached him.
Elio hadn't even looked at them. He gestured with his hand, and the shadows on the ground lunged upward, seizing the men's legs and pinning them to the spot.
Their eyes were wide with terror, realizing they had made a costly mistake.
While they struggled to break free, Elio stepped forward and delivered powerful punches to their torsos.
The force was unnatural, sending both men flying backward until they crashed into the stone wall with a heavy thud.
"AAHHHHHHH!" They screamed in unison, their voices layered with unbridled agony.
The evil grin remained, plastered and unmovable.
The dark mana pouring became heavier, and the air in the street seemed to be so corrupt that it made each thug gasp for breath and their beasts react with uneasiness.
The leader, now alone, began to shake.
He didn't understand what he was seeing, but he knew his life was on the line. He didn't make the mistake his cohorts made.
He immediately summoned his beast.
A Troll Dog materialized beside him, a beast of muscles and thickness, its canine fangs dripping with saliva, its ferocious amber eyes glowing with malicious intent.
"Stop him!" he screamed, commanding the beast.
The Troll Dog let out a guttural snarl and leaped toward Elio, its jaws wide. But as it hung in the air, Elio turned into a blur of motion and wrapped his small hands around the beast's throat and limbs.
He slammed the mass of muscles into the ground with surprising strength, and before the beast could react, he drove a single, crushing blow into the side of the Troll Dog's head.
There was a sharp, final snap of its neck, and the beast instantly burst into a cloud of fading dust and light.
The leader let out a choked cry, falling to his knees as the bond with his beast was violently severed. He clutched his chest, gasping for air as he looked up at the boy. The evil grin loomed over him, dark and terrifying.
His companions had managed to crawl to their feet, their eyes wide with terror. Now, they knew the boy was something beyond their comprehension, and they began to back away, trying to reach the end of the street.
Elio's head tilted. The shadows lunged again, seizing their legs once more and dragging them back into the circle of his dark mana. They were helpless, pinned like insects to a board.
"What are you?" the leader wheezed, his face pale as the dark mana constantly drained him. "That power, it's not for a kid. Who are you?!"
Elio didn't respond. He didn't even seem to hear him. He raised his hand high, his fingers tensed like claws as he prepared to deliver a finishing blow.
But suddenly, the dark mana flared, the shadows deepening until the alley was a void.
Then, the darkness in his eyes flickered.
Elio's body shook violently, a sudden tremor that broke the evil grin. The blackness receded from his eyes as quickly as it had arrived, and he collapsed forward, hitting the cobblestones with a heavy, unconscious thud.
The rogues sat in the silence for a moment, watching the shadows return to normalcy as the boy's mana vanished.
They didn't dare to think about revenge. They didn't think about the ransom or any other diabolical plan.
Not when their mana was failing, not when they were in bad shapes.
Once they realized they were free, they dragged their broken bodies out of the dark street, leaving the unconscious boy lying in the dirt of the Capital, alone in the silence.
————~~~~~————~~~~~———
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