He snapped a finger. His feet was currently floating, with the wind's assistance, above the forest. 'Here.' He looked at every direction.
It was silent in there. Not even small explosion was up-to-the-minute. 'But I heard-!' Faust felt a sudden movement. Below his floating figure, leaves were rustling. He formed blades of wind aiming at the rattling bush. Then, a piercing pain disturbed his senses. Like a spear forcefully stabbed in him. Blood oozed out from his, now, nonexistent heart. A hole made by a point blank shot.
"Urk-" The iron taste of blood made its way to his taste buds and out to his mouth. 'W-what…' His eyes made its way to the hole in his body. His hands trembled whilst touching his critical injury. The noise of moving leaves stopped and out came a man inhaling all the air he could get. '…A…human…?'
"What? That was it?" An unknown voice was in the shadows.
'A…long range attack…' Faust heard the feminine voice from beyond the shadows. '…and that voice…' Faust's body fell to the ground with a harsh thud. His sight was fooling him to a blur. He clenched a fist for the final time. '…damn you….Glenda…' Then it opened to a palm. He wasn't moving. Not even a final huff for dear life.
"How boring~" A lady with long crimson hair went out of hiding. A black sniper-like riffle was laying at rest on her right arm. The blast of cold air dishevelled her black-leather-military-like outfit below her brown mantle. She clipped her hair to a fix and saw the inevitable casualty. "…Eh…?"
Glenda stared blankly at the scene her eyes were witnessing right at the moment. Her eyes looked left and right frantically as sweat ran down her cheek. Two male humans were in the vicinity. One of these men was someone she knew but not that well. The other one was supposed to be shot right at the heart if her memory served correct.
"Errrr…Wrong target….?" She was trying to play dumb as if no one died from her shot earlier. She lightly scratched her itching head while thinking of ways to understand the current situation.
"Ggrrrraaaahhhh!" The scream came from the human male with scarlet eyes. Saliva and sweat were all over the madman's face without a care for personal hygiene. He wasn't yelling due to adrenaline of being in danger. He was yelling because it was his instinct. Instinct to kill any living being he sees. The man jumped at Glenda with his fangs out in the open. No strategy was behind the attack, just plain instinct.
"Tsk. Noisy mutant." The riffle was pointed to the man at a flashing speed. Glenda's eyes glinted with a red hue. "Die." Her index finger pulled the trigger, with no moment of consideration.
The guttural sound of pain was audible to anyone in the vicinity, and then it went quiet. There was a gaping hole in the mutant's torso, straight to the heart. It wasn't a little bullet hole made by an ordinary gun. The hole was as large as a fist. Anyone would die if hit in any part of the torso. The madman crashed head first. It doesn't take a smart deduction to say that the mutant was done with.
Without remorse, Glenda went near the corpse and kicked it with, at least, minimal strength. "Damn iiiitttt!" She angrily cried to the skies. Agitatedly, she eyed on the other corpse with unusual white hair. It wasn't moving at all, to her dismay. "What should I do? Hide the body? Cremate it? Feed it to wolves?" She bit her fingernails with all desperation. She wasn't thinking straight anymore. Anxiety that the Noblesse will be angry at her was getting to her mind. "I'll be hated by the Noblesse! Executed! Hanged! Instant Death! Uwwaahhhh!"
"You're as stupid as ever, I see." Coughing and heavy breathes came from the supposedly-dead white haired corpse. Faust was spluttering blood on the ground like it was some excess liquid in his body. "Have you forgotten that I have regenerative abilities?" The bullet hole from Glenda's shot was closing-off at an alarming rate. He made a feel to the closed wound to be sure it was sealed and no blood was spilling out. Faust made a long sigh, thinking how much time he wasted on this incident.
"Faaauustt~ You're aliiivveee~" Glenda was already crying tears of joy to the point of wanting to hug him. She ignored the insult of being called stupid.
'I want to hit this woman, but I've wasted too much time here.' Faust stood-up after some staggering. His dirtied and holed clothing showed a part of his bare chest. He, then, glared at the Clan Leader. "Have you seen my Master?"
"The Noblesse?" Glenda turned to a surprise question while snivelling. "Shouldn't you be the one to know?" She dropped her guard unconsciously as her gun laid low. There was a reason to lay low her guard. The Noblesse in topic was something she always took at heart. Other than Primitus being the secondary power in the island, he was also someone whom she'll disobey any order for.
Faust's predator eyes stayed firm. He was inspecting the riffle that the girl was holding. 'The one that assaulted was a long range attacker. She might just be playing dumb right now but…' He also understood that some risks must be taken at times like this. "Someone assaulted Master at the mansion. I'm currently in pursuit of his tracks…and you're getting in the way."
"Assaulted you say?!" She ignored the arrogant attitude of the butler. She was thinking how it was impossible for any Noble to point his/her fangs on a superior power be it the Lord or the Noblesse.
The cold stare analysed Glenda's reaction. Eyes wide in shock, sweat dripping in suspicion; that's how Faust described her. '…with that response, I doubt she knows anything about Master's whereabouts.' He stepped back, not wanting to sacrifice much of time.
Noticing Faust's movement, Glenda voiced a rasp question. "Where are you going?"
Faust stayed silent. He doesn't know the location of his Master and was planning to look for him blindly. It was a sign of panic on his side. Understanding this, he exhaled to calm himself. "Isn't it obvious? I'll look for my Master." After composing himself, he spotted the human near Glenda. '…a mutant? Here in Lukedonia?' The shock of seeing the mutant made his grasp of the situation indistinct. "Hey, where did this mutant come from?"
Glenda was in the middle of wiping her snot with her mantle. "Huh? Who knows? The Lord just ordered me to kill it." She snuffled for one last time. For the sake of looking like a Clan leader, she cleared her throat, fixed her cloak and made herself look cool.
A brow was raised by Faust. 'The Lord went and ordered a Clan leader to kill a mutant? Just to kill a mutant? Shouldn't this be a job for the lower class Nobles?' Unintentional killing intent was leaking from Faust. 'Just what is that man trying to do?'
To Glenda's eyes, Faust was just glaring at her. She can't seem to comprehend that Faust was deep in thought. "W-w-what are you glaring at me for?" She was fidgeting with her cloak and was hiding behind it. She was definitely feeling the unwanted tension from Faust. "I-if you want an apology then just say it! I'm sorry that I killed you, okay?!" A teardrop was starting to form on the edge of her eyes.
Like a natural phenomenon without a warning, a wild wind swirled from afar. It sent a powerful chill to their spines, like they were about to be killed by a large predator. The shockwave must have been near if both have felt it. The force was so dreadful that it was familiar to both Faust and Glenda.
As though a switch was flipped within her, Glenda narrowed her sight to the source. Her serious uptake of the situation was out of character. "This is…"
"Master!" Faust leapt, short of thinking the what's and why's. Right now, his rational thinking wasn't working properly. The only command on his mind was 'go to that location'.
Seeing Faust in a state of panic, Glenda decided to stick with him. The cold weather wasn't helping her to stop sweating. 'That was without a doubt the Noblesse's power.'
-30 minutes before-
Pursuing the assailant was easy. Primitus only caught him in a second right after jumping out of the window and traveling at least 3 kilometers to where the aggressor was. He didn't knock the guy out for questioning but things didn't turn out as planned either.
"Suicide…" Primitus shifted his head at the blood splatter right in front of him. 'A human.' He went closer to the fully blown corpse. Nothing was left except for blood and some organs. No matter how gruesome it looked, he had no other choice but to gaze at it with a blank face. Then again, he isn't exactly seeing the thing called corpse right before his shoes. His eyes were closed even after his blind fold was blown away by the last attack.
'He made a contract with someone…' He sensed the familiar feeling of a contract from the corpse but he can't seem to pinpoint as to who the assailant was contracted with. Was it a Noble? A werewolf? Or something different? It was like smelling a familiar fragrance but you can't recognize it. '…this one must be a demon contractor.'
The scent of earth was vibrant. A notice from nature that rain is about to come. Dark clouds flickered with lightning and Primitus was not in the mood of noticing it. "What does your master want from me?" He addressed the question to the people behind the trees' shadows.
No one responded for a second. "Our master wishes for your presence, Noblesse." The voice was a man's. His words showed respect while hiding somewhere within the forest.
"And thus an attack?" Primitus stood still with more of his overwhelming aura. The phrase he uttered was enough to crush the morale of an army. He wasn't backing down on showing who was stronger. "Do not play me for a fool." If he opened his eyes for a glare, he would've killed them at a count of one.
The assailants felt for their lives. Their heartbeats were going haywire as they witnessed the visible anger of the Noblesse. At the moment, not a soul dared to answer again.
Primitus' ears caught the restless sounds of their heartbeats along with the wind's howl. Deducing that he scared them, he let out a sigh. He walks a few steps away from the corpse. "Follow your orders and come at me."
The three assassins gulped a bucket of saliva. 'He knows our mission.' It was a far-fetched plan. The three pursuers blending with the shadows were given the mission to eliminate the Noblesse. They knew it was an impossible feat and they also knew for what reason were they given such an order. It was so that their contractor could quantify the ability of the Noblesse. In other words, the originally four-membered pursuers were nothing but guinea pigs.
The three of them knew all this, but a voice behind their minds was refusing to hear such logic. All three aimed at Primitus with their open palms. They were gathering a strange dark light.
"Cheeky idiots." A childish growl entered the dark forest. "You really think you could survive if you did that?" Movements from the bushes can be heard. The sound of rustling leaves was growing closer to the site.
"Arrgh-" A short cry of pain rebounded within the forest. Shortly after, it was followed by another one. The swooshing of the leaves weren't stopping. Only one of the assailants was left. 'Damn! Where is he?!' The last one was getting edgy hearing the fast actions he can't even see. The pursuer was looking left to right as cold sweat dripped from his head down to his feet.
"For the leader of these idiots," The unfinished sentence came from the left. "You're unexpectedly weak." A figure of a child with silver hair appeared from the right. The child's hand was imitating a spearhead ready to pierce a thick load of armor.
"Muzaka, stop."
The youth named Muzaka went to a clean stop as though someone pressed the pause button on his life remote. The leader's throat was painted with a drop of blood flowing from a slash. The guy wasn't dead, though he was sweating rivers while Muzaka's hand was a centimeter near his esophagus. Muzaka stopped voluntarily and no mind control was happening. That was a fact seeing as the young lad was as calm as a lake.
"Are you serious?" Muzaka wasn't budging his hand off the target. "This guy was stupid enough to attack you and you're okay with it?" His silver eyes shone amidst the darkness.
The moonlight revealed a young albino wearing an old fashioned brown mantle. Underneath the mantle was a tattered black tank top with three claw marks and a pair of pants that appeared to have seen real war. His silver hair was at shoulder level with long spiky tendrils. The narrow iris in his silver eyes was a sign that he wasn't human.
Primitus stayed silent. He wasn't the type to say his reasons but his silence was always understood by many.
Muzaka twitched an eye as he understood Primitus' intention. The hand that was ready to pierce the last assassin's neck relaxed and kept low. "I hate that soft side of yours." He stomped his way to a tree and laid his back on it while pouting. 'Hmph. I'm sure that man will attack him in the end, as per the orders of their master. That's the kind of creatures they are…demon contractors…'
"I…" The assailant talked. He got the ears of the young werewolf and the Noblesse. "…would like to return to my master, Noblesse." Saying this was like a death sentence. It was going home empty handed and he knows that the two people in his line of vision won't even let him escape. 'But I can't die here.'
"Hah?" Muzaka gasped in disbelief. He stood straight and closed the gap between him and the assailant. "You, you're a demon contractor, are you not? And your mission was to kill the Noblesse, no?" His pissed face earlier was even more pissed. "You know you can't return without killing him. The consequences of the contract will kill you if you don't."
"…consequences…of the contract…?" The man restated Muzaka's verse. It was the first time he had heard of it. "What are you talking about…?"
Muzaka was dumb-stricken. He knows of the nature of demon contractors. The term demon contract doesn't come from a contract with fanatical creatures like demons. It's a contract done between a human and a non-human. The term 'demon' was used because the contract uses the lives of humans as constraints. It was disadvantageous to humans like a chain to a slave. In exchange for what the human wanted, the human must give his life to the contractor in return. These contractors cannot be traced unlike the Noble-to-human contract due to its unknown ritual. In other words, Demon contractors were disposable pawns for the non-humans so long as they grant the human's wish.
"Muzaka," Primitus called for the young werewolf. "Return to Ellenora."
"Urk-" Muzaka felt the dampness on his back. 'So he knew that the Ellenora-nim was here?' To feign ignorance, he laughed and giggled things off. "Hahaha, whatever are you talking about? I didn't know that Ellenora-nim was here-" He was supposed to finish his sentence with a laugh for a lighter mood, but he felt a large surge of power that prevented him to even breathe some air.
The assailant was experiencing even worse than just breathing difficulties. He was gasping for air while kneeling down to the ground, strength less. Clenching on his red robe was the only thing he could do.
Primitus was, on the other hand, glaring. His right eye was open and was clearly glaring at Muzaka. It was a beautiful scarlet eye of a Noble. However, the intensity of looking into such an eye was heavier compared to other Nobles. It's as if it was sucking your strength wholly. "I said go back Muzaka."
"This isn't like you, Prim"
The voice was an outsider's. A feminine yet powerful voice that sounded like it came from afar. It echoed through the forest. Then, a swish came from Muzaka's side. It was a cloaked woman. A brown haired lady with a boyish haircut. Her eyes radiated a soothing fuchsia that could eye on a kill a thousand miles away. The aura she was emanating was both in offense and defence, perfect. A fitting aura for the Lord of the Werewolves.
The Noblesse covered his right eye with a hand. "Ellenora…" He faced the woman and ignored the assailant.
"I've never seen you this angry before." Ellenora looked daggers on the young pup. She grabbed the boy named Muzaka by the head. "If this boy did anything to upset you, then I'm sorry on his behalf." She plunged Muzaka's head lower so as to look like he was bowing.
"Ow-ow-oww! That hurts!" Muzaka was fidgeting on the hands of Ellenora. The force on his head was like a nutcracker to a nut. He was getting nervous that, if the Lord of werewolves continued to exert more force on his head, he'd be going home without it.
The sound of a fading foot step shattered the seemingly happy reunion of the three.
"Well, there goes the guy." The werewolf lord readied a set of claws. Her sharp canines were detectable as she smiled evilly. "Should I be the one to kill him, Prim?"
Primitus moved his head to point at the survivor. He contemplated to let the attacker go or kill it now. 'Demon contractors… things that disrupt peace, huh?' He remembered Raizel's childish remark about Faust whom he labelled a demon contractor as well as the part where it is a Noble's responsibility to dispose of the demon contractors. 'In the end, responsibility is inevitable.'
The atmosphere changed. The dense air from before came back with an even more condensed feeling. Muzaka was feeling faint while being held by Ellenora on the head. The Alpha seemed fine like the atmosphere was a normal breather. Her eyes were glued on Primitus who was now opening his right eye. 'Every time you open those eyes, disaster always comes, is what you always thought. Are you finally done on running away from that power?'
The man in black trench coat slowly exhaled his anxieties and doubts. 'I didn't want anyone to see this.' His jaws clenched as he prepared his will to make an act. "…Break."
Probably a kilometre away, the noise of spattering and crashing were easy to hear. It wasn't from a body of water that went splashing nor was it from a tree that came crashing. Free falling chunks of meat and blood met the green grounds of Lukedonia. The bones were dislocated and the muscles were visible. The body was broken to pieces while below it was a pool of blood. The body's name was only known as an assailant.
Primitus saw everything since he was the one who did the breaking of the assailant's body. For him, a power of that calibre was normal. It wasn't too much nor was it unnecessary. He needed to stop the surviving assailant and that was what he did.
The two witnesses of the Noblesse's power broke to a cold sweat. As werewolves, they had superior eyesight in the dark. They watched as the recognizable body of the survivor got distorted. They understood that such a display of power meant so little to the man in front of them. If Muzaka can mention a word right now to describe Primitus, it would have been 'monster'.
'Prim, there's no turning back from this.'
AR (Author's Rant): Sorry for the wait and thanks for waiting. W-well...yeah. i probably had some mistakes here and there since i didn't proofread it. The whole story's now in a jumble and i'll be pretty amazed if anyone understood the story so far. Tell me if something is wrong with this chapter...(cuz in my eyes, everything is.). If you want clarifications regarding some details, i'll reply post haste. :)))