NOVGO.NET Chapter 205: Bounty [V]
Chapter 205: Bounty [V]
Koya stood casually with his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his hands resting in his trouser pockets while his long silver hair brushed his shoulders.
His glowing crimson eyes looked down at Drake with a look of boring disappointment.
"Albano... Shirou..." Drake rasped out, his voice sounding like two heavy iron plates grinding together as his alloy jaw reset itself.
He pulled himself to his feet with his hand gripping his short-sword tightly. "What... what did you do to our tech guy?!"
Koya didn’t answer with words.
He reached into his trouser pocket, pulled out a severed, pale human head by its messy hair... the head of their tech specialist, his eyes still wide in frozen, bloody shock and casually tossed it across the floor like a bowling ball.
THUD... ROLL... SLAP.
The head rolled across the metal deck, coming to a stop right at Drake’s boots leaving a trail of dark blood smearing the floor.
Drake’s entire body vibrated with a mixture of horror and violent rage.
Their entire plan... their high-tech virus, their barrier override, their coordinated assault... it had been completely foiled by this single man before it even got off the ground.
Koya stood there, leaning his head slightly to the side as he stared at Drake.
Inwardly, Koya was running through his own options.
’I need to clean up these rogue elements quickly,’ Koya thought, letting out a quiet sigh. ’I was happy when the bounty went up to a hundred million because it raises my profile for the Mafia, but these specific hitmen are just trying to turn my hotel stay into a chaotic gang war. It’s annoying...’
Then, Koya recalled the small handwritten notebook he had pulled from the dead tech guy’s pocket before severing his head.
’That Val girl, though...’ Koya pondered mentally. ’She’s interesting. According to the notes her tech guy kept on her, she’s fighting through these brutal bounties just to save up tuition money for ALI Academy. She’s got insane resolve, a sharp instinct, and a unique Crimson Razor Thread ability.’
Koya’s crimson eyes gleamed softly. ’She’d make a great Vampire turn.’
As the newly awakened Vampire King, Koya required blood to sustain his highest bloodline abilities.
But he certainly wasn’t about to go around biting random Order women during this mission... who the hell knew what kind of experimental genetic chemicals Hakai was injecting into her operatives?
A clean independent girl like Val, with her unique thread magic, was the perfect candidate for a blood valve or something.
Koya chuckled internally as he recalled the notebook’s contents.
The tech guy had meticulously written down the hidden weaknesses of every single member of his own team... just in case he ever needed to betray them.
Val’s Crimson Razor Thread ability had a very specific and fatal flaw: [High-Frequency Sound Vibration].
If a high-frequency sound wave struck her mana threads while they were pulled taut, the resonant frequency would instantly shatter the threads and backfire the mana into her own core, paralyzing her upper nervous system.
’That tech guy was really trying to pull a Batman on his own squad,’ Koya laughed mentally. ’If you’re going to keep a detailed contingency plan to murder your own teammates, why the hell would you carry the notebook around in your pocket where anyone can loot it off your corpse?’
Koya shook his head, looking back at Drake.
Drake cursed at him with his alloy skin gleaming dull silver under the emergency lights.
"You rich, arrogant bastard! You think you can just look down on us because you have infinite money?!"
Koya raised a single eyebrow, his tone completely nonchalant. "If you just needed money... you should’ve just said so."
Drake’s jaw tightened.
He swallowed hard, a flicker of hesitation touching his eyes before his rage flared back up. "Shut the fuck up! I don’t need your damn handouts!"
"If you didn’t need money," Koya reminded him smoothly, "you wouldn’t be standing in a locked room trying to cut my head off for a bounty."
"DIE!" Drake roared.
BOOM!
Drake exploded forward with his Steel Body Transmutation shifting his entire physical mass into a dense high-speed bullet of solid alloy.
He swung his short-sword with all the momentum his reinforced metallic muscles could generate, targeting Koya’s neck.
SWISH!
Koya didn’t even draw a weapon.
He simply tilted his head back half an inch, letting the heavy steel blade slice harmlessly through the air where his nose had been a secon prior.
"Too slow," Koya taunted.
Drake gritted his teeth, spinning mid-air and unleashing a ferocious relentless flurry of strikes.
CLANG! CLANG! BANG! BANG!
The battle erupted into a high-speed storm of metallic violent impacts.
Drake pushed his Steel Transmutation to its upper limit, utilizing the walls, the glass windows, and even the ceiling to launch himself at Koya from every conceivable angle.
He ran up the reinforced concrete wall, launching a low sweeping kick toward Koya’s jaw, then rebounded off the ceiling to deliver a devastating downward overhead chop.
Every single strike generated shockwaves that shattered the glass panels and tore up the control room’s floor.
Yet... Koya didn’t step back a single inch.
He dodged, parried, and deflected every blow with casual effortless grace.
He parried a heavy steel punch with the back of his bare hand, ducked beneath a horizontal slash, and casually sidestepped a flying knee.
"Is this all your hundred-million-Crown effort amounts to?" Koya teased smoothly, dodging another strike while standing upside down on the ceiling frame for a second before dropping back down behind Drake’s back.
"STOP MOVING!" Drake screamed in pure frustration with his metallic eyes bloodshot.
Koya landed on the floor, his crimson eyes narrowing slightly as he let out a bored sigh.
"Alright," Koya murmured. "I’m bored now."
The atmosphere in the room instantly plummeted to zero as Koya didn’t use a spell.
He didn’t draw a sword either.
He simply stepped inside Drake’s guard, his movement so terrifyingly fast it blurred into a ghost of silver and black.
Koya’s left palm struck first, slamming dead-center into Drake’s alloy solar plexus.
KRA-KOOM!
"GHK—!"
A concussive shockwave exploded straight out of Drake’s back, cracking his heavy steel chest plate down the middle and blasting the plaster off the wall behind him.
All the air was violently forced from his lungs in a bloody spray.
Before Drake could even recoil, Koya shifted his weight and drove twin open-palm strikes into both of Drake’s shoulders.
CRACK-SNAP!
"AAAGH!" Drake screamed with the sound cut short as both of his collarbones shattered like dry twigs beneath his transmuted metal skin.
Koya didn’t pause for a single second.
He drove three rapid-fire elbows straight into Drake’s ribs in a devastating, relentless rhythm... left, right, left.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
CRUNCH-CRACK!
"GAH! Cough!"
The solid alloy of Drake’s torso bent inward like a crushed tin can.
Rib fragments splintered internally, puncturing his lungs and filling his throat with hot copper.
Drake’s jaw unhinged in pure agony, but Koya unleashed a fierce flurry of four hyper-velocity fists straight to his metallic cheeks and jaw.
KRA-PAK! KRA-PAK!
"GURGH—!"
The impacts rattled Drake’s skull so violently his vision burst into a blinding haze of white static with the teeth snapping off inside his mouth and spraying through his gritted lips.
Pivoting hard on his heel, Koya dug five consecutive mana-infused knee strikes straight into Drake’s exposed dented abdomen.
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
"BLEGH—!"
The physical output lifted the heavy, metallic hitman four feet off the floor, suspending him mid-air as his internal organs completely ruptured despite his transmutation magic.
Thick dark blood erupted from Drake’s mouth in a heavy crimson mist, painting the ceiling.
With Drake floating helplessly in front of him, Koya spun full-circle, releasing the entirety of his stored kinetic Bide energy into his right leg.
He brought his boot up high and delivered a crushing downward axe-kick straight onto the crown of Drake’s head.
KRA-THOOOOOM!
The floor beneath them completely collapsed.
The concrete deck of the control room shattered into rubble, and Drake was slammed flat onto the lower floor, cratering the metal deck six feet deep.
"Ghk... cough..." Drake lay in the center of the crater with his Steel Transmutation involuntarily flickering off as his body gave out.
Blood poured from every orifice on his face as he couldn’t move a single muscle.
Koya dropped down into the crater, landing softly beside him.
Drake looked up with his one unswollen eye, his breath ragged, wheezing out a final desperate whisper. "My... my daughter... she’s... five..."
Koya looked down at him. His expression didn’t show cruelty, but it didn’t show mercy either.
"You chose the wrong job then..." Koya said quietly.
Koya reached down, grabbing Drake’s right arm with his bare hand.
RIP-SQUELCH!
With a sickening tear of flesh, tendon, and muscle, Koya cleanly ripped Drake’s right arm completely off his shoulder.
Blood erupted from the socket in a heavy arterial pulse.
Before Drake could even scream from the shock, Koya reversed the severed arm in his grip and drove it downward like a heavy spear, burying the sharp bone-protruding end straight through the center of Drake’s chest.
Drake’s body twitched violently once.
His eyes rolled back into his head, and his life force vanished completely with blood pooling around his chest.
Koya stood in the bloody crater, stepping over the corpse, and pulled a silk handkerchief from his trousers to wipe his blood-stained hands.
He looked up toward the ceiling, thinking of his own daughter.
’Well...’ Koya thought softly. ’I wonder how Mable is doing up in the penthouse right now.’
Meanwhile, on the 90th floor...
The heavy mahogany double doors of the Imperial Penthouse stood quiet.
Jax... the leader of the Night-Hound Strike Unit staggered down the wide, blood-drenched corridor.
He didn’t care about the operational plan anymore.
He didn’t care about the virus chip, the control panels, or the hundred-million-Crown bounty.
His entire squad was dead or at least that was what it was soon going to be.
His younger sister, Maya, was dead... her corpse still pinned to the marble wall outside the penthouse door like a grotesque trophy with her blood fully drained onto the carpet.
Jax’s face was pale, his eyes wide and bloodshot with a murderous grief.
He walked up to the body of his dead sister with his hands trembling as he gently touched her cold, dried cheek.
"Maya..." Jax whimpered, a ragged tear cutting through the soot on his face.
Then, his grief dissolved into pure suicidal rage.
He turned around, facing the heavy mahogany double doors of the Imperial Penthouse, and raised his heavy armored fist.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Jax hammered on the door with all his remaining strength, his voice screaming in raw fury.
"ALBANO SHIROU! COME OUT, YOU BASTARD! COME OUT AND FACE ME!"
For a moment, there was no response as the hallway was completely silent.
Jax raised his boot, preparing to kick the door off its hinges—
CLICK!
The heavy lock unlatched.
From inside the penthouse, a cute childish voice echoed through the crack in the door.
"I’m coming! I’m coming! Is it room service again?! More treats?!"
The heavy mahogany door swung wide open.
Standing in the doorway was Mable.
She was wearing her oversized white t-shirt and frilly socks, holding a half-eaten chocolate cupcake in her left hand, her cute silver hair sticking out in messy tufts.
She looked up at the towering, blood-drenched armed mercenary leader standing on her doorstep.
"Huh?" Mable blinked her bright crimson eyes, tilting her head. "Who are you? You don’t look like the cake lady."
Jax froze. His mind short-circuited for a microsecond.
And then, a dark hideous realization struck his grief-stricken brain.
’Albano Shirou’s daughter...’ Jax thought with a monstrous grin spreading across his face. ’This is his precious daughter!’
He didn’t care about honor... He didn’t care about pride either.
He wanted Albano Shirou to suffer the exact same soul-crushing agony he was feeling right now!
"DIE, YOU LITTLE BRAT!" Jax screamed.
He lunged forward with explosive speed, both of his heavy armored hands reaching out in a claw-like grip, aiming straight for Mable’s throat to crush her neck.
Mable didn’t flinch.
She simply looked at his descending hands with an unimpressed bored expression.
SWISH-SHING!
Before Jax’s fingers could even touch a single hair on her head, an invisible razor-sharp gust of hyper-pressurized spatial wind cut through the air between them.
Jax’s momentum abruptly stopped.
He blinked, suddenly feeling an odd weightless sensation in his arms.
He looked down.
SQUELCH!
Both of his forearms... from the elbows down had been cleanly sliced off mid-air.
They fell to the velvet carpet with two soft wet thuds with blood spraying violently from his severed stumps like open fire hoses, painting the doorframe crimson.
"AH... AHHH... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Jax dropped to his knees, clutching his bleeding stumps to his chest, screaming in incomprehensible agony as he fell backward onto the carpet.
Mable took a slow delicate bite of her chocolate cupcake, chewing thoughtfully before letting out a soft dramatic sigh.
She looked down at the screaming, limbless mercenary leader with a look of pure condescension.
"If you’re going to fight someone," Mable said. "you can’t sneak up on your opponent or try to take their family by surprise... That’s an insult to your pride as a warrior."
Jax lay on his back, sobbing and screaming in horror, using his heels to frantically drag his bleeding body backward across the blood-soaked carpet away from the small silver-haired girl.
"P-Please...! Spare me! SPARE ME! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY!" Jax shrieked with tears and blood mixing on his face.
The dragon inside Mable wasn’t having any of it.
She casually swallowed her cupcake, stepped forward, and reached out with her small right hand.
Without even touching him, her draconic mana grabbed Jax by the collar of his tactical vest, lifting his broad heavy body six feet off the floor as if he weighed less than a feather.
Mable tilted her head, tapping her chin with her finger as she looked around the hallway.
"Hmm... what way should I punish you?" Mable pondered out loud, her dragon ears twitching.
Then, her eyes locked onto the wall next to the door... where Maya’s dried body was still pinned flat to the marble by the heavy crimson blood spear Koya had created earlier.
"Ah! Yes!" Mable beamed, clapping her hands together happily. "I can stab him through there!"
Jax’s eyes bulged in terror. "NO! NO! PLEASE! GOD, NO—"
Mable raised her hand, guiding Jax’s hovering body through the air toward the wall.
With a brutal, effortless flick of her wrist, Mable slammed Jax’s chest directly onto the sharp protruding end of the crimson blood spear, impaling him right alongside his dead sister.
SQUELCH!
The thick blood spear punched straight through Jax’s heart and out his back, shattering his spine with a loud sound.
A massive violent fountain of dark blood erupted from his chest and mouth, spraying across the white marble wall and dripping down onto his dead sister’s face in a hot stream.
Jax’s body twitched violently once, his eyes rolling back into his head, before going completely, utterly still.
Mable looked at the two impaled hitmen hanging on the wall outside her penthouse with their blood dripping down into a shared pool on the floor.
She dusted her small hands together, using a tiny spell of basic water magic to clean a speck of red blood off her sleeve.
"You can reflect on your bad manners together," Mable said cheerfully to the two corpses. "Even though you’re already dead!"
She turned around, skipping back into the penthouse living room with her small dragon wings fluttering happily behind her back.
"Oh right! Cupcakes are in the bedroom~!" Mable sang out loud, running into the master suite and pulling the mahogany door shut behind her, leaving another long trail of dark blood slowly bleeding out onto the 90th-floor carpet.
...
Val dragged her battered half-broken body up the concrete emergency stairs with her fingers clawing at the steps.
Every single breath felt like inhaling liquid glass, her shattered ribs screaming in agony despite the emergency fluid.
She pulled herself over the top landing, staggering onto the plush, blood-drenched carpet of the 90th floor.
She tapped her flickering ear comms with a trembling, blood-soaked hand.
"Everyone... report..." Val wheezed with her voice becoming a raspy whisper. "Jax...? Drake...? Anyone...?"
Only cold hollow static answered her.
A sickeni ng realization settled deep in her gut: They were all dead. Her entire squad had been wiped out.
Suddenly, a suffocating pressure dropped onto the corridor, heavy enough to crack the marble beneath her boots.
Val’s heart hit her throat as she slowly raised her head.
Standing at the end of the hallway, framed by the dim lights, was Albano Shirou.
Koya looked down at her, his hands tucked casually into his trouser pockets.
His long silver hair brushed his shoulders, and his crimson eyes glowed with depthless terrifying authority.
He looked at her charred, scar-riddled face, her melted helmet, and her scorched skin, letting out a dry dismissive click of his tongue.
"God, you’re hideous," Koya muttered bluntly. "I’m used to being surrounded by beauties, so looking at you is actually straining my eyes."
He wasn’t lying. Half of her face was horribly burned from the lightning blast with her left eye scorched and her skin becoming a grotesque patchwork of raw flesh and soot.
As Val made direct eye contact with those depthless glowing crimson pupils, her soul completely shattered.
A primal, instinctual dread... the terror of a low class creature standing before an apex predator flooded her mind.
Her legs buckled and her knees slamming onto the carpet.
She felt her bladder go completely out of control with warm urine soaking through her tactical pants and dripping onto the floor.
Koya’s handsome face scrunched up in disgust, taking a half-step back.
"Gross but it’s okay... Prove to me why you deserve to survive this night."
Val trembled uncontrollably, tears cutting clean lines through the soot on her ruined face as she pressed her forehead directly against the blood-soaked carpet.
"P-Please...! Forgive me! Spare me! I’ll do anything... please don’t kill me...!"
Koya stared down at her groveling form, then slowly leaned down. "Never give up."
The words acted like an electric spark to her dying ember of resolve.
Val’s right eye ignited with a fierce desperate light.
ZRRRRRRR!
In a last-ditch, frantic effort to survive, Val unleashed every remaining drop of her mana, blasting a continuous roaring tidal wave of sharp crimson razor threads directly at Koya’s chest from point-blank range.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
The microscopic monomolecular wires struck his white shirt and completely shattered into harmless magical dust upon impact.
They didn’t leave a single tear on his clothes, hell they didn’t even push him back an inch.
Koya didn’t even blink. "Thread magic? It really is just like the notebook said... No matter."
He reached down with his fingers gripping her chin with iron force, forcing her head up.
A dark possessive smirk stretched across his lips as his sharp vampire fangs extended past his lips.
"I like your resolve," Koya declared. "As of this moment, you belong to me. Both body and soul... every single bit of you belongs to me. For you are my slave."
Before Val could even let out a gasp, Koya leaned down and plunged his sharp fangs deep into the side of her neck.
SQUELCH!
"Ghk—!"
A wave of overwhelming euphoric heat exploded through Val’s veins as Koya began to drain her blood, injecting his Vampire King essence into her core.
The pain vanished, replaced by an intoxicating soul-binding ecstasy.
’Is he... a vampire...?’
That was the final thought that crossed Val’s mind before her vision faded completely into darkness, and she collapsed limp into her new master’s arms.