Wish upon the Stars chapter 308

Pietro didn't appear to have any idea how to handle watching his  E-rank bodyguard get eaten by a mask. Which...I mean, that was fair. I  wasn't really sure how to process that either. It had been horrifying.  Still, I was much more interested in putting down this arrogant little  pissant who had brought a whole crew of zombies to wipe out me and my  friends just because I put down his child stealing psycho of an  underling.

"Y-you...what do you want to do?" He said  shakily as he saw me approach. I admit I was pretty gratified seeing him  pale and back up. "I'm here for the tournament!" He said desperately.  "You can't kill a member of a five faction alliance team, the Black  Sorrow Cult won't let you off!" His words had the ring of something he  desperately wanted to believe. An old truth that had turned against him  and that he was trying hard to hold onto.

I got the  feeling he was the kind of person who did this sort of thing often. He  was used to throwing his weight around, as if that wasn't obvious, but  more than that he was used to his background saving him when he fucked  it up. Now his bodyguard was dead, seemingly killed by someone at the  same level as him, and the only people he had close enough to help were  being obstructed by our forces.

It had taken me a minute  to understand how he could possibly be dumb enough to do this. To bring  these people down here to try to kill us in a place as dangerous as this  one, but then I considered it from another angle. Considering how  strong someone pathetic like Pietro could be with a good job, that  E-ranker was probably substantially more dangerous than any random  fighter from a backwater like Callus. He might have even had some gear  at D-rank of something as an emergency measure.

In the  face of a mask created by a B-ranker it had all been for nothing, and  that itself showed how easily deeper foundations could let someone do  whatever they wanted. Without backing from Zeke I'd have been fucked,  and Pietro really could have gotten away with this without even a slap  on the wrist. Unfortunately for him, he'd run into someone even more  connected than him.

Clicking my tongue, I shook my head.  "Sorry to tell you this." I said stopping about five or ten feet from  him. "But no one cares. This is the WCP, and more importantly a dark  district. Where you came from doesn't matter here. Fuck around and find  out is the only rule in this place." I gestured around to all the now  uncertain looking zombies, of which there were far fewer than there had  been to start. "You got that first part down, now it's time to find out.  Tell me, what do you think that's going to be like?"

Pietro  was shaking as he stared at me, eyes desperately scanning around for an  escape. He was actually strong enough that if he went all out he might  be able to beat me in my current condition, but he was so paralyzed by  fear he couldn't seem to even conceptualize fighting back. He wanted to  run, but there was nowhere to go. The forces arrayed against his own  army of corpses were keeping him penned in. I was about to mockingly  comment on that when I was interrupted by a loud explosion of flames and  lightning off to one side. I was preparing to be attacked when a  muffled voice I didn't recognize called out. "Sorry."

Another  voice, this one easily identifiable as Cark bellowed. "Gods damn it,  which one of your dipshits let Quentin use the Thunderfire Cannon?" I  turned to glare at him and he cleared his throat. "Sorry Sol!" I heard  him muttering to Sage in the background. "When I said to give one of  them the Thunderfire Cannon I obviously didn't mean Quentin. He has  absolutely no ability to aim at all." He paused, obviously listening to a  response I somehow couldn't hear. "I don't know, Lyle? Brent? Allison?  Fucking WENDELL? Literally anyone else."

Turning  forcefully and ignoring my friend, I took a deep breath and focused back  on Pietro. "Sorry about that." I said with a blank expression. "Ignore  them. You were about to beg for your life. Probably offer me tons of  money or some treasures that would be useful for my growth?" I gestured  leadingly, letting him pick up where I was going, and I saw his eyes  widen with hopeful excitement.

"Y-yes! Of course." His old  arrogance started to come back. "Naturally any conditions can be talked  about. You're in the better position, so getting some benefits is  natural. What kind of resources were you hoping for? Gems? Elixirs? I  could just pay you in chits? I'm sure I can find something to satisfy  you."

I listened to him chatter on for about ten minutes,  listing off all the valuable things he could take out and getting more  and more agitated by my seeming ambivalence. Honestly some of the stuff  sounded pretty good, but I didn't make a sound, didn't even smile, I  just waited, and let him go on and on until finally, he couldn't take it  anymore. "WHAT?" He screamed frantically. "What do you want? I can get  you anything. I'll call my father right away, I'll have him find  whatever you need. Just TELL ME!"

I finally smiled at him,  but it wasn't reassuring or pleasant. It was cold and brutal. I didn't  even need to see myself in a mirror to know how terrible it was. I  didn't think I had that kind of expression in me. His face went even  paler and he started to back up. "What do I want?" I asked calmly. "I  want lots of things Pietro. I want those kids to have their childhoods  back. I want the headless bodies of the 'puppets' Aiden killed  resurrected. I want my friend's sister to be able to sleep without a  nightlight on because she's so scared someone will sneak into her room  at night and take her away again. Can your father give me any of those  things?"

This wasn't a game. This wasn't even cultivation.  I enjoyed struggling for resources, fighting, I didn't even take being  screwed over to heart most of the time. That was just business. That was  life as an Ascendant. But this? The Heartrippers, Cass, the other kids?  That was wrong. It was disgusting, and I'd forced myself to ignore how  angry it made me for far too long. If he'd stayed away I might have kept  on burying it. Kept on living in denial. But Pietro had to come out and  poke the bear, to pardon a slightly on the nose metaphor.

Based  on the expression on his face that was when he finally figured out I  was going to kill him. There was nothing he could possibly do to stop  it. He turned and tried to run then, not even looking for a way out,  just trying to force his way past everyone, throwing out his hands to  release an explosion of dark power to drive back anyone in his way. He  slammed headfirst into a pitch black wall of shadow courtesy of Callie.

It  would have been sad watching him scratching uselessly at it, trying to  get away, if I didn't hate him so damn much. As it was it I just found  it pathetic. I walked up to him calmly, and I marveled at the way I felt  right now. I'd been pissed before. I'd even been enraged. But this  wasn't like that. I was murderous. Literally. I wondered how much of  this was recursion, because I was sure this would have terrified me a  few months ago. Now it just left me cold.

I raised my  cane, still with multiple blows left in Afterburner. I focused, and with  soul strength I didn't even know I had, bolstered by the cold fury  burning in my gut, I forced the skill to condense. I layered all those  blows together forcing them into a single strike, I used Mercy Kill, I  used another of my triple strength density shifted attacks, and I WANTED  to use a gravity burst too, but I knew it would be too much.

It  was fine though. I had enough power. I whirled the cane around between  my fingers, using Balam to build up speed, and then brought it smashing  down on the back of Pietro's head like a hammer with every ounce of  Might in my body. The dark shield flared, but the blaze of my poison  fire and the strength of the attack cracked and then shattered it, the  blow continuing down to crash into his head.

Much like my  own armor the robe was F-ranked, but also like my won armor it was  specialized in dispersing cutting and energy attacks. Cloth, even super  durable cloth, doesn't do a ton to stop blunt force. I felt his head  cave in under the blow and he slumped to the ground. Maybe not dead yet,  but getting there.

The last time I'd killed someone like  this I'd been in battle, and the time before I'd blacked out right  after. I'd never just...murdered someone. Not even someone who deserved  it. I felt strange. Empty. Callie sidled up next to me, slipping under  my arm and pulling me against her. I heard the sound of the corpses  being forced to surrender. The Darkling Institute members who were  controlling them weren't idiots. They had no backing and no support.  Continuing the fight would just be asking to get got.

As  for me, I was just...tired. My head hurt, I felt cold and empty. I just  wanted this to be over. I'd had enough of Doomtown. I wanted to go back  up the the Pavilion and spend the next week with my friends. Granting  them wishes and doing stupid shit at the circus and spending time with  my girlfriend and going on dates and checking on Cass and literally  anything except be HERE for even another minute.

Sadly  that wasn't an option. We were here for the auction and I wanted to make  sure we got something out of it. We kept Mordaunt and Rahm, I was  planning to ransom them for something good. They'd tried to kill us for  money so it was only fair we got paid for kicking their ass.  Unfortunately we did NOT get to keep the hammer, and we couldn't justify  buying the damn thing considering it was only useful to one person at a  time, so Benny got all sulky about it.

We  did manage to get our hands on a blank G-rank Skill Crystal, which was  what we'd come here for. I suspect some of the other bidders might have  cut us a break as thanks for dealing with Pietro, or we might not have  even gotten that, but it pretty much cleaned us out. Once we got it we  unanimously decided to leave. No one was really in the mood for the  auction anymore. Even Abel and Lament were unhappy, since their  opponents had surrendered along with the corpses.

The  walk back up to G-district was silent as we mulled over everything that  had happened in Doomtown. It had been...a lot. We'd fought, bled,  thankfully none of us had died, but despite the fact that we had an  overwhelming victory it didn't feel like a win. I forced myself to snap  out of it. We hadn't lost anything. Had gained plenty. We'd made  friends, formed alliances, got stronger. We were ready. We would win the  tournament, get to the Moonsong Glade, get stronger and leave Callus to  explore the rest of the system, then the cluster, then the whole damn  galaxy. Nothing was over. This was only the beginning, and it could have  gone a lot worse. So why did I still have this gnawing sensation of dread in my stomach?