Chapter 48: "is anybody here?"
Death, just death.
There was no way out.
As this thought settled firmly in the guard's mind.
He fell into complete silence, his head lowered.
All the light extinguished from his eyes.
His weapon which he was holding on so tightly unconsciously also fell to the ground with a soft clang.
Leaving behind an even more suffocating silence in the already quiet atmosphere.
By now Kenzo had also calmed down completely from his previous excited state.
Kenzo was never a person who didn't have emotion, in fact he had an abundant amount of emotions.
He could feel happy, sad, irritated and even angry.
But even so he would never truly openly show his own emotions unless it benefited him in some way.
After living for so long in his previous life, if he couldn't even control his own emotions and put on a simple mask for others.
What would be the point of living for so long?
All human beings in general have 3 masks.
One for strangers or acquaintances who they mostly don't know anything about.
One for their closest companions like family and close friends.
And the last one…
Is for themselves.
Many people in his previous life failed to realize this and as for those who did realize, they had unfortunately put on a mask for so long that they had ultimately forgotten what their true self was.
Only a lucky few individuals were truly able to distinguish themselves from the mask and finally recognize their truest selves.
Back to the present, the other guards at this time had also dropped their weapons.
All that remained was a sense of emptiness in their hollowed eyes and utter despair.
Clearly they had also realized their imminent death.
What could they possibly do in this situation?
The opponent wasn't even in the same league as them.
Even if they gave it their all and somehow created an opening for an escape.
In the end it would all be futile.
After all it would take a single release of this monster's killing intent to stop them in their tracks.
As for killing themselves, that would also be impossible if this monster in front of them didn't want to.
And clearly by his earlier words he probably wouldn't let them go either.
So the only thing they could do was to just give up and let this monster decide their fate.
They were like prisoners already awaiting execution.
They were at last, when all is said and done.
Just….. "Nothing".
Kenzo on the other hand continued to calmly look at them with his black eyes.
Hoping to see some kind of reaction but at the end of the day they were just ordinary mortals.
In the face of true power all they could do was despair.
Kenzo sighed slightly in his mind, shook his head internally and commented in his mind.
"Too weak."
"Just now he felt that he was on the verge of grasping something but the opportunity unfortunately slipped through his hands."
Kenzo right now was still stuck at 9.99% in his path of understanding killing and he understood how important it was for him to break through this bottleneck.
"Looks like he would still have to wait a bit more, however that didn't mean there was no gains, he could tell he had taken a step forward in breaking through this bottleneck when he saw the people who learned helplessness."
He evaluated calmly within his mind and now his gaze became a bit disinterested.
"Since they are of no use let's just kill them."
And without a second of hesitation, Kenzo's figure flickered and appeared right in front of the guards like a phantom.
The guards on the other hand didn't even react as if accepting their fate.
Shing—!!
Thud… splat… crack…
One by one Kenzo killed them all easily with his kunai like a butcher slaughtering sheep.
A moment later all that remained were corpses in the pool of their own blood.
Their faces looked empty and lifeless, frozen in their final moment of despair.
Kenzo's gaze didn't linger on the corpses for too long before his gaze shifted to noises outside.
"Looks like the main body has already begun the slaughter."
Kenzo's shadow clone's lips curled up slightly beneath the mask.
His clothes and his entire body were covered in blood making him look like a demon from hell.
"Hey now, I can't disappoint the main body's expectations, can I?"
With that quiet thought Kenzo's body again disappeared with a body flicker from the building which was still in flames.
All that remained behind was blood and corpses of his enemies.
In the end death was the only final outcome.
——
At the meanwhile Kenzo's main body had already entered the facility and had already begun an indiscriminate massacre.
He moved from one place to another without stopping. Guards fell instantly the moment they came into his path. Some tried to resist, others tried to run, but none of it made any difference. The outcome was always the same.
Those trapped inside the cages could only watch as everything around them collapsed. Some cried, some screamed, and some remained completely silent, their minds already broken beyond repair.
Kenzo did not slow down. His movements remained precise and efficient, clearing everything in his path.
As Kenzo continued on his slaughter going from hut to hut.
He gradually found another house which was a bit larger than the others, without stopping Kenzo arrived at the place and easily slipped through the window.
Inside however there wasn't a single person unlike he found in previous houses.
The room itself was very unusual, several jars and equipment used by doctors in his previous life like surgical trays, metal instruments, and preserved samples lay scattered around on different tables, the room looked like a small makeshift laboratory. The tables were cluttered with tools, stained cloths, and containers filled with unknown liquids. The air carried a strange, stale scent, and the overall environment felt cold and clinical despite the chaos.
There was another thing that caught his attention and that was the severe amount of organs in the room, from left to right there were hundreds of human organs preserved in glass fluids like specimens in a collection.
"Looks like the original owner of this room must be quite obsessed with them."
Kenzo calmly evaluated in his mind.
As Kenzo's gaze kept on drifting and his mind began to calculate the implications a small curve of a smile appeared behind his oni mask.
"Is anybody here?"
Kenzo said in a playful voice rather than his usual calm voice.