Jack, the leader of the small gang that had come to Luna's house, was a man who loved to play with his victims.
No one knew exactly when it had started, but rumors of his crimes had begun surfacing out of nowhere a long time ago, and since then he had become one of the most feared figures in Lirath.
He wasn't your average criminal. He didn't go around robbing the weak, or causing trouble like the usual neighborhood thug.
No. He was nothing like that.
He considered himself far too superior for such petty things, pointless things, and more importantly, dull ones.
He was a man who lacked nothing. Money, women, whatever he wanted, it was all within reach.
He had the luxury of having everything, and yet he felt empty. Always bored.
Then one day, something happened. An incident that changed him.
A rival gang in the city had decided to wipe out all the others, and Jack's was the most feared among them, so they came straight for him.
What began as a simple meeting, meant to decide the future of both sides, somehow ended in a bloodbath, when Jack, tired of listening to the man's usual bullshit, smashed his head against the negotiation table in a brief burst of frustration.
Something extremely simple for someone of his level. After all, he was already an awakened individual at the peak of F-rank at the time.
The other man, on the other hand, had been nothing more than an ordinary person.
It wasn't the first time Jack had killed someone with his own hands, but that time was different. It was more brutal, unintentional, yet nonetheless done by him.
The strange thing was that he didn't feel bored by it. Not worried either. Just... curious.
The only thought that came to him in that moment was what it would have been like if the other man had been able to feel everything, every sensation, as his head was being destroyed.
The way it happened had been too fast, too immediate. The other man most likely never even knew he was already dead. But what if he could have?
It didn't take long before that curiosity became an obsession, and then, through some dark and broken logic only he could follow, a pleasure
His enemies no longer died with a clean decapitation or a stab to the heart. No, Jack took his time with them. He spoke to them. He watched their reactions, their emotions, their despair.
Before long, his reputation changed. What had once been that of a simple gang leader became something far more feared, the kind of name whispered at night to frighten children, the kind that eventually reached the ears of those above him.
But unlike what one might expect, he wasn't eliminated.
He was recruited.
The decision had been made to use this particular evil to suppress all the others in the city, or at least, that was the stated purpose. Those who knew the truth had their own interests, and so his purpose shifted depending on who was using him.
As fate would have it, this time it was Nicolas, whose father held a high enough position in the city to deploy someone like Jack. The task: capture the woman who had not only refused to submit to him, but had somehow survived after he had given her the honor of being sacrificed in his place.
Jack didn't care about any of that. As long as he could do his work the way he liked, he was content.
But today was different. He wasn't content. His victim wasn't giving him what he wanted, wasn't giving him the satisfaction of watching her mind break, of seeing the fear take hold.
None of it.
That surprised him. And more than that, it frustrated him. So much so that, just to get some kind of reaction out of her, he had pushed her body to levels of torment no one should ever be subjected to.
Until she couldn't hold on any longer.
Until she finally breathed her last.
Wounded. Bleeding. On the edge of death. And yet the only reaction he managed to get from her, after all of that, was that final moment where she looked not at him, but at someone else. No fear, no tears, no begging.
Just a simple warning, and then nothing.
And then she was gone.
That wasn't how it was supposed to go!
Where was the panic? The suffering? The visible agony, the pleading? Where had all of that gone?
He didn't know. But one thing was certain, he was irritated.
And as if fate had been waiting for that exact moment to mock him, his real target had finally arrived.
Jack let out a slow breath and pushed himself up from the sofa. He brushed invisible dust from his coat before adjusting the brim of his hat with casual elegance. A crooked smile tugged at his lips as he turned to face the girl standing in the doorway.
"So, you finally decided to show up," he said, irritation slipping into his otherwise playful tone. "You sure took your time. I should probably apologize for letting myself in without an invitation…"
He gestured lazily toward the chaos behind him, the overturned furniture, the dark stains spreading across the floor, and the small, unmoving body tied to the chair.
"And for having a pleasant little chat with your sister while I wai-"
The words never left his mouth.
In the next instant, the world tilted.
Jack's vision lurched sideways, the room spinning violently as something hot and wet sprayed across his cheek. For a brief, surreal moment, he saw his own body still standing where it had been, headless.
Confusion flickered through his mind, followed by a delayed, absurd realization.
Huh?
His severed head struck the floor with a dull thud, rolling once before coming to a stop, his lifeless eyes staring blankly at the blood-soaked planks.
The two men beside him froze.
Their thoughts lagged behind reality, unable to keep up with what their eyes were seeing. One moment their boss had been speaking, annoyed but in control, the next, his head was lying on the ground.
By the time their instincts screamed at them to react, it was already too late.
A flash of movement cut through the air.
One of them felt a cold line trace across his throat before the world flipped upside down. His body collapsed a heartbeat later, his head hitting the ground with a wet crack.
The other barely managed to turn. His mouth opened, whether to shout or beg, even he didn't know, but a crushing force tore through his torso. His body split apart in a spray of blood, the two halves falling in opposite directions.
Silence followed.
In the center of the ruined house, the chair creaked softly. The rope around Emily's wrists swayed slightly from the disturbance, her head hanging limply forward, still, and forever quiet.
Luna stood a few steps away, her back to the door.
Her chest rose and fell in slow, uneven breaths, yet her face remained empty, devoid of any expression. Only her eyes betrayed the truth.
Her consciousness struggled to hold on as a pounding headache throbbed relentlessly inside her skull.
She blinked once.
The scene in front of her had changed. Three bodies lay scattered across the floor.
She blinked again.
The world shifted once more. She was no longer inside the house, but outside again, surrounded by mutilated bodies strewn across the ground.
Exhaustion seeped into her mind. Her eyelids began to fall shut again, but she stopped herself.
Something had halted her.
A presence.
Familiar… yet unsettling.
She slowly raised her head and looked toward the alley she had come from earlier, dark and silent. A figure stood there, unmoving.
Even through the haze of fatigue, something about it made her chest tighten. Eyes, bright, uncomfortably aware, seemed to pierce right through her.
She didn't have the strength to see more.
Her vision blurred once again as exhaustion dragged her down.
And then…
she blinked one more time.