Jace was still in his clown attire, but tonight he wore a black cloak over his colorful jumpsuit and a simple paper mask to hide his painted face.
He was currently on Iron Gate Street, in the Backlund Bridge area.
Night had just fallen, leaving only the dim, flickering light of a few gas lamps to fight against the encroaching river fog.
He was here to attend the gathering of "Eye of Wisdom" near the Braveheart Bar.
It was time for Jace to start buying ingredients for the Magician potion.
It had been over two weeks of acting as a clown; in that time, other than Bobby, he had killed three more drug dealers.
He had killed them in the same pattern: spreading their own drugs over them and cutting their cheeks into a permanent, wide smile.
After four kills, Jace had become a certified serial killer with a proper MO.
Word had finally spread that the "Crazy Clown" who spent his midnights jumping across rooftops had started murdering people.
Consequently, police patrols in the East Borough had increased slightly.
But Jace, with constant divinations and his enhanced agility, stayed well clear of them.
Without overthinking, Jace knocked on the heavy wooden door and whispered the password.
A few minutes later, he was seated within the secret gathering.
During the session, Jace found an opportunity to sell a Sequence 8 Barbarian formula for 500 pounds and a Sequence 9 Bard formula for 300.
With these sales, his wealth swelled to over 1,200 pounds.
He then asked around for the main ingredients of the Magician potion.
He had already committed the formula to memory using the Reader's Glasses:
* 1 × True Root of a Mist Treant
* All the spinal fluid of a Dark Patterned Black Panther
* 30 milliliters of Mist Treant Juice
* 3 grams of Droplet Gem Powder
* 4 drops of Fantasy Grass essential oil
Unfortunately, no one had the True Root of a Mist Treant.
However, he did find a dealer who promised to bring the spinal fluid of a Dark Patterned Black Panther to the next gathering.
Jace also realized he truly lacked mystical artifacts, but as nothing in the current inventory caught his eye, he let the matter rest for now.
--
An hour later, Jace was back on the rooftops.
The air was cold and damp, smelling of coal smoke and river salt.
He decided it was best to "act" in this area tonight.
He had performed a divination earlier, and the results had been... interesting, to say the least.
He surveyed the streets from above, jumping silently from one chimney stack to the next.
Finally, someone caught his eye. Walking through the empty, cobble-stoned street was a man with a rugged appearance and soot-stained clothes.
He turned on his spirit vision to take a good look, he saw that the man had an exceptional physique, but his spirituality seems on lower side.
He was likely a sequence 9 or 8, jace figured he was was hunter or a sequence 8 barbarian.
It didn't take Jace long to recognize him; he had seen this face on a wanted poster back at the Braveheart Bar.
He didn't even need divination to confirm it. He immediately pulled the pendant from his wrist and performed a quick dowsing: Was this man from the Hunter pathway? The result was positive.
Jace followed the man using silent, predatory maneuvers across the roofline.
He paused for a moment to think.
He had to look at this from the perspective of a Hunter.
If the man was a Sequence 7 (Pyromaniac), Jace had no chance. But if he was a Sequence 9 or 8, a victory was possible.
Hunters were a menace, possessing enhanced strength, agility, and heightened senses.
Engaging him would be tricky.
Still, Jace kept following, a shadow against the dark clouds.
---
Jon walked down the street, his eyes darting between the shadows.
These days, he only moved at night; being a wanted man made the daylight dangerous.
But even the night felt heavy lately. Some "clown" was killing people, and the police were everywhere.
He sighed,
his breath a white mist in the cold air.
Suddenly, his instincts screamed.
He heard a sharp whistle in the air behind him.
Swip!
"My leg!" Jon barked in pain.
As a Hunter, he should have known he was being followed, but the attacker had been too silent.
He looked down at his left heel; a playing card had sliced deeply into the tendon, making it nearly impossible to walk.
He had no time to recover.
From the darkness of the roof above, two more cards hissed toward him.
Using the power of his one good leg, he lunged to the side.
But it was a trap. The two cards were a ruse to force his movement.
The spot where he landed already had three cards waiting for him.
Swip! Swip! Swip!
Two cards slashed Jon—one in his right thigh and the other grazing his ribs.
One missed, clattering against the stones. He couldn't believe it; he, a Hunter, was being hunted.
Jon reached behind his waist and pulled out a revolver, pointing it at the dark roofline where the cards had originated.
The area was shrouded in thick shadows, and he couldn't see a thing.
But before he could pull the trigger, A card whistled through the air, slashing the back of Jon's hand.
The gun clattered to the pavement.
That guy moved! He's on a different roof already!
Swip! Swip!
Two more cards targeted his throat.
Jon threw himself backward; one missed entirely, while the other grazed his shoulder.
There was no point in picking up the gun; reaching for it would only make him a stationary target.
His only option was to run.
He limped toward a narrow alley on the left, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
Just as he reached the mouth of the alley, a figure stepped out of the darkness.
It was a clown in a colorful jumpsuit with curly green hair. His face was a mask of stark white and blood red, smiling widely as if he were having the time of his life.
"Hehe," the clown giggled, his hands moving in a blur.
Before Jon could react, a flurry of cards was already flying toward him.
---
Jace stood over the Hunter.
The man was collapsed on the ground, his body bloodied and riddled with several sharp cards.
This was perfect.
Not the killing itself—the act of killing was just a grim necessity—but the way Jace had handled the fight.
He had stayed away from the Hunter, staying where he couldn't be seen, heard, or smelled.
He never engaged physically, which would have been idiotic given a Hunter's dangerous physical capabilities.
When the man had reached for his gun, Jace's "Clown Premonition" had flared, allowing him to jump to the next building and change his angle of attack before the shot could be fired.
This is a tale of how I hunted a hunter, Jace thought, making a silent pun to himself.
He moved around the alley, collecting the scattered cards and burning them with his spirituality to erase the evidence. He picked up the Hunter's gun and tucked it into his belt.
A quick search of the body yielded 83 pounds
By now, the Beyonder characteristic had begun to form on the corpse, condensing into a small, translucent red jelly.
It looked surprisingly delicious, like a piece of candy.
Death candy. He picked it up and dropped it into a glass vial.
He turned to leave, but then stopped.
"Oh, I forgot to make him smile."
He pulled out his pocket knife and leaned over the body.