Chapter 411: The Likes Of You
A figure with crimson hair and blood-soaked clothes dropped from the sky like a falling meteor, moving so fast the air screamed in protest.
An axe gleamed in his hands.
The four Shadow Council snipers on the rooftop barely had time to register movement before death arrived.
SLASH SLASH SLASH SLASH
Four strikes were executed in the space of a single heartbeat, each one clean and efficient and absolutely lethal.
The first sniper’s head separated from his shoulders, spinning through air, expression frozen in shock.
The second split vertically from crown to groin, his body falling in two perfect halves.
The third lost everything above his ribcage, the top half of his torso simply gone.
The fourth died with the axe buried in his chest, the blade punching through sternum and spine.
Thud
Damian landed among the corpses, one knee touching blood-soaked rooftop, his long crimson hair falling forward to obscure his face.
"..."
The street below went absolutely silent.
Shadow Council operatives froze mid-attack, their weapons raised, their eyes tracking upward toward the figure kneeling among the dead.
Mafia members stopped retreating, their faces showing confusion that shifted rapidly to recognition and then to something approaching religious fervor.
Damian’s head lifted slowly.
His crimson eyes blazed in the darkness like burning coals, his face painted in gore from the kills, blood dripping from his chin to patter on stone.
"Boss..."
Someone whispered it first, the word barely audible.
"BOSS!"
Someone else shouted it, the declaration exploding across the battlefield like thunder.
"BOSS IS BACK!"
The cry spread through Mafia ranks like wildfire, voices overlapping, fighters straightening despite their wounds, exhaustion forgotten under a wave of desperate hope.
"HE’S ALIVE!"
"THE GODFATHER CAME BACK!"
****
Damian didn’t pay attention to the shouting, didn’t acknowledge the hope in their voices.
’Already learned my lesson to not give these fucking snipers time...’
His eyes tracked across the battlefield below, taking in everything with cold precision.
Bodies of his people scattered across the pavement, lying in pools of blood that reflected the moonlight.
’So many died...’
The thought came flat and empty.
’How many? Thirty? Fifty? More?’
His gaze shifted to the Shadow Council leader standing in the middle of the street, blade still raised over Old Man Mike’s kneeling form.
’A+ rank.’
Then to the Domain user twenty meters behind the leader. The man was bent over, one hand pressed against his chest, blood dripping from his mouth, probably due to the backlash.
’The healer... Need to kill him fast... but first–’
Time seemed to slow down as Damian picked up one of the fallen sniper’s rifles. The weapon was still warm from its last shot, the barrel radiating heat.
He stood up, boots squelching in blood and brain matter as his eyes found the cluster of Shadow Council operatives below.
Telekinesis
His hand came up, palm open and fingers spread.
WHOOSH
Invisible threads of force wrapped around dozens of Shadow Council operatives below A rank. They lifted off the ground all at once, bodies rising into the air before their minds could even register the movement, before they could scream.
Damian’s voice cut across the sudden silence, cold and carrying across the entire battlefield.
"Your Shadow Kings attacked... and I couldn’t do anything."
He raised the rifle to his shoulder. The barrel tracked upward toward the cluster of bodies floating thirty feet above the street, helpless and suspended.
"Admond and Ashley attacked... and I couldn’t do anything."
The Shadow Council leader’s head snapped up, his eyes opening wide as he realized what was about to happen.
Rage exploded in Damian’s chest, burning through the exhaustion, through the headache and through everything except the need to make them understand.
"But what makes all of you think..." His finger found the trigger. "...I can’t do anything to the likes of you?"
Damian poured his Aura into the rifle.
The weapon began to glow, crimson energy flooding through the barrel, stock, and the chamber.
The rifle vibrated in his hands, the metal heating up, Aura concentrating into a single point at the end of the barrel.
Whoosh
The leader broke into a sprint, moving with A+ rank speed, his blade already raised, covering the distance at his top speed.
’Too late.’
"Channel Shot."
BANG
The recoil made Damian’s entire arm go numb from the discharge, his shoulder nearly dislocating from the force.
CRACK
The bullet left the barrel and the air itself cracked and shattered wherever the projectile passed, broken glass sounds spreading outward in waves, space folding and compressing around the Aura bullet.
The projectile moved through the night, sucking Aura from the surrounding environment like a black hole, growing more and more compressed with each meter it covered.
And then it struck the cluster of bodies floating helplessly in the air.
A perfect hemisphere of absolute nothingness erupted where they’d been.
’What–’
’Can’t–’
’No–’
Their thoughts barely formed before reality itself disintegrated around them.
And all the Shadow Council operatives were erased.
Deleted from reality as if they’d never existed at all.
The sphere expanded for a fraction of a second, then collapsed, leaving behind nothing.
Just empty air where dozens of people had been.
"..."
"DIE!"
The Shadow Council leader reached the building, his blade already descending toward Damian’s position with killing intent blazing around him.
Damian already saw it coming a fraction of a second before it arrived, his Macro Vision tracking every micro-movement of muscle and bone.
His body shifted.
And the blade cut through the space where his head had been, missing by inches, close enough that he felt the wind of its passage against his cheek.
Sonic Blink
Damian’s body blurred as he appeared behind the Domain user who was still bent over coughing blood, still trying to recover from the backlash of his Domain being shattered.
Aura Magnification: 2×
His Aura power doubled instantly, muscles swelling slightly as more energy flooded his system, veins standing out against his skin.
The Domain user’s head started to turn, eyes widening as he registered the presence behind him, mouth opening to scream–
’NO-’
But Damian’s axe was already swinging, the blade gleaming with concentrated Aura.
"You have the blood of my people on your hands."
His voice came out cold and absolute, each word a judgment.
SLASH
The blade passed through the man’s neck like cutting water.
The Domain user’s head separated from his shoulders and flew across the street, spinning end over end, expression frozen in shock and terror, blood spraying in a perfect arc.
His body stood there for a moment, still upright, hands still raised, before it collapsed.
Thud
The head bounced twice on pavement before rolling to a stop, eyes still wide.