Chapter 93

In Silence (II)

A full moon hung over L.A.'s landscape, though the night hardly dimmed the city's lights or its unrelenting noise. The world around the Tower was beyond brightly lit as though it was a day; hundreds poured in and out by the hour, and hundreds more surrounded the Tower and chattered deep into the night.

Cain, on the other hand, was overlooking the scenery from a nearby hill; cigarette in hand, his eyes stayed on the Tower only for a moment before he focused to the front where a gated compound stared back at him, its walls good fifteen feet high, the automated gate at the front with a dozen or so guards placed about.

Taking the last puff, he tossed the cigarette’s butt away and reached into his inventory, taking out a mask and putting it on -- the killer’s from Alice Sweet Alice. Taking a deep breath, he began casually walking up the slope and toward the gate, letting the light of the moon spill over him. His figure escaped the darkness rather quickly as the bright spotlight descended upon him and five red-dotted lasers landed on his chest.

“Stop right there! This is private property!” shouts mingled about but he seemed to ignore them, continuing to walk.

When he reached within fifty feet of the wall, the first shot was fired, the bullet zooming in at him beyond the capacity of a normal human to perceive. He saw it, however, as though it was fired in slow motion; casually charging Wind, he held it up in front of him as though it was nothing.

“HE’S A CONQUEROR!! SIGNAL THE ALARM AND KEEP FIRING!!”

Bullets fell like rain at him, yet he never deflected any one of them, doing the same he did with the first -- keeping them in front of him, afloat, as though they were souvenirs. He looked like a ghost of a phantom, a shade birthed by the night itself as he stopped in front of the gates. The bullets had long since stopped falling, the world turning to the tepid silence it oft loved; a dozen pairs of eyes or so stared at him sternly and fearfully, nobody daring to utter a sound.

Cain casually lifted his right arm and opened his palm up, charging Fire and Arcane and summoning out a cleaver the size of the gates themselves.

"RUN!" a cry was blurred out by the screech of the fiery blade as it fell upon the gates, splitting them apart into hundreds of pieces that flew off everywhere. Those who stood on top found themselves aflight, terrified to their bones, while Cain casually walked through the burning carnage and the accompaniment of debris and dust.

Once he made his way into the compound’s courtyard, he paused, noting the ten or so newcomers who stared at him pensively, Mana surging around their wiggling silhouettes. He tilted his head in silence and smiled, though the mask prevented them from seeing it.

“Let’s burn...”

He slapped his palms together as roaring flames erupted from beneath his feet, surging into a sky-towering pillar that blighted the night and drew the attention of the whole L.A. toward him. Coral flames danced like dragons as they splintered into hundreds of bolts, each like a bullet, showering the entire compound and uprooting it from its existence.

The ten Conquerors tried their best to defend and counter-attack but found themselves immediately swarmed and overwhelmed, three burned to a crisp. The dam had broken within Cain, he realized, as he was once again back to who he used to be for the past twenty years -- someone who never flinched when taking another’s life.

The path toward the center of the compound opened as the pillar fell, smoldering everything in its way as though it was Moses splitting the sea. Cain resumed walking forward like a ghastly apparition, winds soaring and surging around him, the world appearing to bow.

Nobody else came to confront him as he made his way to the central mansion of the compound where a small army of nearly sixty awaited him. Some were just ordinary humans pointing guns at him, their hands trembling as though frosted, while most were Conquerors who hardly appeared much better.

He stopped and looked at them, the pair of brightly-lit green eyes staring at the group from beneath the mask. To those standing opposite of him, his silhouette in the midst of dust and wind resembled the Reaper itself and the pair of green eyes like the underworld’s lanterns where their souls ought to be stored.

“W-who are you?!” one of the men standing braved himself enough and asked, drawing Cain’s attention to him. As soon as his eyes met the green pair, he stumbled back and fell, his instincts screaming at him to run away as far as possible.

“...” Cain said nothing, just tilting his head as he raised his right arm again, flicking his fingers together as a singular spark emerged between them as though he was flicking a lighter.

A moment of silence ensued, one that seemed to stretch into eternity, yet also passed before anyone could even register it. Right after, the world beneath them was blown open by a carcass of fire, thousands of blazing arms digging out from underground and wrapping themselves around the group. Guns began to fire, shields erupting into the sky, screams and cries and roars of agony and pain billowing out into the sky adjacent to the fire and soot and smoke.

Bodies flew out in droves, smoky trails left behind the only indication they were ever even there, as the entire front of the mansion began collapsing from top to bottom, melting like a cake.

Cain’s eyes veered away from the wanton destruction to the far right where he picked up on the sound of the chopper being started. Chuckling, he vanished like a ghost, causing the few remaining survivors to completely collapse as their mental capacity reached its limit -- they all passed out on spot, incapable of even keeping their eyes open.

On the other hand, Cain quickly made his way over to the chopper where he saw six or so people draped in high-end business suits trying to get inside the metallic beast. He landed silently, using three of his Blink+ charges, staring hollowly at the group who immediately noticed him. The mask appeared even eerier under the faint light of the moon; there was something entirely unnerving about it, the smile draped on the porcelain surface of a bizarre face, and the two holes shimmering in resplendent green.

“W-we--we--”

"..." Cain lifted his finger and swung it casually, sending out a single array of wind and splitting the chopper into two as the explosion blew out everyone in a wide arc . Most immediately succumbed to injuries and died, only two surviving.

He casually tossed a singular bolt of fire at one and ended the man's misery as he was missing his bottom half while walking over to the sole survivor who was pinned underneath a charred metal plate of the helicopter, pain evident on his face. Cain lifted the plate off and tossed it away as he crouched down, looming over the man. The stench of urine quickly permeated the air but Cain ignored it; after all, he'd survived through much, much, much worse.

“Mr. Bellamy, no?” Cain asked in a fairly distorted voice.

“... y-y-yes... w-who--”

“We don’t need an Assassin,” Cain said casually. “Never did, never will. I can always just walk into your homes and kill everyone, just like tonight. As a matter of fact, I was quite merciful tonight. If it happens ever again... I won’t even walk past the gates. I will just blow everything up in one go. Do you understand?”

“Y-y-y-y--” the man stuttered, fear crippling his most basic cognitive capacities.

“Rick, and everyone even remotely associated with him,” he added. “Is off-limits. Tell that to your friends, tell that to the scum that pushed you to go after him. And give ‘em all a fair warning -- I don’t care who they are and I don’t care how long it will take... but one more transgression, and I will kill everyone. Tell that to every party that comes to you, to every self-proclaimed master of their Class, to every moron pursuing fame and glory. I rule the Tower. No, the entire world. Even if ten thousand of them come,” Cain added, lifting his finger casually and charging nearly all of Mana he had into Fire and Arcane, summoning a beyond-massive sphere of liquid flames far up above him, one brighter than the moon, temporarily displacing the night into a day. The man’s mouth gaped, but Cain forced Mana into the man to prevent him from passing at the sight of a ball that could level the entire L.A. to the ground. “It’s irrelevant. For as long as I live, there will be no other King or Queen of the Tower, no other man or woman who will ever even be within the reach of taking my crown. Contrary to what you might think, I don’t enjoy killing people all that much.

“Because of that, I hope this is the last time I’ll have to do it. But... I’m far from being above it all. I’ll repeat today no matter how many times it takes and how many lives need to be lost in the process. If they don’t listen to you,” Cain said, reaching into his pocket and taking out a piece of paper. “Text me their names at this number and I will let you live. If you don’t, I’ll kill you. I’ve already put a Mana implant into you that lets me know your location whenever I want. So, even if you run to the big-daddy-in-the-sky-himself, I will track you down, bring you back to life, and kill you myself.”

“...” still incapable of speaking, the man could only fervently nod as the massive sphere of fire in the sky vanished, the night restoring its natural, dark luster.

“Good night.” Cain vanished, leaving the lying man to stare at the fading phantom and, eventually, the empty air. He’d seen people use magic before -- even the Elementalists. He thought he even met the most powerful bunch, yet, today, he’d come to realize he’d seen nothing beforehand. For the first time, he truly met someone who can claim to be a one-man-army. And, worst of all... he knew there was no escaping the phantom.

The news didn’t wait the dawn to break out -- as virtually every major outlet picked up on the story of two phenomena that occurred within the span of a few minutes. First, it was the impossibly massive pillar of fire surging into the sky that lit up the whole of L.A.... and then there was the far more impressive, sun-like sphere of liquid flames that lit up nearly the whole of West Coast.

By dawn, the reports came trickling down from the site of destruction -- the entire compound of one of the richest men in America was uprooted and wholly destroyed, barely sixteen survivors altogether. Few uttered a sound, and those that did never spoke past 'the Death itself visiting them that night'.

A single picture was taken the whole night, depicting a masked man standing in the midst of flames, looming over the sea of corpses around him -- truly like the Death itself. It ran in the morning rundown of the news and quickly became the most recognizable photo across the entire world -- with the figure in it promptly named 'Death's Phantom'.