Katie was better than ever.

Ever since she was a kid, she knew she was different. While ordinary girls would cry when they twist an ankle or break a bone, she enjoyed it. She could still feel the pain and she would still scream if it got too intense and out of hand, but there was just something about it that seriously made her want to moan. She couldn’t describe it. It wasn’t a sexual feeling. All she knew was she enjoyed being hurt.

She didn’t know exactly when it started, but she remembered having that feeling ever since she could remember things.

Ever since then, Katie started doing things she considered fun, whether it was hunting criminals or sleeping with people she didn’t know, but it was getting boring. The pain was getting normal and sex no longer entertained her as much.

Then she met her first he supernatural being.

To Katie, this was the new definition of fun.

And fun was exactly what she thought about this potentially fatal situation.

Katie suddenly smiled. Every muscle in her body threatened to go on strike. She was already getting numb. Her arm felt like it was put into a furnace. Her heart was pounding like the engine of a race car.

And she enjoyed it. She enjoyed the feeling of not knowing what was going to happen next. She enjoyed the feeling of adrenaline flowing through her veins. She enjoyed the feeling of the pain in her bones.

The Blade of Kassak landed, but Katie merely held her left hand out. The weapon slashed down horizontally, but Katie simply tilted her hand slightly so it landed right on her arm.

The blade made its way through her skin and flesh before being stuck.

Katie’s face turned redder. Her body shook violently, but it was due to excitement, not fear. In one swift movement, she physically drew her duplicate blade with her right arm and slashed down on Victor’s arm.

The arm was cut clean through. Blood poured out, but the puppet didn’t scream. After all, it was merely a puppet. Its own self was already gone. Everything that belonged to Victor was stripped away.

The Blade of Kassak, previously held by the now severed arm, floated into the air by itself. It snapped and darted at Katie.

Katie bent her legs and lowered her balance. Finally, just as the blade was about to hit her, she jumped to the side at the last moment. Her adrenalin made her feel like a speedster.

The blade flew past her. It tried to slow down and turn around for another go, but Katie has already turned around, and she had a handgun in her hand.

It once belonged to the gangster that almost shot Katie in the head. She picked it up and hid it in her clothes when the man died. It was a last resort.

Katie pulled the trigger. She prefered knives and other, more difficult to handle, weapons, but she knew how to shoot a gun as well.

The Blade fell back. One of the bullets hit its surface. A wave of red energy covered the blade itself and saved it from the fate of being ripped apart, but the crystal at the end of the blade was obviously dimmer. Deflecting bullets took life energy, and the blade didn’t have any energy to spare.

Unfortunately, Katie had two guns.

Outside the bar, detective Kirsten turned slightly as screams and gunshots appeared from the inside. “We need to move now.” She demanded.

“What about the hostages?” The SWAT team captain asked.

“Something’s wrong. The armed thugs seem to be in some sort of trouble. It’s either an internal conflict or something else. I don’t know. Point is, this might be our perfect chance to make a move without threatening the hostages.”

“Copy that.” The SWAT captain nodded and pointed at the bar. “Move!”

The SWAT units charged into the bar. Kirsten was not far behind.

Inside, the Blade of Kassak was in an awkward spot. After emptying the first pistol, Katie would quickly switch to her second pistol and reload the first with her left hand. He tried to find a chance to charge forward, but Katie would always back off vigilantly.

The blade’s life force was exhausted. The followers only provided him with so much energy, and most of that was used up already. If Katie kept this going for another minute, he would be defenseless and killed. Theoretically she might use up her bullets before that happen, but the Blade wasn’t planning on relying on prayers.

If he was still at his full power...he could cut the girl into a million pieces in a heartbeat, but at the moment he was merely a fraction of what he used to be.

He needed to replenish his energy. All the followers that were still alive, except Katie, have passed out on the ground. They were vulnerable, but Katie carefully forced him away from them.

That was when the SWAT team charged in.

“Drop your weapon!” The first thing the SWAT members saw was Katie and the guns she was holding. They immediately took aim at her. The blade of Kassak was in the shadows, and the officers didn’t see him.

“Look, I don’t have time for this...” Katie said casually as she turned and took aim at the Blade of Kassak, but it just so happened that the blade was lurking next to the SWAT members. When Katie aimed for the blade, the police officers thought she was aiming at them.

The leading officer didn’t hesitate to fire.

“Bang!”

“Eh.” Katie fell on her knees with a bloody hole that went through her heart. She glanced down on the wound before collapsing. A pool of blood gradually formed beneath her.

“What was that?” Detective Kirsten stared at the captain in disbelief and demanded. “She’s one of the hostages.”

“She was holding a gun. She was about to shoot us.”

“Sir, I don’t think she was aiming at us.” One of the SWAT members said quietly. “I think she was pointing his gun at somewhere to the right…” He suddenly went quiet. A strange sound replaced his words.

Detective Kirsten turned around and saw the SWAT member that was talking collapse. A trail of blood appeared on his neck.

Before Kirsten could say or do anything, the rest of the SWAT members started to collapse one by one.

“Ah!”

“What was that?”

“We need evac!”

“Who has visual on the enemy...Eh!”

Kirsten looked around desperately. Her pistol was loaded, but she didn’t see a target to shoot. She scanned across the bar, but she couldn’t identify a single shooter. If there wasn’t a shooter, then where did the shots come from?

Suddenly, she heard a muffled gunshot, and a blade hit the ground just next to her. Kirsten was immediately shaken into reality. All around her, all twelve SWAT officers were dead. The fact that the blade was just next to her meant she was going to be next...until she was saved by a bullet from the side.

A short distance away, Katie stood up in a puddle of her own blood. The hole on her chest was pretty much gone, yet her face was as pale as a sheet of paper. She needed nutrients to replace the blood she lost, and she wasn’t getting the said nutrients.

She was holding the AR15 of one of the fallen officers. She saved Kirsten not because she was Katie’s type, although the female officer’s pretty face probably played a large part in the decision, but because she was ready to face the blade again.

After being shot at once again, the Blade of Kassak turned to Katie and started accelerating. Previously he was forced to take a beating from her, but now the table was changed. He has just taken the life force of twelve grown men, and he had more than enough to deflect a couple bullets. As long as he could get into melee with the girl, well, he was literally a sword. Melee was her strong suit.

Katie fired her rifle a couple times, but all the bullets were deflected with ease. Shrugging, Katie simply stood there and allowed the Blade of Kassak to go through her body.

It was messy. The blade pierced her chest and came out the other side, making Katie even paler than before, but the girl got what she wanted. She grabbed onto the handle of the blade with one hand and, with the other hand, reached to behind and pulled out a bag of grenades she was hiding.

The blade resisted, but Katie held it inside her body.

She put the bag on the blade and tied a cute knot before yanking the blade out of her body. She tossed it as far away as she could.

The Blade of Kassak shook violently. He consumed Victor’s conscious and knew everything the teenager knew. He was very aware of the power of the grenades. He turned and twisted and tried to get the bag of death of his body, but Katie was an expert in typing knots...all kinds of knots.

An explosion consumed the blade.

Katie took a deep breath and walked forward to where the blade used to be. It took her a full minute to find the blade, or rather what was left of it.

The Blade of Kassak was in pieces. Its tip was shattered. Its crystal had a series of cracks on it.

“Ka...Katie.” Katie suddenly heard a quiet sound. It didn’t take her long to realize it was the blade talking about her through the mark.

“That’s my name.”

“Spare me...I promise to serve you. I will give you power...endless power…I can make you a god...this...this is nothing compared to my real power!”

Katie tapped her lips, as if seriously considering the offer, but she suddenly stepped on the blade. She could hear a pained curse through the mark.

“Appealing, but I don’t want to be a god.”

“...what...do….you want?”

Katie smirked and snapped the blade in two. After the grenades, the blade was already exhausted and mortally wounded. Give it some pressure, and it would fall apart like a mirror hit by a hammer.

She never answered the question.

With its body destroyed, the Blade of Kassak was gone from the material world.

Katie stood back up and stretched. After enduring the burning of the mark the entire time and being stabbed and shot multiple times, she had to admit she was exhausted.

“What...what just happened?”

Katie turned around and found the police officer that survived the onslaught staring blankly at her. What just happened was way beyond what she could comprehend.

She arrived at the bar ready to deal with a gang war. Now she had twelve dead SWAT team members, a broken magic sword, and a girl who took several shots and one blade to the chest and lived.

“A couple of teenagers wielding magical blades got into a bar, killed everyone in it, and used them as sacrifices to revive a fallen supernatural being. I have the ability to heal quickly and I enjoy pain. Got it? Good. See ya.” Katie snapped her finger, and her supplicant blade hit Kirsten in the back of her neck and knocked her out.

Katie didn’t kill the female officer.

For one thing, she was glad how everything turned out. For the other, she was delighted to realize she still had control of her duplicate blade even though she just killed the creator of the blade. She was in a good mood. The wisest thing to do was to eliminate the office so she wouldn’t be hunted down by the cops, but why would she care? The cops could hunt her down all they want. That would be fun. She was in a good mood, and that was the most important thing.

As the officer was down and Katie was the only one still standing in the bar, she looked around the room. Five followers, including Caroline, were still alive. All the SWAT officers were dead. The female detective was knocked out. Bodies of the gang that owned the bar, and those of a few unfortunate customers, were covering the floor.

She went to work almost immediately.