Chapter 44 - Edmundo Lain

…

“Ant, are you tired of living?”

The smiling Li Qu slowly stood up and walked towards the tattooed person.

The man seemed to not have heard what Li Qu said as he laughed and ordered arrogantly when he saw Li Qu obediently walk towards him.

“That’s better, call your boss here! I have some business to discuss with him!”

Li Qu arrived right in front of the man, he simply stood there and gave a bone-chilling chuckle.

“Haha. Little insect, you are very amusing. I wonder, how many years has it been since someone plotted against me?”

Bang!

The tattooed person banged on the table, he stood up and pointed at Xia Qiu, then at Li Qu– his fingers near enough that it almost touched his nose.

“What the f*ck are you on about and what’s so f*cking amusing about me, huh?! Does that b*tch at the back find me amusing too? Can I f*ck her then? Call your boss and stop wasting my time!”

Shiiing!

A single thread of Karma appeared out of nowhere and sliced the tattooed person’s index finger off with perfect precision. The cleanly sliced finger fell onto the wooden floor and turned blurry before it scattered into particles– vanishing from reality soon after.

Surprisingly, even with that clean cut, no blood dripped out from his open wound. However, the open wound turned blurry like the sliced finger; like a forest fire, it had slowly started to spread along towards the rest of his hand.

From the open wound, to his knuckles, then his palm– the parts that were blurry were gradually disintegrating as well.

The tattooed man had only reacted after a few seconds, he shouted in panic and attempted damage control on the ‘infected’ part before it would eventually devour his entire arm.

He tried to hit the part of his hand that had a mosaic-like blurriness– alas, it was to no avail. However, what he did only made it worse as his other hand had been infected with the same blurriness too as it began spreading.

“What’s happening to my hands? You f*cker, what did you do?! Stop this at once before I f*cking kill you!”

“Silence.”

Li Qu uttered a single word emotionlessly with the power of the Word Of Authority.

The tattooed man abruptly felt his mouth clamp shut. He tried to scream as he saw the blurry effect on his hand spread towards his wrist but failed to even utter a single sound.

Paul Chan was in the corner; sipping his tea quietly in fear as he watched the scene unfold, he tried to shrink his huge body to reduce his presence to the minimum. The keyword was ‘tried’.

Li Qu did not give the man any chance to react as his own fingers approached hiss neck and gripped it tightly, lifting his feet above the ground.

He tried to struggle free and kick about, but he was bound tightly by Li Qu’s sudden release of a sliver of his cultivation.

That was when Li Qu started his speech– the words he spoke made the man’s eyes nearly bulge out while internally panicking.

“Edmundo Lain– age 32, low ranking member of the Garcia Mafias, killed 11 people in your life, secret boy-toy of your caporegime’s wife, r*ped your brother’s girlfriend 5 years ago, hired a hitman to take out your brother 3 months after r*ping his girlfriend… Need I say more?”

The more Li Qu listed out private information about him that he had not told anyone, the more fear was built up inside of him.

Li Qu unsealed the Word Of Authority binding Edmundo Lain’s voice; he was not as arrogant and c*cky as he was a few minutes ago.

Edmundo Lain’s hands were already disintegrated from his elbows down; his teeth chattering in fear as he spoke and coughed from the lack of oxygen.

“H-H-How do you know all this?! Put me down! Keeugh!”

“I am the person you were looking for– the boss of this teahouse.”

Li Qu coolly smiled and replied to him while his hand was still tightly on Edmundo Lain's neck.

“N-No! How could it be– the information given was wrong! Wasn’t it supposed to be some old man or whatever?!”

Edmundo Lain shook his head violently and was in self-denial as he refused to believe Li Qu, although the facts were already in his face.

“Ah, information? If you confess to me, I might spare your life.”

Li Qu’s eyes gave off a glint and tempted him; anyone that experienced the feeling of watching yourself slowly disintegrate would have made the correct choice.

“I’ll talk! S-Stop this thing first, please!”

Snap!

Li Qu snapped his fingers and the Karmic Corruption stopped spreading, only that it still remained on his arms.

Edmundo Lain looked down at his mosaic-like arms to make sure it did not spread anymore, he heaved a sigh of relief and began to spill the beans.

“I’m hired by the Ch–”

“Hold on.”

However, Li Qu interrupted Edmundo Lain just as he wanted to speak.

“W-What...?”

The puzzled Edmundo Lain asked– a sense of foreboding creeped up on him.

Li Qu looked at Edmundo Lain with a teasing smile that the man in question found extremely creepy and felt wary for what was to come.

He stared directly into Edmundo Lain’s eyes and said something puzzling that had alarmed him– and someone else.

“Truthfully, I actually know everything that you are about to say already. Codename ‘Six’, was it? Are you enjoying the show so far? I will be visiting you in a short while– wait for me there.”

With that, Li Qu snapped Edmundo Lain’s neck without even giving him a chance to talk or protest the fact that he had just been given a chance to live, only to get his life snuffed out right away subsequently.

Li Qu let go of Edmundo Lain’s neck and snapped his fingers to resume and hasten the Karmic Corruption.

Thud!

Edmundo Lain’s body fell lifelessly on the floor; the Karmic Corruption was now rapidly devouring his body and fading into particles– leaving no traces that proved he was here just minutes ago.

…

Codename ‘Six’– a Numbered higher-up of the Church Of Chaos, was on his bed, sitting in a lotus position with his eyes shut, as if in a deep meditative state.

All of a sudden, he jumped in fright and abruptly opened his eyes, the view he was watching by connecting his mind with Edmundo Lain’s eyes abruptly turned black.

‘Six’ was spooked, he contemplated in slight fear about what Li Qu said before he snapped Edmundo Lain’s neck.

‘Sh*t, how is it possible that he knew I was watching! How is he so scary?! Sh*t, sh*t, sh*t! I needa get out of here, I’ve been exposed!’

Just when ‘Six’ had entertained the thought of running back to the headquarters of the Church Of Chaos– it was then that he perceived a deep and smooth voice manifest behind him.

“I am afraid that you are too late, ‘Six’.”

‘F*ck, I just saw him a few seconds ago in my Vision Control and he’s already here!!! This is too d*mn sick, I’ve already wasted about 20% of my Gene Ocean output!’

‘Six’ felt a chill in his spine as he inwardly screamed.

He turned his body around in an instant and jumped backwards in instinctive reaction from the spook and got into a combat stance to prepare for a fight– he was cornered to a specific wall that was just at the side of his bed, appearing to be in a truly precarious position.

Li Qu had a faint smile hanging on his lips as he stepped out of the portal gracefully.

…