Chapter 146: Fight Back VI
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His expression remained controlled, but shock flickered underneath.
He had seen violence.
He was violence.
But he had not seen this kind of system-driven, blood-driven growth.
Not like this.
Sekhmet turned to him.
"Take care of the bodies," Sekhmet said.
Raka bowed his head slightly.
"Yes, master," he replied immediately.
Sekhmet glanced down the alley.
No city guards had arrived yet.
That meant the assassins had chosen their location well.
Or it meant the city did not care about what happened in dark alleys unless someone important screamed loud enough.
Sekhmet lifted his hand again.
The void opening rippled into existence.
This time it felt smoother, steadier, as if his strengthened chaos energy made reality obey easier.
"Return," Sekhmet said.
The bats obeyed instantly.
The rare six went first, gliding into the dark oval like they belonged there.
The stronger bats followed.
The swarm flowed into the void like smoke being pulled into a jar.
Within breaths, the alley was quieter.
Only Sekhmet remained, blood-stained and breathing steadily.
Only Raka remained, standing near the bodies like a butcher waiting for instructions.
Sekhmet looked at Raka once more.
"Continue your investigation," Sekhmet said. "Iron House. Dickon. Everything."
Raka’s eyes sharpened.
"Yes, master," he replied.
Sekhmet turned away.
His steps were steady now, no longer limping.
The wounds still ached, but they were manageable.
His hunger was quieter, satisfied for the moment, like a beast that had been fed enough to stop biting its own cage.
Behind him, Raka moved.
Sekhmet did not look back.
He left the alley.
He moved through side streets, then broader streets, keeping his face calm, his posture normal, as if he had not just drained four killers and fed them to a swarm of evolving predators.
The city lights glimmered ahead.
The Dawn House direction felt like gravity.
Home was not safe.
But it was his.
And tonight, he needed walls.
He needed silence.
He needed to think.
He walked faster.
By the time the Dawn House district came into view, the sky above Slik City had deepened, the air cooling, the world pretending it was peaceful.
Sekhmet approached the familiar streets, the familiar stonework, the familiar sense of old wealth struggling to breathe again.
The Dawn House gate waited ahead.
And Sekhmet kept walking toward it, blood washed from his mouth but not from his mind, already planning what he would do next.
Meanwhile...
Raka waited until Sekhmet’s footsteps were gone.
Not because he was afraid of being seen with corpses. In the underground, a corpse was just a failed business plan. He waited because the alley still held echoes. Wings. Blood. Fear. And in Null, echoes attracted the wrong kind of attention.
He listened.
A distant laugh from a street corner. A cart wheel rolling over stone. The faint bell of a late-night drink stall.
No guard boots. No curious runners.
"Good."
Raka exhaled once through his nose and moved like a man who had cleaned messes since childhood.
First, the obvious problem.
The bodies were in the wrong place.
This alley was quiet, but it was still near a market artery, a place where drunks wandered and thieves searched for opportunities. If some random scavenger found four dead men and ran screaming, the noise would travel fast. Noise brought city guards when it threatened trade.
And trade was the only thing Slik City pretended to protect.
Raka crouched, not to mourn, but to inspect.
He did not touch anything with bare skin. He pulled a thin pair of leather gloves from his coat and slid them on. Then he scanned the ground the way a butcher scanned a table before cutting meat.
Blood.
Too much in some places. Too obvious in others.
More important than blood, though, were traces.
Dropped needles. A broken spear shaft. A blade that had skidded across stone. Footprints where someone had panicked and slipped.
And the worst trace of all.
Witness trails.
He turned his head slightly and looked up at the nearest rooftop corner.
The shadows there were normal. Which meant nothing was there.
In Null, normal shadows were often the most suspicious.
Raka clicked his tongue once, low, and pulled a small stone from his pocket. It looked like a simple river pebble, but it was carved with a narrow rune slit along the side.
A hush-stone.
He crushed it lightly between his fingers.
The rune slit flared and then dissolved into dust that fell like gray powder.
The air around the alley thickened for a breath. Not a barrier, not true silence, but a muffling field, the kind that made distant ears struggle to catch clear sound.
Now he had minutes where even a curious listener would hear only vague noise.
Raka began with the weapons.
He picked up the needles first, because needles were evidence of a certain kind of work. Assassins used them. Brokers recognized them. Market guards hated them because poison caused public panic.
He gathered each needle with two fingers and slid them into a small metal tube at his belt, a container etched with a neutralizing rune. The tube sealed with a twist.
He picked up the spear next. The shaft was expensive wood, the tip coated and reinforced. Not a cheap thug weapon. It screamed a contracted job.
He snapped the shaft in half with a short, controlled motion.
Then he snapped it again.
Not because it was satisfying. Because long weapons were recognizable. Short broken pieces became trash.
He slid the spear tip into the same tube as the needles. Different compartment.
Then the blade.
The assassin’s sword was coated to resist blood constructs. That coating was rare enough that the wrong person noticing it could lead back to the buyer.
Raka wrapped the blade in cloth, not to protect it, but to stop it from reflecting light.
He did not keep it.
Keeping trophies was how men got arrogant.
Arrogant men got dead.
He set it aside for disposal.
Now the bodies.
Four of them.
Two heavy. Two average.