The atmosphere froze over for a split second as the Enforcer continued to stare in Soran’s direction. Eventually, he chuckled before shaking his head.
"Hm? What could you possibly mean by that? Why would I not bring you back?"
"Ha."
Soran snorted and turned toward the Butcher. Despite not seeing, she could still tell where it was. Its presence was that overwhelming, and unlike before, it stood still, doing nothing but stare at them.
The pressure alone caused distortions in the air, growing stronger by the second. Her lips parted as she looked at it.
"Because you give me the ick. It’s been like that for a while now. What kind of organization have you gotten involved with?"
"....."
The tension that lingered in the atmosphere only heightened as the Enforcer’s eyes narrowed while staring in Soran’s direction. Eventually, however, his features turned soft again.
"There’s nothing that is happening. I haven’t gotten involved with anything that is particularly bad. You can say that I’m just deeply involved in the politics of the bureau."
"...Ah, I see."
Soran laughed while blood continued to leak from her face, the scent spreading through her nostrils.
"Now I’m practically certain that I’m right."
The smile on Brandt’s face changed, his eyes flickering as he maintained his gaze over Soran’s features. He scanned them from top to bottom, and despite his expression, she remained relaxed. In a way, it almost seemed as though she was resigned to the entire situation.
She didn’t seem to care about what happened to her, and that was exactly the truth.
She really didn’t care.
’Well, I’ve done my job so there’s that.’
"Oh, but..."
Soran pointed in a certain direction.
"It doesn’t seem like you’ve evacuated everyone. Are you sure you’re alright with keeping them?"
The Enforcer’s direction turned in the direction she pointed. Towards a couple of figures lying on the cold floor, their status unknown. His gaze lingered in their direction for a brief moment before he stared back at Soran.
"For someone who can’t see, you sure can see a lot."
"I’ve got a good memory."
Soran cracked a smile. But just as her lips parted again, something changed. The very air seemed to shake. All of a sudden, Brandt’s face underwent a change as he pressed his hand against her shoulder, and the two faded from the spot.
BOOOM!
A terrifying explosion ensued, the pavement where the two had been standing splitting with a long and deep line.
They both re-appeared a few meters away, but right as they did, Brandt’s face underwent another change as a pair of blood-red eyes locked in his direction. He didn’t waste a single second, his nodes churning even faster as he faded from the spot again.
BOOOOOOM!
The space quivered once more, a deeper line forming in the area where the two had been standing as the Enforcer appeared quite a distance away from where he had been standing a moment prior.
Dust and debris lingered in the air, masking the Butcher’s figure as the Enforcer’s eyes narrowed while scanning the surroundings.
A quiet tension lingered in the air, his breath held as he scanned the air.
And just as his shoulders relaxed...
SWOOOSH!
A pair of blood-red eyes locked onto him once more.
His reacted instantly, his nodes churning as he pressed his hand against Soran’s shoulder.
But despite reacting fast, he wasn’t as fast as the Butcher.
SPURT!
"⎯⎯!"
A terrifying pain engulfed his mind as his left arm was severed from his body. It all happened so fast that he didn’t even have the time to properly register the situation. But even then, he let out no sound as his eyes lingered in the Butcher’s direction and his body faded, reappearing before one of the two bodies that Soran had pointed at.
Without saying anything, he raised his foot and stomped down.
BANG!
Red exploded in all directions as he stomped directly on the head before turning his direction towards the other body, which still seemed to be breathing. The skin at the back of the Enforcer’s scalp tingled as his body faded once more, and the area cleaved in half.
Reappearing in front of the other body, the Enforcer looked down with cold eyes.
"...You’re in a terrible state, Osvald. Then again, I expected nothing else from you. But what a mess."
He shook his head while pressing his foot over Osvald’s body. However, unlike what he did to the Team Leader, he just pressed his foot against his back, and right as he felt the Butcher attack once more, their bodies began to fade.
BANG!
A terrifying explosion ensued, the rising dust covering the surrounding area. It took a while for the dust to clear, however, unlike before, the Enforcer didn’t appear again.
He simply left.
Silence settled over the surroundings as a pair of blood red eyes swept over the surroundings, scanning every nook and cranny of the broken area. However, despite how hard it looked, there was nothing in sight.
Not a single soul.
Just before leaving, the Enforcer had made sure to evacuate everyone.
From the very start, its job had never been to defeat the Butcher. Its abilities weren’t catered for that. His goal was to evacuate everyone and buy time for the main reinforcements to arrive, which he managed to accomplish flawlessly.
While he didn’t evacuate everyone on the island, he didn’t need to.
It didn’t take long for the reinforcements to arrive.
The sound came first, the rhythmic *thump-thump-thump* of helicopter blades cutting through the sky, growing louder, closer.
"Quick! Quick! Quick!"
Vehicles screeched to a halt, doors slamming open as operatives poured out in organized formation rather than a chaotic rush. Squad leaders barked coordinates into earpieces; analysts huddled around tablets streaming live drone feeds.
"Hmm, this is not good."
"...Is it just me, or are things becoming messier and messier? First that thing in Malovia, and now this? When are we going to catch a break?"
"I don’t know, but let’s focus on the task at hand. This one is a tough one."
A woman with silver-streaked hair stepped forward, tapping her earpiece as her eyes flicked across three holographic displays hovering before her.
"Command, this is Tactical Lead. Establishing a perimeter at six hundred meters. I want barrier specialists on the outer ring, evacuation corridors at the northeast and southwest. Combat units stage at four hundred. Nobody engages until I give the signal."
"Copy."
Having dealt with the incident in Malovia, the Guilds and the BUA were a lot more prepared in dealing with high-ranked anomalies. The moment they arrived, everyone already had recordings and ideas of the Butcher’s abilities.
Drones had been circling the perimeter for the last several minutes, capturing every twitch, every slash, every micro-expression on that horrible pig-faced creature. The analysts were already cross-referencing the footage against the anomaly database, looking for behavioral parallels.
It was strong.
There was no denying this.
What made it even creepier was the fact that it was still growing. It had yet to reach its limit.
The oppressive weight of its aura only intensified, filling the space like water slowly rising, drowning the world in its sinister bloodlust.
"Ah, we don’t have much time. The more we drag this, the less likely we’ll be able to deal with it."
The analysts noted it with grim faces, the power readings from their instruments climbing in slow, steady increments. Every minute they delayed, the harder this fight would become.
"Stall pattern Delta," the Tactical Lead ordered, voice clipped. "We’re not winning a war of attrition. We have to strike fast. However, it seems like it is not very smart. Rotate teams every ninety seconds; nobody should engage for more than that."
The fight against the Butcher was a tough one.
BANG!
The Butcher was a representation of overwhelming power. Each movement sent tremors through the ground, displaying just how powerful it was.
But this time, the response was different. Where the first responders had scattered before its rage, the Guilds moved like a single organism. They approached, struck, retreated, androtate.
No one stood still.
No one stood alone.
"Team One, harass left flank. Do NOT commit! Three-second engagement window!"
"Team Two, mender screen at the rear, I want healing chains active!"
"Team Three, you’re spotters. Call its slashes before they land!"
"Its attacks are getting faster! Be careful!"
"...Careful!"
Wherever the Butcher slashed, it would only leave carnage and destruction behind. Several buildings shattered under its attacks, leaving many injured in the process.
The sound of collapsing structures was deafening. From the shriek of tearing metal, the thunderous crunch of falling concrete, and the sharp crack of snapping support beams.
All of it was heard.
But the barrier specialists were already moving, raising layered shields that didn’t try to stop the slashes outright, but instead redirected the force upward, into the open sky, away from where the groups were.
BANG!
When a barrier shattered, another rose to replace it.
Three more behind that.
The specialists worked in shifts, conserving their reserves, refusing to burn out in a single exchange.
Thankfully, there were several menders located in the area, helping many of the people who showed up, their healing magic flowing in steady currents through the wounded. The smell of blood and disturbed earth hung heavy, mingling with the sulfur-like smell that lingered in the air.
Helicopters and news reporters arrived not long after, capturing the entire scene.
Camera flashes created a strobe effect against the roiling dust clouds. The distant murmur of the news crew’s and commentary was barely audible beneath the chaos.
The entire world caught sight of the Butcher’s overwhelming strength as several powerful individuals were dispatched, all trying their best to take care of the situation.
Their clashing auras created visible distortions in the air.
Analysts in the rear shouted updates into the comms.
"It favors right-handed slashes. Seventy-two percent of attacks angle from the upper-right!"
The more the fight progressed, the more data they accumulated.
"Wind-up time is point-three seconds! Tells: shoulder rotation, head tilt!"
"It’s not tracking aerial targets as well. Repeat, blind spot is overhead-elevated angles!"
"Power signature drops by twelve percent immediately after each slash. That’s the window!"
The fight lasted several hours.
Exhaustion crept into everyone present as the scent of blood that lingered across the surroundings grew even denser.
Many had fallen, but the Guilds didn’t break.
They cycled.
Fresh teams rotated in as exhausted ones rotated out for healing and rest, the operation running with the cold efficiency of a machine designed for one purpose.
It was under the Guild’s and BUA’s relentless assault and observations that they were finally able to figure out the main flaws of the Butcher and take advantage of it.
Eventually, the Tactical Lead pulled up a behavioral model on her display. It was a probability map of the Butcher’s next ten likely actions, refined over the course of the past hours as the Butcher’s strength increased.
"Confidence threshold reached," she murmured. "Move to phase two."
She raised her head and looked around.
"The moment it slashes, its body is exposed! Make sure to attack then!"
Her hand slammed against the table as she pressed her finger against the comms.
"It’s not very smart! ... Its attack patterns are very simple! Don’t be scared! Just attack at the right time, and we should be able to contain it!"
"The knife...! Take its knife. I can tell that it’s the main source of everything!"
The final command crackled across every comm in the operation.
"All teams, converge on signal. Bait protocol initiated."
The plan started with a single decoy. A high-speed member of the [Sentinel Decree] with reinforced barriers layered over her body, darted into the Butcher’s range, deliberately drawing its attention.
The Butcher’s shoulder rotated. Its head tilted.
Swoooosh!
The slash came as predicted, the decoy vanishing a fraction of a second before the blade reached her.
No...
She disappeared before the Butcher could even attack. From the start, they had already memorized its pattern.
That was also the moment the window opened.
With its flaws identified, the Guilds coordinated with one another to eventually take down the Butcher as they all attacked right after it attacked, several arriving right before it could do anything, and unleashing several attacks at once.
From above came the aerial strikers, exploiting the overhead blind spot.
From the flanks, the melee specialists struck at the exposed torso. From the rear, the long-range artillery converged on the knife arm, or to be precise, the wrist holding the blade, the anatomical chokepoint everything depended on.
The Butcher tried to react, but it was too late as all attacks landed at once and cracks formed across its pig-like face.
BANG!
The impact reverberated through it, a faint shattering sound spreading outward from the epicenter.
All froze in that moment, all eyes locked onto the butcher.
And eventually⎯
Clank! Clank!
Its wrist buckled under the focused assault. The blade falling from its grasp as the bloodlust leaking out of its body faltered.
And soon⎯
Cra CRACK!
Cracks formed across its face, spreading rapidly before the mask shattered completely, exposing what lay beneath as its true face appeared before the entire world.
The world held its breath.