Zarek moved like the wind, his eyes sharp and his intent blazing. Tracking down Malik was impossible—he knew that. With the ability to curve his bullets and his homing abilities, Malik could be practically anywhere. If he was also outside of the range for Zarek to detect easily, it was even more impossible to tell exactly where he was.
Even if he knew exactly where the man was, going toward the sniper with supersonic bullets and a homing ability sounded like death.
This was the only path to take, and it just so happened to be the most unpredictable one. Zarek liked that.
There was a wild grin on his face as he shot forward with even greater pace. His legs churned, his heart thrummed, and he well and truly felt alive.
The weight of his success and failure these last few weeks had pulled down his mood in more ways than one. Every twist and turn felt like he just might have to watch everything slip away from him.
He was the so-called Ashborn Demon, but he felt the mountain of his failures more acutely than anyone else.
Had things gone exactly like he wanted them to? No.
But he could see a light at the end of the tunnel, a chance to reach the heights he was looking for right in front of himself. With the foundation he had right now, he didn't fear failure anymore.
These tools, he could work with, and he could surpass any level he had ever reached before.
To make matters even better than that, he had finally gotten off of his chest the very thing he had been keeping from Priya.
Was she still upset? Sure. Were answers muted and short? Most definitely. But Zarek understood her better than he understood himself. This wasn't irreversible for them, and he had a feeling that a certain woman's head on a pike would fix all of that.
With his future set, and his woman still by his side…
What did he have left to fear in this world?
He felt like himself for the first time since his first life.
He felt alive.
BANG!
Zarek crashed heavily into the bottom of the mountain, his steel-toe boots flexing and his knees bending.
He exploded forth, his quads expanding in his sweats until it seemed they would burst apart at their seams before he rushed forward.
'Show me what you're hiding,' Zarek thought, grinning ear to ear. He left a line of dust in his wake, moving so fast clouds began to form soon after.
The cracked, dry soil of the desert shined beneath his stomps, his presence not being hidden in the slightest.
He was overbearing in his movement, almost valiant in his steps. He wanted battle—he was fiending for it.
And then it came.
First there was nothing at all, and then everything at once. Streams of Turned coming out from hives and holes, scrambling up to the ground in wave upon wave.
'Holy fucking shit.'
Zarek started laughing to the skies just as the blood moon barely began to make its presence known over the horizon.
He knew why this was happening before he even really had time to think about it. It seemed that he had left quite the impression on a certain enchantress.
He hadn't even stepped foot in that location just yet, and yet here she was, throwing everything and the kitchen sink at him.
"I'm flattered, really."
Zarek reached to his back, unsheathing a familiar katana. The radiance of a D-Class weapon shimmered in the low lights of dusk, almost milky, murky lights of orange, red, and maroon dancing across its surface.
The Turned didn't seem to have any rhyme or reason.
Some of them were long and lanky, lumbering forward in what seemed like uncontrolled, slow gaits, and yet covering large swaths of land at a time.
Others were short and stocky, truly slow and not just seemingly so, and yet their weight left craters in the ground, their steps carrying the heft of mountains and the persistence of rivers.
Some of them had limbs and body parts sharper than swords and sturdier than hammers.
Others barely had any form or substance at all, moving through the world in what they thought were lurking shadows and whispering winds that Zarek couldn't pick up on.
They were wrong.
BANG!
Zarek suddenly accelerated, his grin wide and almost maddened as he leaned forward, slicing a slenderman replica in two, right along the diagonal of its collarbone and through its Godsfall Droplet.
"You're going to have to send more than this, enchantress. Let's give them a real show!"
Zarek's voice boomed as he kicked the lower half of the slender Turned into the path of another, almost flash-stepping behind it to catch up and thrusting right through its body and the Turned's forehead on the other side.
He pivoted, dodging out of the way of a spike shooting right through the air.
Messing around, he thrust out a free hand through the air, sticking his index and pinky finger out and curling his ring and middle finger toward his wrist.
A line of black Lurker's Godsfall shot out, snagging the spike through the air like some sort of spider's web and whipping it back at the Turned that sent it—even faster than it came.
Zarek's Charisma was simply on another level right now, and his attunement to those around him was like he was watching the world play out in slow motion.
His body only became more controlled, more precise in its movements, faster to react and sharper to kill.
Like a lethal blade, he cut through the army of Turned, killing three more before the spike he sent flying even impaled its original owner.
He danced, dodging and slashing, pivoting and thrusting. One would have never guessed that he was wielding a weapon that he didn't even like all that much, the smile on his face making it seem as though he was having the time of his life.
This was the true Ashborn Demon, the man who smiled as blood splashed across his cheeks…
And his performance was being observed by not just one, but two separate parties.