6 The Descent

Running through the streets of Zaun was harder than one would think at first. Everywhere some junk still lay around on the ground and obstructed your pathway.

Mordyn kept his eyes on the two in front of him while dodging other people and mentioned crap on the ground.

Ekko himself even nearly tripped over some metal bucket filled with what seemed to be water. The owner of that bucket was not amused and screamed after the two.

Mordyn only smiled wrily after jumping over the puddle that the supposed water had created.

Powder and Ekko then disappeared into a narrow alleyway while grinning at him for a short moment when they looked back to see how far behind he was.

Not taking long he also came charging right into the same corner where he could see the two chipmunks already climbing an elevation that was leading to a higher sublevel of another street.

So Mordyn had no choice but to perform a monkeylike acrobatic parkour stunt that helped him up there as well.

Nearly everyone in Zaun had the skillset to climb high places. The proficiency of each individual was a different matter of course.

But he was good in it since he kept his body in a very healthy state and since he was older than them and had more experience with parkour, he was a little bit faster in climbing up there.

Grabbing the ledge and pulling himself finally up to the street above he looked around for a short moment where the two could be.

He did see them run to the right while climbing so he started running with a slower pace in that direction while keeping an eye open for them.

That is until he catches a glimpse of Ekko's white hair behind some crates.

With a quick stance change, Mordyn took the momentum from the running, and with his waist still in motion, he threw the balloon he had already at the ready towards the both of them.

The splash was crisply heard and Mordyn chuckled coming ever closer.

"Next time you should get a better hiding spot.", said Mordyn with a smile but the next moment he stopped and looked at what was in front of him.

At first, he could not see it clearly because of the crates obstructing his view somewhat but now that he stood right next to those boxes, he saw that Ekko and Powder were stationary looking at 4 other guys.

What was clearly noticeable and what made Mordyn cringe a little and lose his smile was that one of those guys now was sprayed with a hippy luminescent green color.

Ekko leaned over to him slightly and whispered with a hand in front of his mouth so that only Mordyn could hear it clearly. "It's not us that you hit."

"I can see that..." Mordyn then glanced over to Powder who had a scowl on her face and already retreated a little bit. "Go stand back for now, Powder. We will handle this."

Powder only nodded to his instruction.

"Man, I will probably feel this for a whole week..." What Ekko now meant was that they would get into a streetfight.

"Well, then stop blocking with your head as Vi does...", said Mordyn back and cracked his knuckles to relieve them a little and prepare them for the pain.

And why were they immediately preparing for a fight? There was not really a choice of peace because the four thugs were already prepared to attack them.

The look in their eyes was that of anger.

"You little shits. At least you are prepared to get beaten up. I will make sure you learn a lesson." The guy that got hit now said while motioning his comrades to also help out.

The fight started off rather easy with Mordyn pulling off a clean jab with his left fist that the older guy didn't expect. But the most damage was done with the follow-up he did.

He performed a clean kick to the balls of said guy. And that even made Mordyn himself feel chilly between his legs and a little bit guilty through the sheer shouting of agony the dude started to cry out.

Hey, you take any advantage you can get when you fight against freaking guys at least 3 heads taller than you.

But even with that surprise attack and Mordyn's experience in using dirty tricks, there was somewhat of a skill gap between kids and adults.

Soon the advantage they gained stopped altogether and they exchanged one punch for another they themselves received.

Mordyn still stood with a few bruised spots on his face and the bleeding nose while Ekko had already been put into a shittier position where he was lying on the floor and two guys stomped on him.

The only way that came to Mordyn's mind to help him was using weapons in the fight. So ripping off some pipes he soon had a blunt weapon to dish out more damage.

And that really helped since the moment he swung the pipe over the heads of those two that ganked on Ekko the fight slowly came back to their favor.

Though Ekko seemed to be done for and way too exhausted to continue on.

So Mordyn kept fighting alone with heavy breathing and bashed in three of the four guys himself until at a certain point he felt sharp pain travel through his cheek.

The attack that was the origin of the pain was done rather sneaky after he had defended himself from the last guy he engaged.

Mordyn only managed to dodge by pure instinct of feeling a presence near him. Had he not done that, then he would probably be dead.

When he looked at the weapon in the hand of the thug, Mordyn became angry and his face started to frost over.

It was one thing to use blunt weaponry to inflict beatings. The worst that mostly happened with that was broken bones. Mordyn had already figured out that people in Runeterra were much sturdier and could take some beating.

But this guy actually brought a knife to a brawl.

Mordyn's left cheek already was drenched with his own blood that had started to flow out from the rather deep cut on it.

He tapped the ground with his pipe and put all of his concentration on this guy. Not that the others were able to fight anyways since he dismissed them.

"Are you really ging to go through with that?", asked Mordyn and obviously meant using the knife. His voice sounded a lot colder now.

"Tsk, shut up you little basterd. You are the one that started using objects."

"There is a difference between..." Mordyn tried explaining something to that dumb shit. But alas, he didn't listen.

"Shut up already!!" The guy lunged forward and swung the knife against him.

But that decision was a mistake. Mordyn suddenly felt like another person entirely and his clean movements with his pipe easily deflected the guys attacking hand.

It was not just a simple parry but the guy's arm got instantly crushed by a heavy blow following up.

The guy screamed but didn't let up. He started to keep swinging after pulling another knife with his remaining hand.

Mordyn on the other hand had enough. After getting another cut near his right upper arm, he swung the pipe and disarmed one knife from him.

Not letting the guy recover from what happed he then saw his own blade stuck in his abdomen.

In disbelief, the guy looked down where his blood tainted his clothing and the brat holding the knife that was stuck in him.

Screaming out in agony through more adrenaline rushing through him the guy tried to further attack Mordyn even with his already crushed hand.

But the redhead himself already started to stab again and again until the thug was pushed back to the ground where he was struck into a swizz cheese.

From the side where the other thugs had somewhat recovered came looks of horror at the scene of a kid stabbing multiple times into one of their buddies.

Even Powder looked weirdly at this scene.

When Mordyn breathed rapidly and finally noticed that the guy had died underneath him, he soon realized what he had done.

Looking at the knife in his hand that was completely drenched in red blood that even splashed a little bit on him, he closed his eyes and breathed in and out to calm down.

"He could have just died quietly...Such a nuisance." Mordyn gritted his teeth and stood up over the dead guy now and wiped away the blood on the blade he used with the help of his trousers.

Then glancing over to Powder he seemed to look somewhat apologetic. After all he could see her various emotions surfacing on her face.

"Take Ekko and get away from here. I...I will follow behind shortly." Mordyn looked away from her when he said those words and his head was cast downward.

Powder looked at him worriedly now after hearing him but seeing his gaze becoming sterner for a second before he looked away, she soon went over to Ekko to grab him and pull him away.

Ekko would later be alright enough t walk on his own. He was just too tired for the moment. But he definitely also saw what Mordyn had done.

Remaining silent and just getting away from here was very much the best thing right now. So it was best for them to listen to Mordyn.

When the duo was gone and had left the alley they were in Mordyn then looked over at the remaining three thugs and smiled wrily.

"One down...So, are you also going to follow this idiot's path?" His taunting words sure hit some nerves.

"You little shit! K-Kill him!" The others also suddenly got an outburst of anger and started to pull their lethal weapons.

But before they could even charge at him the blade that Mordyn was holding had already found another victim straight in the heart after ha had thrown it.

The guy only gurgled out some blood and when he died the last thing he did was pull out the knife that was stuck in him. He only fell to the ground and then bled to death.

"We will make you pay!!" The remaining two guys rage was over the top now after seeing the kid having killed another guy.

And seeing him being unarmed after even his pipe lay near the first corpse, they charged at him like some bulls seeing red.

But what they did not expect to happen next was that Mordyn pulled out a gun from his pouch and aimed straight at them.

That stopped them in their tracks quickly.

"W-Wait. We can talk about this, right? W-we were in the wrong. Please, don't shoot."

"Well, sorry, but who exactly brings a knife to a gunfight again? Definitely not me. Goodbye..." Delivering two shots straight to the heads of the two guys ended this whole fiasco.

When the muzzle of his gun stopped emitting smoke, he slowly lowered it and after staring into the empty air for a few seconds, he put the gun back into his pouch entirely.

Thinking about what he had done now he placed both his hands on his face and ran them upwards through his hair while breathing in and out deeply and leaning back lightly.

He would curse and scream right now but he had not the time for that. Everything started so decently like any normal streetfight but now he was a murderer.

His emotions started to well up now and a cocktail of fear and anger washed over him. It was gripping him firmly now after being dulled by his adrenaline before.

But his brain suddenly stopped thinking about what he had done and started to quickly think of a way to get rid of the bodies.

In his old life, he was a witness to such things. He even got enough jobs to get rid of such corpses. Maybe out of habit his emotions slowly vanished and he fell back into his old unfeeling way.

But still, seeing and doing are two entirely different things.

It was just...the moment he saw the knife in that guy's hands, his brain just overloaded and pushed his actions towards this outcome.

Either he or them. That principle is one that was even harsher here in Zaun. Just a few couple years back he would have been dead many times over.

Nothing really changes. He felt sick right now but the moment he let his arms relax he came to a solution.

"Well...no one asked them to pull out blades." Mordyn then slowly walked over to the corpses.

He grabbed them and piled them up neatly on one spot and stared at them. Luckily their location here was not a bustling space.

"Might as well do it to the end, I guess. Now I got some free subjects to test out the Red Book." Weirdly enough he overcame that inner dilemma quickly when thinking about something specific.

Taking out another vial with the same paint he had thrown at the guy, he opened the cork and walked a circle around the corpse pile while letting the paint drop form a circle as well.

The paint that he used was actually special paint that was used to draw runes. So after he did the circle first, he also started to draw some runes and symbols on the ground with his finger.

When he finished that he cleaned his finger and then wiped along his cheek and took some blood from it.

Mumbling some words in a low voice he clapped his hand together and placed them on the ground near the circle.

Electric arcs started zapping around inside the circle after the paint and runes tarted glowing in a pulsing manner.

Soon the bodies inside were fried by it and started to disintegrate into nothingness.

Only 8 round objects remained on the ground after all the sparkly effects vanished. Four red orbs and 4 whitish-grey ones that were barely the size of a bean.

Mordyn looked at those items and picked them up.

Now even his curiosity triggered while he looked at them.

"So this a Blood Essence Pill and a Bone Marrow Pill. I thought they would be larger..." This was pretty much the very first time he transmuted corpses. So no wonder that he suddenly got intrigued.

Even a small smile appeared on his face. "Well, maybe this whole event did have something good after all."

With that, he turned away from this place and left. Somehow his transmutation also got rid of all the evidence that could have indicated to a murder taking place here.

The only thing he had to think about now was how to explain it to the others. Most of all to Vander.

After all Powder and Ekko did witness this...