Chapter-3 Deacons Eliminated

Max had a small conversation with his parents, and went with Alex. Alex was now trying to find the Deacons, but it didn't take him much time to do that. The Deacons were hanging around the street, and as Alex came out near them, with Max behind him, they started following them. Max was a bit scared, but Alex whispered to him to keep on walking forward and not to look back at the Deacons.

Alex didn't know much about where he was going, since he had come back to the town after four years, but after some time, he had finally reached an empty alleyway, which he thought would be suitable for battle. He stopped, and told Max to watch from the sidelines.

"We need the kid. If you give him to us, we will let you live," barked the Deacon, while the other one started bracing himself for battle.

Alex smirked, removed the cloak he wore, and said, "I'll give you the kid if you are able to live for the next minute. Kid, start counting in 3, 2, 1. Start!"

As soon as he said one, Alex leaped at the Deacons. The one who didn't talk much also leaped forward, his fist radiating bright gold, and his face full of confidence. The Deacon decided to attack with brute force, but that was nothing for Alex's speed.

He ducked down just before the Deacon's fist was about to reach him and shot his arm up, which started getting covered in a blue-purple flame. As it reached the unsuspecting Deacon's neck, it pierced straight through. Blood shot out from the Deacon's neck and mouth, and his body started rotting in the same flames which covered Alex's arm.

"How many seconds left?" said Alex casually, charging towards the blabbermouth Deacon.

"34," replied Max, almost inaudible, trying not to look at the corpse a few feet away from him.

The Deacon was standing in a defensive pose, his whole body covered by a thin sheet of golden armor. Alex didn't think of this as a difficulty either, as he didn't stop charging, but made his hand into a fist, and concentrated the blue-purple flames there. As he charged forward, the Deacon's petty defense was broken, and Alex forced his hand through his opponent's chest.

The Deacon fell, blood dripping from his chest at an extremely fast rate, and his body starting to burn up like the previous Deacon.

"How many seconds are left now?" asked Alex, calm and collected, even though he had brutally murdered two people.

"12," answered Max, who was glad he was on the good side on someone like this, but was also shocked out of his mind. As a young 11 year old, he had witnessed two people being murdered brutally to the state of their corpses not being left in 48 seconds.

"Max, I'm not trying to scare you, but you, too, will have to learn how to kill these little shits of the Church of Light. These people are unjust and bring nothing good to anyone. They tried to take you away from your family, probably to make you a servant in their Church and ruin your life forever. You wanted revenge on the Church, right; for that, you need to learn to kill. I will give you one final chance to back out if you want to," said Alex, looking at the corpses behind him, which had completely rotted and disintegrated into the air.

Max stood there and thought for a while, but his goal remained the same at the end.

He looked into Alex's eyes and said, "I want my revenge on the Church and also make sure that it doesn't harm anyone else, so I will help you in any way I can. Killing people is something I'm completely new at, so I hope you train me well, Alex."

Max surely felt weird saying this, as he never expected in his wildest dreams that he would be asking a bloodthirsty teenager to teach him how to kill people without feeling even slightly remorseful. He eventually decided to forget it and move on.

"Good, you have a strong resolve. I will guide you properly," said Alex, now checking the pockets of the Deacons' clothes.

After a bit of rummaging, he found some documents, which seemed very vague, as the only thing they said was- 'To the Priest of Hawkloon. The arrangements have been made'.

The only thing that Alex understood from this was that the Priest of the town was his next target, but he doubted that he would be able to easily break into the Church, kill all the security and kill the Priest. The Priest was the man who had spread the rumors about Alex's element of Darkness being evil, and he had some scores to settle with him.

Max, who was following Alex, was confused as to what his element was. Surprisingly enough, Max didn't know anything about Alex, other than his name. He didn't know where he lived, what he did or anything else about him. As Alex led Max to his house, he decided that since it was night, he would ask Alex all this stuff tomorrow morning.

Now that Max had left, Alex returned to his hotel and began thinking as to how he could increase his strength. He had a theory that he could manifest the Darkness energy into various shapes, and also use them like physical items. He was already able to compress and expand it, and move it around his body, but still wasn't able to detach it from his body. If he were able to do this, it would be easier and way more helpful to win fights against strong opponents such as the Priest.

Since it was night now, Alex thought that he could go to the woods and practise his skills a bit. He didn't need to go to the woods for food anymore, because he had got plenty of money from the two Deacons. It amounted to a total of 22 gold coins, 63 silver coins and 28 copper coins.

He decided to eat from the restaurant below the hotel, and then head off to the woods. It had been ages since he had eaten proper human food.

***

After eating the extremely delicious food, (it was divine compared to the untendered meat and raw fruits he had eaten for the past four years) Alex went straight to the woods outside the town.

Alex was out of the town in no time, and ironically, even though he was born and spent most of his life in the town, and it was obviously way better than the outskirts; he still felt a weird home-like feeling outside of the town.

Alex started venturing into the woods, and was deep inside them in little to no time. As he went even deeper into the woods, he started to hear slight growling noises. Alex was alerted, and started walking even more slowly and carefully. He could see extremely well in the dark after all these years of experience of hunting. He was sure that there was a lion behind the bushes in front of him.

The bloodlust in Alex was quite high today, after killing the two Deacons, as he quickly readied himself for the fight with the lion!