Inferno

As a result of Joseph's attack, the whole BHA building, as well as several surrounding blocks around it, shook as if an earthquake had erupted. A fire swallowed the entire hall, as most of the furniture and even the floor were made out of wood. Smoke quickly spread throughout the hall.

"I'll just cover everything up. No one needs to know what actually happened here," he said, nodding to himself with a confident smirk on his face, as if he wasn't deathly nervous just moments ago. A sense of madness filled his eyes as the world around him burned.

But to his dismay, the sounds of creaking wood resounded throughout the hall. He could barely make out a black figure that appeared to be heading towards him through the smoke.

The uncomfortable sensation of smoke burning his throat and eyes didn't matter anymore. The confidence he just regained crumpled in an instant.

"I-Impossible!" he cried out as a black figure of a man approached him.

Still on his knees, he tried standing up, only to end up on his ass as his body gave out. In desperation, he tried to crawl backwards from the approaching figure, but to no avail.

Maybe because of the smoke, or perhaps because of the mana exhaustion, his vision grew darker and darker as seconds ticked by. He didn't want to consider that it may have been fear that made him like this.

"What is it? Didn't you say you had more aces up your sleeve? Let's see them. Or will you try to make someone else do your dirty work, as usual?" Luke said with a sharp glare pointed at Joseph.

In truth, Luke barely survived Joseph's giant thunderball that he hurled at him. If he hadn't gone through Ellios' brutal sense-deprivation triathlon, he wouldn't have managed to escape from the attack.

'Sight deprivation. Sound deprivation. Touch deprivation. One after the other, it was hell, in the truest sense of the word. But if not for that, I would've been engulfed by that attack while not even knowing what hit me.'

Even a senseless amateur could tell that the attack that completely blinded them was very dangerous. But Luke no longer belonged to the class of an amateur and could sense the overall size and location of the attack even with his eyes closed. Not having many choices, he utilized his great agility and speed and dodged the ball of thunder by a hair's breadth.

Joseph didn't know of that reality, as his eyes trembled, avoiding Luke's gaze and darting around the hall, almost as if looking for something.

He hesitated to open his mouth, but in the end, he surrendered to his impulse and shouted out, "R-Rakuta! Come out! I-I know you're there! I c-command you! Or do you perhaps wish for another talk?!"

Rakuta, the shadow elementalist, faced a struggle of his own.

Trying to dodge seemingly infinite numbers of small orbs of water coming at him from multiple directions proved to be near-impossible, as he suffered a hit for every couple of dodges or blocks he performed.

He kept cursing at Lala and questioned why he was put in such a disadvantageous position when he was the one keeping her in check at the start of the fight.

The answer was simple: Lala's plan to lead a battle of attrition started bearing fruit. Now, she had to go on the offensive and finish the shadow elementalist as fast as possible.

The unexpected white light from inside the building a couple of minutes ago disappeared as quickly as it appeared, but now the building seemed to be burning, which was precisely why there was no more time to waste.

'Luke might be in danger!' she thought as she kept launching water orb after water orb.

Not only that, but someone had to have noticed the ruckus they'd caused. They couldn't really use: "We've come to purge evil!" or something similar as an excuse for the city authorities.

The orbs of water she fired at Rakuta did very minor damage but still kept him busy enough to be unable to counter-attack. The real reason, though, was that the real attack is yet to come.

"It's time! Sprout, water serpent!"

As she shouted, a water circle with a diameter of around three meters appeared below Rakuta, who was still too busy cussing and dodging to notice it.

In the next instant, a water maw with two rows of sharp teeth on either side appeared from the ground, greedily opening wide.

Rakuta had no time to react. The teeth tore into his flesh and entrapped him within the jaws of the beast. The water serpent jumped out of the ground completely and ascended ten meters into the air, carrying Rakuta with him.

Its appearance resembled that of a serpent often seen by Luke in fantasy movies, and its maw was akin to that of a shark.

The serpent violently shook its head, trying to tear the shadow elementalist apart. Yet he managed to protect himself using his elemental and whatever mana he had left. He knew he'd barely be able to do anything after this, but between the choice of guaranteed death now and the possibility of death later, his decision was obvious.

The serpent, after reaching the apex of its descent, rammed back into the ground along with Rakuta, with the former phasing into it and disappearing and the former smashing into it with great force; a crack resounded through the street as he did.

Standing up, it was clear that Rakuta was even more tattered than before. His arm, the one with a hand still on it, was bent in the middle of the forearm, clearly broken.

"You fucking bitch! I will destroy you where you stand!" he shouted with madness apparent in his voice and gaze as he rushed at Lala, a half-meter-long pitch-black scythe extending from his remaining good arm.

And inside the burning hall, things were coming to their intended conclusion…

Luke pitifully stared at Joseph. Only the sounds of burning wood and bated breath resounded throughout their surroundings.

"Nobody's coming to save you," he said with a cold smile as an emotionless, blue glint shone in his pupils.

"Huk?! Ahh! A-Awaaaagh!! Auuuuuughhh!!"

With a single swipe of his wind-enhanced hand, Luke decapitated Joseph's right hand from his arm. Unlike previously, a fountain of deep-red blood sprayed wildly from the fresh wound, and a pool of blood also formed around Joseph's limp hand on the wooden floor. There was no sign of any regeneration occurring; there was also no sign of Luke stopping.

First was the hand, then the forearm, and finally, the rest of the arm was severed from the shoulder. Luke used his fire elemental to cauterize the wound once he was finished before moving onto the next arm. He didn't wish for Joseph to bleed out too quickly.

Like a seasoned conductor, Luke conducted a symphony using Joseph's screams, giving birth to the melody of the depressing burning hall, filled with the thick, asphyxia-inducing smoke and the iron-like stench of blood.

At some point, Joseph's screams turned silent, even though his mouth was wide open. He cried tears of blood as some kind of liquid spilled from his mouth. After losing both of his arms, he started repeatedly hitting his head against the floor as hard as he could. He just wanted to end it all. Death was the only thing he wished for at this moment.

Luke remained expressionless and silent all the while, as if he were a butcher simply doing his job. He repeated the same process with Joseph's legs, methodically severing the limbs, part by part.

After his legs were gone, Joseph simply blankly stared at nowhere in particular with hollow eyes. His mind was beyond broken. There were no longer any thoughts in his head. Pain became his only reason for existing. He didn't even know why he ended up in this state. Did he even care about the answer at this point?

Wind surrounded what remained of Joseph, along with the parts of his severed limbs. Luke created the perfect localized atmosphere for what he was about to do. With a snap of his fingers, small red flames landed on each part of Joseph's flesh, including Joseph himself.

As he burned alive, Joseph's lips seemed to form a slight smile. Whether he was actually smiling or not, it was a fact that he would finally be freed from his agony.

A flaming pillar collapsed where Luke was standing, and he dodged out of the way, and the pillar slammed directly onto Joseph, burying him in its inferno.

As if stoked by the collapsing pillar, the rest of the hall, and the building, for that matter, started burning at a more rapid pace.

Luke expressionlessly turned around and walked to the exit at a brisk pace as everything around him burned.

And just as he exited the building, it collapsed into itself with great force, with a giant, flaming pillar rising into the night sky above. Pieces of flaming rubble flew in multiple directions, but the fire luckily stayed localized to the BHA building.