Chapter 4: The Beginning of the End (3)

Cale had just stepped off the train when darkness fell over Armageddon. He pulled his hood tight over his face and adjusted the mask over his mouth. He had felt the need to disguise himself in the mission he had been forced to accept.

Now that Edward Xavier had forced him into the mana contract, he was less likely to run away. Cale didn't know what problems the box he had with him would cause him.

He blended into the crowd leaving the train station. His destination was an abandoned company building just outside the city. After an hour of walking, he finally arrived at the address given.

Looking at the broken windows of such a big company, Cale wondered why this place had not been renovated. Maybe they would renovate it later, he thought. He wanted to deliver the box as soon as possible, so he opened the barricaded company door and walked in.

Cale started walking, seeing quite well even though the lobby was dark. With every step he took, he heard the sound of broken glass and scattered pieces of furniture under his feet. Since he had to go to the fifth floor, he headed for the stairs.

As Cale climbed the stairs, he hoped that the red stains on the wall were paint. Otherwise he feared he would find himself in a zombie world. He couldn't understand why there was such a slum outside the city when Armageddon was the capital of humanity.

Cale was already on the fifth floor when he heard a thick man's voice saying, "Can I help you?

A large black-haired man was looking at him in a gray suit that was too tight for him. Cale couldn't see the man's eyes because he wore round black glasses. The man's menacing air seemed to foretell that if he gave the wrong answer, he would lose his neck.

"I have a delivery," Cale said and the man looked him up and down for a while.

"Follow me," he said, then turned and walked away, and Cale followed.

Cale looked around as the man in the suit walked ahead. Cale had good night vision so he could see his surroundings clearly. The man in the suit entered an empty office and came to a large elliptical frame in the room.

When the man in the suit reached out his hand, a red color began to form around it. Cale realized that this was mana. Even though he couldn't feel it himself, he knew that the man was sending it into the frame.

After a minute or so, the empty frame rippled and turned a mixture of black and purple. It was like a tulle curtain.

"After you," the man in the suit said, taking a step to the side.

"Is this a portal?" he asked, and when the man didn't answer, he sighed and moved to the frame.

Cale knew that in the human world portals were used for long distance teleportation. It was not a common technology, but an expensive one used only by the elite. Which made him think that these men were either an anti-government group or people who worked for one of the elite families.

As Cale passed through the black and purple curtain, he felt dizzy and nauseous. He felt the urge to vomit and out of the corner of his eye he noticed another man coming towards him.

"Is this your first time using the portal?" the scrawny man asked, looking at him with pity. "It's normal to throw up the first time.''

Cale didn't vomit, but when the dizziness stopped, he stood up. Instead of the man in the suit, there was a scrawny man in casual clothes waiting for him. He looked as if he would fall to the ground with a single blow, but he could sense that this man was just as dangerous, if not more so, than the man in the suit.

Cale looked around and realized that they were at the entrance to a forest. The scrawny man led the way and together they made their way deeper into the forest.

"Here it is," the skinny man said as he stopped and in the center of the forest stood a very handsome man in a black suit. Surrounding him were four high-ranking hunters who seemed to be guarding him.

Their leader yawned boredly and held out his hand to Cale, saying, "Here's my delivery," and Cale took a black metal box out of his pocket and placed it in the man's hand.

The man in the black suit smiled as if he was pleased with what he saw when he opened the lid of the box. He admired a long purple earring he took out of the box.

"Edward has done a good job," the man said as he put the earring back in the box and looked coldly at Cale.

"All right, Oliver, finish him off," he said as the scrawny man standing next to him raised his hand and Cale reflexively raised his right hand.

When Cale looked at his right arm and saw that it was gone and blood was flowing, a horrible scream escaped his throat.

"Because of him, S-level monsters will wake up," he heard a man's angry voice say as tears of pain fell down his cheeks.

"Don't worry, I've got it now," the scrawny man said with a feral smile on his face as he walked over to Cale kneeling on the ground. Grabbing the arm that was no longer his right hand, he grabbed hold of Cale's red hair and pulled it, holding the knife to his throat.

With a quick pull of the knife, Cale fell to the ground, drowning in his own blood.

"Let's get back to the human domain. This was the last voice Cale heard as his eyes darkened.

***

"Boss, what was in the box Edward sent you?" Oliver looked at the man next to him. The man normally wouldn't allow anyone to talk to him like that, but Oliver was his friend as well as his subordinate.

"It's an artifact that allows you to use chaos energy without going crazy," he said, and Oliver grinned.

''The doctor will love this,'' they laughed as they heard the sound of a fall next to them.

When the two of them and the other three hunters saw the decapitated man on the ground, they immediately grabbed their guns. They stood in the middle of the forest with their backs to each other, looking for whatever had attacked them.

''I can't sense the beast!''

''A monster that hides its mana?''

"What are we going to do now!

"Shut up, you idiots!" shouted Oliver, frowning at them with the dagger in both hands.

"What are we going to do? Of course we're going to fight!

As he finished they saw that the last man who had spoken had something black wrapped around his feet and pulled him to the ground. As the man was dragged to the ground screaming and the others were about to help him, the skull of the first man to speak exploded.

"Oliver, it's not a monster," the boss said, looking at Oliver worriedly. He could have sworn he had just seen the figure of a man, but it had disappeared so fast he still couldn't be sure.

"Damn it!" shouted Oliver as he spun around in a frenzy. His eyes were bloodshot and his heart was beating fast with fear. It was the first time that he, who had taken so many lives and killed so many dangerous monsters, felt so much fear.

It was the first time in his life that he had felt death so clearly. "Get out, center-" he said, and before he could finish, a long black spear with a pointed tip went through Oliver's mouth and out the back of his head. The other man was horrified to see his friend die before his eyes.

When the spear in Oliver's mouth dissipated like a shadow, Oliver's body fell to the ground on his knees, face down on the floor. Left alone in the midst of the bodies, Dan dropped his sword in fear. Before he realized what had happened, the black shadow around his throat had already separated his head from his body.

Seven people were dead in a minute, including the man in the gray suit Cale had initially encountered in a remote forest outside the human domain. A beautiful woman emerged from the trees and walked through the corpses to Cale's body.

Her long black hair brushed her curvy hips with every step. Her pink eyes and vampire fangs grazed her full red lips, revealing her beauty.

As the young woman crouched beside Cale's corpse, she was relieved to hear his weak heartbeat, even though his throat had been slit. In her hand was the earring that had cost Cale his life. The young woman was not alarmed by the crunching sounds coming from near her and the smell she could smell.

"He looks bad," the other worried woman said as she stood in front of the vampire. The beautiful voice of a mermaid with ice blue hair and deep blue eyes rang in the vampire's ears.

"Fortunately, his heart beats, albeit weakly. Wear this purple earring when you break the seal," the mermaid nodded. She looked sadly at Cale and took a deep breath.

When she opened her lips, a mesmerizing and magnificent sound filled the forest. A blue light surrounded the mermaid as she continued to sing. This blue light began to gather in Cale's ear, above the black earring that sealed his mana.

As the song grew louder, cracks began to appear in the black earring. When those cracks soon grew and broke the earring, the mermaid finished her song. As soon as the earring broke, the mermaid with the black aura surrounding Cale's body shouted in a hurry.

''Hurry up! You must put the earring back on before Chaos kills him!''

The vampire wasted no time and quickly put the earring in Cale's left ear. But the chaos energy was so high that the vampire and the mermaid had to retreat in a hurry. The vampire made a shield of blood while the mermaid strengthened it with her song.

The chaos energy surrounding Cale quickly spread around and rotted the earth. The mermaid and the vampire could not see him in the midst of the energy that dried and destroyed the trees.

''What do we do now? I can't see him, what if he dies!'' he looked at the mermaid who spoke in a tearful voice, not showing the worry in her face.

''What choice do we have but to wait? We have no choice but to wait for his body to accept this energy!''

At that moment, black veins appeared on Cale's body, lost in the darkness. The white of his eyes turned completely black. The cut in his throat filled with black energy and sealed it. His severed right hand grew back. Cale opened his eyes in pain, but he couldn't see anything.

He was now in terrible pain, burning the nerves all over his body. Blood was flowing all over his body. His chaos-contaminated mana continued to flow through his mana meridians, opening all of Cale's blocked veins.

Awakened hunters normally have mana cores and mana meridians. Those with large mana pools and small meridians became mages, while those with small mana pools and large mana meridians became weapon users.

Cale now had more chaos energy than mana. However, a chaos nucleus formed in the center of his forehead where the black crescent moon stood upside down. His mana meridians had created new pathways with chaos energy.

When the chaos around Cale shrank and moved towards the chaos core on his forehead, the vampire and the mermaid were relieved to realize that he had succeeded. The vampire lifted the shield and together they went to Cale lying on the floor.

Despite his disheveled appearance, Cale seemed to be sleeping soundly. The vampire frowned when he noticed Cale's throat. Even though the cut had been closed with chaos energy, it looked as if there were stitch marks there.

Reaching for Cale's right arm, he saw what looked like black stitch marks where it had also been severed.

"At least he's still alive," the mermaid said as she stabbed the vampire in the arm and held it with magic to keep the blood from flowing. Then she opened Cale's mouth and made him drink the vampire's blood. "If he has internal wounds, this will help him," she smiled.

The young woman knew the healing properties of vampire blood, so she didn't mind that her friend cut herself with a knife. The wound healed instantly anyway.

"Have you taken care of Edward Xavier?

"Of course!" the mermaid smiled broadly. "You know that if your blood is healing, mine is poison. I gave Edward a drop of my blood and he died instantly. I expected him to suffer a little, but alas, he didn't,'' she said, twisting her lip and shrugging her shoulders.

"Well, now that he's dead, we're done here.''

''What, we're just going to leave him here?''

''Our mission was to save his life. You know we can't show ourselves to him now," the mermaid sighed sadly.

''Okay, but do we leave him here?'' the mermaid asked.

"It's better to take him home," said the vampire, handing Cale's severed hand to the mermaid. Then she took Cale in her arms. "Open the portal.''

''Okay, I'm on it'' and the mermaid reached out her hand and rotated it, opening a portal in front of her. When they both went through the portal, they were inside Cale's one-room apartment. 

The vampire held Cale in her arms and laid him on his bed. She placed the hand she had taken from the mermaid on the table in his room.

"Do you have to leave her like this?" The mermaid looked at her friend, wondering what she was up to.

"If he sees your severed hand, he'll realize that last night wasn't a dream and he'll decide what path to take in the future. Because we killed everyone who knew Edward sent Cale on the mission.''

''You're right,'' she sighed and approached Cale, who was sleeping peacefully on the bed.

''See you later, Cale,'' she said and stroked Cale's cheek.

The vampire and the mermaid said goodbye to each other and disappeared into the portal they had opened in their hearts to teleport to their territory with the hope of meeting Cale in the future.