1 Death to My Right, The Devil to My Left

What is love? What is hate?

Why is one deemed so beautiful, while the other condemned to an eternal blaze?

Why? I hate this feeling. I really do. I hate this world, for it had taken away from me the thing that mattered the most, and that was you.

Nothing is forgiven and nothing shall be forgotten. This, I know to be true. Even with the whole world going against me, I knew I wouldn't falter. For this was the conviction that I had the moment that I made the deal with the Devil.

***

It was a rainy night, and the sound of thunder filled my eardrums as I ran my way through the horrendous weather.

Raiders. And they weren't few in numbers either.

I counted at least fifty of them, and that were only those that I could see chasing after me.

Savages, of all age and sizes, outcast from all of the Kingdoms, bred in the grim and dark wasteland that was the Outlands. People who did not care for nobody except themselves, humans who had been so out of touch with their humanity that altruism had become nothing more but a myth of the past.

Simply, people you'd never like to meet in a dark alley.

And of course, it was just my luck that I had to go and trip over one of their alarms.

"Fuck me," I cursed at myself.

Even if I was pretty capable myself, I still didn't like my chances. With how big the storm was getting, who was I to say that I wouldn't be struck by lightning.

BANG!

As if on cue, the heavens immediately sent down a bolt of lightning not too far away. I had always heard of how bad the weather was in the Outlands, but it was only now that it finally dawned on me just how terrible it was. Even in the calmer regions of the Outlands such as here in Biouldeon, I had already been subjected to three storms in the span of only fifteen days!

As I ran through this ruin of what used to be a giant metropolis, a concrete jungle turned actual jungle, my mind kept on racing on what I should do. How would I even begin to lose the people who were running behind me?

And still there was nothing coming into my head. My own voice of reason was silent, while the world around me was rapturous in noise.

I couldn't think.

And yet there was another. A voice audible deep within my head. A voice that sounded just as tenderly and persuasive as the day that we first met. It was almost as if I could feel him right next to me.

"You know what to do," was all that it said, but it was more than enough for me to understand what it meant. After all, with his Authority on my side, there really wasn't anything for me to worry about.

"Alright, you utter pieces of shit!" I yelled out as loudly as I could, arriving at a large opening in the middle of the woods.

I turned around to face the Raiders, and was met with confused looks from these pitiful people. It seemed, at least, that they still had some common sense to know that what I was doing was anything but that.

"If any of you are stupid enough to even think of coming at me, then I'll make sure that you see Hell at least once before actually going there! So, bring it! Come at me, mother--"

Ahh great! Interrupted just before I could finish my line. Typical.

More than thirty people immediately launched forward, carrying their metal bats or pipes as weapons. Even more surprisingly, there were some of them who had actual guns! Now, how the hell did they manage to find those things in a scrapyard like this!?

Still, even with all of these adversaries coming towards me, I felt absolutely no fear. The weather had always been my main concern with these fools being just an annoyance, but now that I had his backing, I really had nothing else to worry about. Especially with the Mark slowly appearing on my right hand, creeping its way all over my right arm like some form of tattoo.

The Mark of a Binded Soul. A mark that symbolised the contract held between a human and the Contract Holder. A mark that showed a Holder's Authority at work. And a mark that told me that everything was already over before it even began.

Using the opening that arose from the hesitation that came along with the sight of this mark, I immediately took out my two handguns from my side pockets, shooting down everybody in sight.

If it wasn't raining blood yet before, it was certainly raining now.

"Come on, come on. Die!" I muttered with every single shot that I took. It didn't exactly bring me pleasure in ending all of these people's lives, but I did find myself challenged in trying to finish this as quickly as possible.

After all, the faster I was done, the faster I could get out of this damn rain.

Still, these Raiders were crafty bastards so as soon as they saw their slightly-more-idiotic brethren die right in front of their eyes, they immediately scattered among the tall trees, vanishing away from sight.

"You're really doing this, huh?" I sighed.

Unfortunately, even with my mark still glowing brightly on my arm, this strategy of theirs certainly still had its merits.

Knowing that wasting bullets on chasing shadows was a daft thing to do, I immediately ditched the long-ranged option and opted for the short-ranged one. I grabbed onto the long fabric sheath that I was carrying on my back and took out my own 'sword' of choice.

An old and worn-out hockey stick.

Yes. A hockey stick.

But even with this bizarre sight that I had allowed to come to be, I wasted no time in playing around. And so did they.

More and more people began to ambush me from all directions, thinking I was finally open, and although I'd hate to admit it, some of them did steal a little slash or two at my sides.

Fortunately I was able to dodge just in time away from these strikes before they could actually do something significant.

Nevertheless, I still did commend them for trying.

I continued on this dance of mine with them for almost a full ten minutes, striking and dodging interchangingly, while parrying any of their well-timed strikes occasionally. Although they certainly had numbers on their side, it was clear that my experience in handling close-quarter combat gave me the upper hand.

"You sure you don't want to just run away?" I asked the remaining Raiders, as they slowly grew smaller and smaller in number.

To be honest, I was slightly tempted to negotiate for us to just let bygones be bygones, seeing that you know... Their attempts were all kind of in vain.

"Heck, I'll even leave you a share of my meat if I find myself some game! Just leave me be!" I added in.

But they were having none of it, and the last remaining five Raiders quickly grabbed their weapons and began approaching me cautiously in an attempt to try and outnumber me.

As if they had learnt anything from the past fifteen minutes!

Still, without even the slightest hint of difficulty, I swung my hockey stick, parrying all of their attacks swiftly. They all were flung across the ground, and once again, decided to regroup before approaching me at the same time.

However, this time I was having none of it, and as such I took the initiative in approaching the closest one.

In a blink of an eye, I was already underneath the poor guy as I struck my hockey stick straight towards his jaw, delivering him a painful uppercut with a hint of metal. But that was not the end of it.

I gracefully danced my way through every single one of them, delivering strikes to areas ranging from their abdominal region to their head. None of them was safe, and none of them was spared. As soon as all five of them were on all fours, I decided to end this quickly by taking one of my gun for the kill. I was just about to shoot one poor fellow when suddenly a pair of arms appeared around my neck, strangling with all of its owner's might in an attempt to end me.

Sadly for this guy, he was completely immersed in this plan of his that he had completely forgotten the presence of my gun.

Without a single flinch of hesitation, I shot the guy right in his face and let the rain wiped off the spit that was on my shoulder.

"All right, who's next?" I asked to the remaining four Raiders, which were comprised of three men and one woman.

"P-please spare me, my lord!" One of the man pleaded as he saw that Death was slowly making its way towards him, followed by the the rest. "We have done a grave mistake, and we shall never do it again! I promise you! Spare me, oh great humble lord! SPARE ME!"

This chorus of insufferable pleading began to echo across the night, and even with the storm raging right above us, it was pretty much borderline deafening.

Pitiful they were, honestly.

But I was a man of my words, and I did believe that more thoughtless killings wouldn't achieve anything, and as such, with a groan of disgust, I said the words that had been building up inside my head.

"You sure about that?" I enquired half-heartedly."If I let you go, you wouldn't be bringing any more shit my way?"

"No, we promise! We will repent and forsake everything about this life in your name! Just spare us!" The man who had first started the pleading said out loud, holding onto my leg as if I was some sort of prophet.

Let's just say, this disgusted me even further.

"Well, I guess I am feeling kind of nice today," I said, pulling my leg away from the man. "You can go. Run! Hide! If I see you anywhere, I'll kill you, no hesitation whatsoever. You'll die an immediate painless death! But if you do value your life as much as you do now, then I'll sleep tight with the knowledge that every single night none of you will. So run! Go! And never show your ugly mugs ever again!"

"Thank you my lord!" the man exclaimed, his sound shaking just as much as his body.

The four of them immediately got on their feet, and I watched from behind as they disappeared into the woods, hidden by the rain.

"And that's that," I muttered to myself. "Time to clean things up I guess."

I began to raise my left hand as I stood among all of the blood that had been spilled that night. Although some of them had indeed been washed away by the rain, I was lucky enough to still have some fresh dead bodies as a source of it.

Closing my eyes, I began to envision the blood around me to come forth.

At first, there was nothing but the cold sensation of the rain that I felt, however slowly but surely, a warm sensation began to collect in my left hand.

By the time that I finally opened my eyes again, the deed had been done and what used to be the blood of all of these dead people around me had become bullets within my grasp.

Blood bullets, to be exact. Highly regarded as one of the strongest form of firepower in this world, and yet also one of the most feared. Its usage was banned in many Kingdoms, and even just harvesting them was known to be a crime worthy of the death-sentence in some. However, seeing that I was currently residing in the Outlands where there was no law, I saw no problem in me doing it.

Besides, it wasn't like I daddled into these arts because I wanted to.

"Isn't that right?" I asked the approaching figure, turning my head around to see a large man approaching me.

"Not really," the man replied, housing the same voice as the one I heard before. "I only gave you those guns because they might prove useful for you. After all what kind of demon would I be if I didn't at least give the person who I'm binded to a little bit of something to defend himself with?"

"I don't know. Still be a demon? The Devil himself? A man with a weird hobby of wearing red-tuxedos as well as carrying a scythe?" I said nonchalantly with a smile on my face. "Pick your poison."

"I've told you times and times again," the man replied with a tinge of anger. "I don't like to be put in the same conversation as that asshole. You can call me a demon all you want, for that is what I am, but I am simply me and nobody else. I'm the Grim Reaper for crying out loud, the Devil got nothing on me!"

"Yeah, yeah," I said, giving up on the subject. "You know you don't really strike me as nothing else but a slightly more sinister version of man, don't you?"

"I'm fascinated by this obsession of your race to make everything somehow more humane than what it actually is, but I'll take that as a compliment! Nevertheless, I'm sorry to say, kiddo, but you'll have to stay in this rain a little longer."

"What!?" I let out, not even bothering to hide my irritation at this figure right in front of me. None in the slightest did I think of the presence of a humongous scythe chained to his back. "And why's that?"

But the answer came to me before the Reaper even opened his mouth.

Amidst the storm that was still roaring across the heavens, inhuman growls began to be heard across the jungle. In fact, among those growls, I could faintly hear the sounds of screams coming from the direction where those four Raiders had just gone off to. Shadows of hundreds of humannoid figures began to appear from the distance. All of them seemingly having originated from nothing but thin air.

However, I knew better than this, and I knew exactly what they were.

The grimace that I wore on my face together with the grin that was plaguing the Reaper's couldn't tell the story any better.

And so, I once again took out my hockey stick and prepare for a fight I had no intention of starting in the first place

"Fuck me," I cursed out as hundreds of Undeads began making their way towards me.

And towards me, they did not stop.