Chapter 23

Sunny crouched in the shadows, his eyes narrowing as he watched Kiyotaka from a safe distance. The air was thick with the stench of blood and the oppressive presence of the Nightmare creatures that lurked around the area near the Dark City. He had been following Kiyotaka for a while, curious about his unusual behavior and the unsettling aura that surrounded him today.

Suddenly, the atmosphere shifted. Sunny felt a chill run down his spine as he observed the transformation. Kiyotaka's body tensed, and a sinister, almost palpable energy seemed to radiate from him. His eyes, once a cool, indifferent shade, were now a menacing red, bleeding and glowing with a terrifying intensity.

Kiyotaka moved with a purpose, his steps measured and deliberate. His expression was void of emotion, a stark contrast to the bloodlust that fueled his every action. There was a cold, mechanical efficiency in the way he approached his first target, a hulking Nightmare creature with gnashing teeth and razor-sharp claws. But what followed was anything but mechanical.

With a swift, almost casual movement, Kiyotaka disarmed the beast, severing its limbs with surgical precision. He didn't stop there. He seemed to take a perverse pleasure in the creature's agony, prolonging its suffering with calculated blows that were designed to inflict maximum pain. He flayed the beast alive, ripping its flesh apart with bare hands, his face remaining a mask of eerie calm as the creature's screams echoed through the night.

Sunny watched in horrified fascination as Kiyotaka continued his rampage. Each kill was more gruesome than the last. He tore out throats, crushed skulls, and disemboweled his opponents with a meticulousness that spoke of an intimate knowledge of anatomy and pain. Kiyotaka wasn't just killing; he was orchestrating a symphony of agony, and he was the cold, unfeeling conductor.

A particularly gruesome moment came when Kiyotaka encountered a pack of lesser Nightmare creatures. He moved through them like a specter of death, his blade dancing in the moonlight. He slashed at their tendons, rendering them immobile before systematically breaking their bones, one by one. The creatures howled in torment, their cries blending into a cacophony of despair.

Sunny could see the bloodlust in Kiyotaka's eyes, a stark contrast to his emotionless demeanor. It was as if two opposing forces were at war within him: the cold, calculating machine and the feral, bloodthirsty beast. And tonight, the beast was winning.

The carnage continued, each kill more brutal and efficient than the last. Kiyotaka's movements were a blur of speed and precision, his strikes unerringly finding the most vulnerable spots on his victims. He left a trail of mutilated bodies in his wake, the ground slick with blood and gore.

Despite the sheer horror of what he was witnessing, Sunny couldn't look away. There was a morbid fascination in seeing Kiyotaka unleashed, a dark curiosity about the depths of his friend's monstrous side. Yet, it also filled him with a deep-seated fear. This was not the Kiyotaka he knew. This was something else entirely – a remorseless, bloodthirsty killer who took a grim satisfaction in the suffering of others.

As the last of the Nightmare creatures fell, its body twitching in the final throes of death, Kiyotaka stood amidst the carnage, drenched in blood. He gazed around with those terrifying red eyes, breathing heavily but otherwise composed. There was no triumph, no satisfaction, just an eerie, unsettling calm.

Sunny swallowed hard, his heart pounding in his chest. He knew he had to tread carefully around Kiyotaka from now on. The man he once saw as a cold, strategic thinker had revealed a side that was more terrifying than any Nightmare creature they had faced. Kiyotaka was a force of nature, an emotionless killing machine driven by an insatiable bloodlust. And that made him perhaps the most dangerous entity in the Dream Realm.