The Underground River

Since the boss is an Awakened, he knew details about the Life drain bullets, but his subordinates are pretty clueless on the information about outlawed weapons since they are just an ordinary trained men.

So, them trying to save the dying Archie is just a normal procedure.

The boss's face twisted. If they knew what was at stake right at this moment, he was sure non of them would think twice and dump the body somewhere far.

The boss turned to face the subordinate who spoke up early.

Buzz buzz!

The chains wrapped around his body suddenly buzzed at a low frequency like the sounds of many bees hovering around a honey pot.

Several uncountable tiny silver vine like tendrils as thin as a thread emerged from his back almost at the middle of his spinal cord, swaying in an active manner as if it was a living entity.

Suddenly, by his will, the alive looking thread like tendrils merged with the arrow head connected to one end of the chain surrounding the boss's body in an swifty. Absorbing it like a sponge meeting water .

The arrow head shone with a slightly visible silverish metallic lustre.

At his command, the arrow head rapidly launched it self to the air like an arrow leaving it's bow. Piercing through the air with a whistling sound, swiftly along with the chain.

Shua!

Speedily, the chains took to the air in lightening speed, towards the man who sought to save Arch.

He wasn't able to react as his eyes only saw a blur and then, the chains wrapped swiftly wrapped his neck.

The man was instantly grabbed by the neck, with the chains lifted him up. With the boss's control, the man captured by the chain, was lifted to the air, and then brought forward to the boss's face.

Looking the man straight in the eyes. "It appears to me now that I've been quite lenient toward you all lately, hence the questioning of my authority."

The man's face started turning purple as the chains moved, slowly getting tighter in his neck his hand on the chain trying to resist the squeezing force but to no avail.

"B–b–oss i'm w–wrong, it w–won't h–happ– cough cough happen again I promise!!" the man struggled to say as his life was being strangled by the chains being lifted off the ground with his feet dangling .

Seemingly satisfied that he could exact his still existing dominance to the group.

The chains flung the man towards the wall.

Bang!

The sound of the man's body hitting the wall resounded through the room.

The other men in the store all swallowed down their saliva. Sweat dripping from their palms showing how nervous each of them were.

Staring deadly at four subordinates.

"I will repeat my self one last time. Take the two bodies and toss them down the river." grunting, the boss left the store without waiting to see if they would talk back at him. Not that they would dare too anyway.

Archie who was still in his last breath, although he opened his eye, he couldn't see clearly. Only able to see that there were some people in his immediate surroundings but was unable to see their faces. It was all a blur for him.

He felt his body jerk as two men covered him with some clothes they found. One man carried him out of the tent. He was placed on the man's shoulders.

Arch winced, feeling pain previously only on his side ribs had spread to his chest. If one looked at him, one would only see through the bullet hole. But if one glanced at arch without his shirt in place, the initial bullet wounds was still there but the strange purplish substance in the injury already spread to his neck, back and shoulders, still devouring his life force. And, originally it had started slowly but overtime, it had gradually picked up its pace as it had already destroyed most of the antibodies in Arch's body trying to resist it's devouring force.

"What the hell happened back there?" while carrying Arch's body, one of the men started a conversation. He truly was really surprised as although the boss could be strict sometimes he had never used his powers against them so the suprise was inevitable for them.

"How in Gaia's name would I know that? I think it might be something else. The boss is obviously hiding somethings from us, I font think the reason he snapped at us is the same as the one he told us though."

The men in charge of dumping the old traders dead body suddenly popped into the conversation.

"well, for whatever reason it was, I don't want to be a part of it. He had snapped at us this once, killing us might be next so we should just mind our business and follow his orders that's what we are paid to do."

"Yea, you just might be right. Let's just dump this body to the underground river and leave as soon as possible also, we should do it as secretly as possible."

The other man grunted, acceding to what his partner said.

Although Archie mind is s blur, he could feel his body moving with every steps taken by the man who carried him.

He could feel pain with every movements made by the man who carried him on his shoulders.

The pain was quite unbearable for him to hand, making hum going in and out of his consciousness.

As the four men walked their way to the underground river, they finally made it there.

The underground river was named that way because…well, it a river underground of course.

People were lazy to name it. Hence the name underground river stuck to it.

"We are here now, let's toss the bodies and leave as soon as possible, boss promised us a treat, I'd very much like to get to him at this moment." grunting, one of the men said.

"Ha! Boss is obviously mad at us yet you want him too treat us? I don't think so." another snickered at him.

"Look here, boss might keep his words so you might as well shut the fuck up and let's get this over with." The man retorted back.

"You shut the hell up Braxton ! Its all your fault from the very beginning. The boss gave us an order but you just had to run your loose mouth that very moment! You got what you deserved at the end and it's very much worth it!" the man spoke out loud.

"You know what, fuck you James!! The kid was still breathing, I had to remind the boss of the fact!" Braxton shouted out.

"Cut it out guys!! Fighting each other is of no use. We have a job to do, let's execute it and get the hell out of here!!" A slightly more responsible one among them reminded them of their responsibility.

That silenced the argument between the men. The sound of the rushing river sounded out, drowning the hopeless silence out of existence.

"Lets toss the bodies out in the count of three all at once okay?" Brexton suggested.

"Accepted."

"Agreed."

"Im cool with that."

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

Blop! Blop!!

The men immediately tossed the bodies at the count of three.

"Lets get going."

All three left, without looking back but Brexton said a silent prayer for Arch. 'Rest in peace kid.'

He too left soon after.

…

Arch instantly felt the water rushed through his mouth and nose as soon as he was dumped in the river. He choked on water as his body instinctively tried to get oxygen into his body.

Pain immediately assaulted both his nostrils and his lungs. He instantly lost consciousness in that moment.