I am a True Disciple of the Dao of Death Seeking!

As we were surrounded by all sides and were being subject to listen to the discussion of who gets to eat the fat piece of meat that was us, I couldn't help but get irritated.

Looking at the situation, it wasn't as if there no easy way out for me.

All I needed to do was to throw away the orb, and escape while they fought over it.

Even if I was unwilling to throw away the orb I could always convince Jimmy to throw away the stone.

However, that wasn't the point here.

There was no way in hell I was gonna back down at this point.

Even if I was surrounded by all side by monsters waiting to dissect and cut me up.

My true life motto was- "Do whatever the fuck you want, If anyone tries to stop you, show them hell."

And today I not only wanted to keep the treasures, but I also wanted to humiliate these bunch of stuck-up people who thought they were better than me.

Absolutely, completely, fuck them up.

Even if I would have to be chased down to the ends of the earth, as a consequence.

You might be wondering how such a negative person like me who believes that 'nothing really matters as everybody would die one day' had such a domineering motto.

The reason was simple.

I had attained a higher state of consciousness than most mortals.

If nothing you do really matters...

... then all that matters is what you do.

So I will do what I want.

Even if it gets me killed.

Stupid? I think not, the world of the transcended is not something mere mortals can understand.

Now how to do that...

Rule 1: Never let the enemy control the initiative, as long as you control the flow you can even defeat the strongest of foes.

I immediately looked at them and smirked evilly.

"Did you guys really think that I would steal without a plan?"

"Shut up and just hand over the items."

I gave them a look of disdain instead.

"Don't your asses get jealous of all the shit that comes out of your mouths?"

The people surrounding me all got instantly pissed. The nerves on their temples started throbbing in anger. Well most of them anyway. The puppets didn't really have a nervous system for that matter, and the trickster up above only smiled more as if the situation couldn't be more amusing to him. Meanwhile, the mask of calmness and kindness that Dr.Chainsaw wore started to crack once again.

"Kid, you won't die if you don't seek death" he 'kindly' advised me.

"You still haven't realized the situation you guys are in right now have you..."

I slowly dropped my bag to the ground and zipped it open.

"You have all landed in my trap."

"You haven't trapped me in here with you, I have trapped you all here with me..." (always wanted to say that out loud once.)

"You think I will steal the orb without having its user manual with me?"

Sneering at them, I pulled out an antique-looking book along with the orb of wailing souls.

The book seemed to radiate a blood-red glow as the light from the orb was reflected off it.

"You- you aren't MAD DOG!"

Dang there went my convenient scapegoat...

"You guys are quite quick on the uptake aren't you?"

I slowly started laughing maniacally as I covered my face with my hand.

"You are right... one doesn't die if one doesn't seek death..."

"Too bad for you... I am a true disciple of the Dao of Death Seeking..."

"This city has started to rot and decay. It's time to shake things up a little."

The puppet butler paused and suddenly sneered at me,

"You are just bluffing, I refuse to believe that you will really attack us with the orb. You cannot bind with it as long as the mistress's mark is still in there and she interferes with the process."

Is that so...

A crazy grin suddenly spread over my face.

"Jimmy..."

"Yeah?"

"Give me your hand"

Jimmy was obviously creeped out by my weird request but nonetheless extended his furry paws nonetheless.

Smart guy, he knew now was not the time to be questioning me about stupid things.

I slashed my palm across his sharp claws, and blood slowly started to drip from my hands.

I looked over at them and crazily declared, "OBSERVE!"

I slowly pulled out a dagger from my back pocket.

I still remembered this comabt knife of mine.

I was always interested in different types of knives as a kid, pocket knives, boot knives, switchblades etc... I even wanted to start keeping a knife collection. Though those memories from before the incident were very vague, I remembered the knife in my hand clear as day.

After all, this was the very knife that had been used to murder my brother and later stab myself with to clear myself of suspicion.

Yes, it was THAT knife.

Why was it with me and not in police custody?

That is a story for another time.

Anyway, I started to slowly drip my blood onto the knife.

Seeing the blade drenched and red in my blood I couldn't help but feel a bit uncomfortable as I started to remember the last time it was drenched in my blood.

Shaking my heads to clear my head, I held the book open in front of me as I started to solemnly chant.

My eyes were full of madness and recklessness as I stared at those around me.

"Cursed steel hear my prayer.

Awaken thyself and guide me

Accept my blood and obey me...

I, the cursed omen of death,

the harbinger of terror,

the Crow of Nightmares

command thee,

open up the seal of the orb

and release onto this world,

the nightmares of old."

"Are you crazy... STOP! Are you planning to forcibly bypass the mark and explode the orb? We will all die!"

This time it was the dark cloak leader who yelled at me and interrupted me

"Is that so..."

"Well too bad. I have decided to doom us all together."

Just as I was about to stab the blade and break the orb I finally got the result I wanted.

"Wait, we get it, we will all retreat..."

The Dark cloaks all started to flee.

The rest of them observed their reaction also decided to retreat.

Dr. Chainsaw looked deeply at me, burning my image into his memory

"I will remember you Crow, And I will hunt you down."

Leaving behind ominous words, he too decided to retreat.

Raven just looked at me and shook his head, before leaving.

The Trickster looked at me as if he had found an interesting toy.

"Interesting! It's been so long since I met such an insane young man such as yourself."

He slowly licked his lips and stared at me in a manner that gave me the absolute creeps, before floating away through the wall.

Lastly, the Puppet Butler looked at me.

"You will regret this day very soon. Now that we know who you are we can easily take our time and hunt you down. You might have escaped today, but you will not live for much longer."

Soon, he and his army of puppets retreated as well.

As soon as they were out of range, I collapsed to the ground covered in sweat.

As you guys might have guessed I was indeed bluffing the whole time. But, hey as long as it works.

I sighed tiredly as I slowly relaxed.

"Have they really left Jimmy?"

Jimmy sniffed around then replied, "Yep, they have all gone away. But I reckon that they have all blocked all exits to the sewers, they will strike you the moment you let your guard down. I hope that your plan has arranged an alternate exit for us."

I just shrugged my shoulders.

"However, I didn't know you were so cool, man. Where did you even get the secret manuscript about the secrets of activating the orb-thing?"

"Secret Manuscript?"

I slowly picked up the book in my hands and read its title out aloud. I hadn't even bothered checking their name till now. It was just one of the random books I had stolen from the library.

"The 101 Secrets of Beauty for Women"

What an absolute scam!! I knew that the puppet mistress was female but who knew that she kept such books in her library disguised as ancient manuscripts.

I suddenly felt bad for those guys. I wonder what would those guys feel if they realized I just used a book about make-up to make them run away shitless.

"It's a fake Jimmy, there was no manual ever."

I was still grinning as I relished the feeling of escaping from the jaws of death once again.

"In that case... why is the soul orb spinning and glowing like a disco ball?"

"Haha! Nice Joke!"

I turned around and sure enough, the orb was floating in the middle of the air and spinning around the room like a Roomba.

At some time my blood must have dripped off the knife onto the orb... who knew that my bullshitting actually worked.

"Shit!"

Suddenly my knife went flying out of the knife and struck the orb. The orb absorbed the knife whole along with all of my blood that had fallen from my wound.

The orb started to glow a dangerous red.

"Hah, did you guys really think that I had left..."

Suddenly from around the corner, the Puppet Butler burst out.

...I decided to come back and ambush you when you had..."

The puppet-butler-whose-name-I-would-never-know suddenly slowed to a stop as he saw the scene before him. His face paled as he subconsciously muttered out the rest of the sentence.

"...let down your guard."

"Kaboom!"

The orb broke into a million pieces as hundreds of tortured souls flew out, laughing maniacally and sobbing maniacally as they escaped into the city.

"You really did it..."

The shockwave immediately knocked all of us out.

Before losing my consciousness my last thoughts were wishing that Alice doesn't kill me when she finds out I broke her gift.

Unbeknown to me, as I lay down unconscious the broken shards of the orb stopped midair before changing directions and slowly started to converge into a cyclone above me.

Tainted red with my blood, the shard cyclone, looked like a portal of hell, or like the eye of the devil. My cursed dagger floated in the middle of it all, dripping red as it stabbed straight towards the still open would on my palm. The shards followed behind closely and sealed themselves within. The wound on my palm rapidly healed over albeit leaving behind a mark.

.....

After an unknown amount of time, I slowly came to with my head in a daze. I looked around in confusion as I tried to remember who I was and what was I doing...