Dust Rose (2)
"Today... Black Claw, including Crow."
A red aura stormed around Rion's body like a tempest.
"Will vanish from the slums... without a trace."
The moment those words left his mouth—
Shrieeeek!
Rion's body vanished.
It was impossible to track with the naked eye.
Rion darted through the Black Claw thugs like a bolt of lightning, his movements so blindingly fast that only elongated red comet-like afterimages traced his path.
And wherever his hand brushed past...
A gruesome tearing sound ripped through the air, accompanied by agonized screams.
"Arrrghhh!"
"I was wrong! Please, spare m—Gaaah!"
Screams erupted from every direction, turning the scene into utter pandemonium.
The Black Claw members grazed by Rion's red aura writhed in agony as they collapsed.
They screamed, begged for mercy, flailed desperately—but against Rion's overwhelming speed and power, it was all futile.
They fell without even catching a glimpse of him.
That was when it happened.
"Rion! Rion!"
The desperate voice calling his name snapped Rion back to his senses.
As the red storm subsided, the scene unfolding before him...
"Ah..."
Bloodstains everywhere, motionless corpses strewn about.
The aftermath of his red aura was unrealistically brutal.
Dante grabbed Rion's shoulder.
"It's over now. Pull yourself together, Rion."
Dante's voice was steady, but the echoes of the Black Claw thugs' screams still rang in Rion's ears.
Is this... really what I did?
He couldn't easily accept the horrific reality before him.
I just got... swallowed by my Supernatural Ability.
It was definitely his power, but it felt like he'd been overwhelmed and dominated by it instead.
Swept away by a madness-like force, he'd created this nightmare.
"D-Dante... th-this is..."
His voice trembled violently. His body shook uncontrollably, as if it no longer obeyed him.
Dante stepped forward and pulled Rion into a tight embrace.
His strong arms wrapped around him, warm heat seeping through.
"It's okay, Rion. We survived because of you. Thank you... truly."
Dante's sincere words, carrying the same warmth as his body, offered immense comfort. Rion was just starting to catch his breath when...
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
From the distance came slow, rhythmic applause amid footsteps.
Not just one or two sets—several pairs of feet drawing closer.
Eerily leisurely clapping.
Who...?
The silhouette emerging from the darkness was none other than Crow, the mastermind of the massacre.
Crow approached them with his usual relaxed expression.
Behind him stood far more Black Claw members than those Rion had just slain, lined up in formation.
Crow stopped clapping and eyed Rion with a strange glint.
"I underestimated you. Not bad. A Supernatural Ability user, huh?"
It sounded mocking, but genuine surprise and interest laced his tone.
He glanced around at the littered corpses, then spoke again.
"To think you'd kill them all, even the grunts. I figured 'Dust Rose' didn't fit the slums because you were some misfits... but you're slum kids through and through."
Even in Dante's arms, Rion kept his eyes locked on Crow.
His muscles tensed rigid with strain, murderous intent flashing uncontrollably in his gaze.
"Crow."
His low voice brimmed with rage.
"Yeah? Got a question?"
"Why? Why even the kids..."
Crow snorted before Rion could finish.
"Ha, unbelievable."
His scoff dripped with genuine incomprehension, as if the situation itself was absurd.
"The strong kill the weak. What's the problem?"
"What?"
"That's exactly what you just did. The strong massacring the weak. That's the creed—and the law—in Haven."
Rion's face twisted savagely at Crow's words, red aura beginning to seep from his body once more.
"Rion!"
Dante gripped his shoulder harder, sensing the danger.
"Sorry, Dante. And thank you. But... I'll finish this myself."
Slipping from Dante's embrace, Rion stared straight at Crow.
Red aura coiled around him, his eyes gleaming with lethal intent.
"Fine by me. Then if I kill you here... no problem, right?"
Crow didn't blink at Rion's words. Instead, he replied with a chilling smile.
"Exactly. In Haven, dying just proves you're weak."
Those words were the trigger.
"Yeah? Then die, you bastard!"
Rion's fury exploded.
His body shot forward with the red aura.
The same blinding speed that had swept away the Black Claw group moments ago unleashed once more.
But this time, his opponent was Crow.
A man who had clawed his way from the slum gutters to the top. A predator who survived hellish slums and seized immense power.
Clang!
A sharp metallic clash sparked flames.
Rion's ferocious charge was blocked by the sword in Crow's hand.
An attack too fast to even imagine—and Crow parried it effortlessly, as if he'd anticipated it.
"Like... a wild animal pup."
Crow smirked mockingly as he swung his sword, scattering the red aura pouring from Rion's hand like smoke.
An overwhelming gap in power.
Rion's fierce assault did nothing to Crow.
Without taking his eyes off Rion, Crow murmured lowly to his lined-up subordinates.
"Kids."
Crow's brief command sliced through the night's silence.
"Yes."
The Black Claw members' low voices carried eerie obedience.
Like trained hounds—or rather, a pack of blood-starved hyenas.
Crow swept his gaze over them, his own eyes flashing with hunger for blood.
"Permission granted. Kill every last one of those... brats hiding back there. And make them feel what true 'despair' really is."
His voice was calm, but the cruelty within cut colder and sharper than an ice blade.
The 'brats' meant the weak children trembling in hiding.
'Kill them all' and 'engrave true despair'—not just taking lives, but severing all hope and shattering their very souls.
At Crow's order, the Black Claw members' eyes blazed ferociously.
They wasted no time, turning en masse and charging toward where people might be hiding.
"Damn it! We have to stop them!"
Rion shouted urgently.
But his cry dissolved into the air.
Dust Rose's fighters, excluding himself and Dante with their Supernatural Abilities, could barely handle even one Black Claw thug.
There was no way to stop the dozens charging off.
Crow intoned leisurely, as if savoring Rion's desperation.
"Your mistake... Dust Rose ends today."
With those words, brutal combat erupted between the Black Claw members racing toward the rear and the belated Dust Rose fighters rushing to intercept.
Dust Rose held desperately, but it wasn't enough.
Sharp screams and dull thuds echoed, bodies crumpling helplessly.
Rion whirled to chase after them.
But—
Shwick!
A razor-sharp blade blocked his path.
Crow.
He'd sealed the way, pinning Rion in place.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Crow's eyes gleamed with mockery and the thrill of the hunt.
Rion glared, grinding his teeth.
Time was running out. Screams from behind were growing louder.
"Dante!"
Rion yelled at Dante, who watched from behind.
"Run! Hurry! Save the kids!"
Dante nodded to Rion's desperate plea—not with his head, but with his whole body.
His feet were already pounding full speed toward the heart of Dust Rose territory, where the non-combatants hid.
But even as he ran, tears streamed down Dante's face nonstop.
Damn it, damn it, damn it!
Footprints already scarred the ground—countless ones.
They might already be there.
Mari... the kids...
Mari.
To Dante, Mari was special.
A childhood friend-like companion in this hellish slum Dust Rose, someone he'd laughed and cried with, leaned on.
The one who'd built Dust Rose with him, promising to escape this wretched life for something better someday.
And... the one Dante truly loved.
I was gonna confess once Dust Rose seized control of the slums and life got a little better...
Mari's face flashed in his mind—her smiling face, her worried one, the one that trusted and relied on him.
Imagining those faces bloodied and broken, his tears wouldn't stop.
Faster! Faster!
Finally, a familiar tent came into view—the hiding spot for non-combatants. Where Mari was. Dante squeezed out his last reserves of strength and charged.
Please... please be safe...
That was when it happened.
The instant Dante's foot hit the ground right before the tent—
KABOOOM!!!
A massive explosion shattered the tent where Mari hid into unrecognizable fragments.
Red flames and a shockwave erupted, hurling wood shards, cloth scraps, and something else in all directions.
Dante froze in place.
He couldn't believe the sight before him.
The blast's heat slapped his face, but he felt nothing. He just stared blankly at the smoking tent ruins.
Mari...
"Dante, what's wrong?"
The familiar voice in his ear—one he'd longed to hear, but in this moment of despair, surely a hallucination.
"Haha... Am I dead too? What is this... hallucination..."
Dante muttered with a hollow laugh.
"What nonsense! Who's dead?!"
A slightly annoyed but—to Dante—more welcome-than-anything voice came from right beside him.
"Uh...?"
Dante turned toward the voice as if entranced.
And his eyes widened at the scene.
There, standing with the children amid the tent wreckage a short distance away... was Mari.
Unharmed, without a single scratch. Beside her, the terrified but safe kids.
How... how was this possible?
There was an explosion... How did they survive?
Before he could sort his jumbled thoughts, Dante spotted two men approaching from the cluster of children.
One was a stranger. But the other... Dante knew him.
How could he not?
It was Rynel, executive of Jin Gang Regiment.
But for some reason, Dante couldn't tear his eyes from the other man standing beside Rynel, the Jin Gang executive.
That man slowly opened his mouth.
His voice was calm, yet carried a subtle resonance.
"Where... is Rion?"