My hands were beginning to lose their grip on reality as the man stood directly before me. His body loomed—over two meters tall, shoulders as wide as an iron door, old scars slicing across his skin like ancient war paths. But that wasn't what made me tremble.
It was his eyes. The gaze of someone who had died many times… and returned, just to kill again.
"I've long wanted to see you fight with real blood, Legend," he said, rolling up the remains of his torn sleeve. "But word is, you've repented. What a shame—I don't believe in sin."
I struck first.
Elbow to his ribs, knee to his gut, hand to his nape. But he danced between my attacks. His hands were like hammers. One blow sent my body flying two meters back. I slammed into a metal container, and the whole world suddenly shook.
Blood dripped from my nose. My vision blurred. But I had already decided—revenge wasn't worth a life.
We exchanged blows. The sound of flesh and bone colliding echoed through the warehouse like the rumble of hell. I managed to drive a dagger into his side. He only grinned.
"Still breathing, huh," he muttered.
His hand closed around my neck. One more jerk, and I knew my spine would be history. So for the first time in ten years, I chose to run.
A smoke grenade clouded his vision. I crashed through a steel window and leapt from the second floor, slamming into the hard ground below with a dislocated shoulder.
But the escape was short-lived.
Four figures in black emerged from the east, three from the west. A sniper opened fire from the warehouse roof. Bullets hissed past my ears—one struck my right shoulder, tearing skin and muscle. My breath grew ragged. My vision dimmed. The world spun.
"You think you can escape his domain?" whispered a voice in my earpiece—a voice I couldn't place, or maybe just a hallucination.
I collapsed behind an old concrete wall. Bullets slammed into it just inches above my head. Another hit near my feet. My breathing now sounded like the rasp of the undead.
And then—the air changed.
An explosion erupted from the east. Smoke rose. Someone emerged from the shadows of the ruins, wearing a long coat and a crooked grin I hadn't seen in ages.
Vassago.
He shot down two snipers with two bullets. In his hand, a custom-made firearm. He leapt toward me, lifting my body with one hand.
"You look like a legend about to die," he said.
"And you… like a demon risen from the underworld," I replied weakly.
"You owe me a life, Exsanguine. Now come. We're not done yet."