"Yes, yes, I will tell you, but please let me live," Ivanov begged, seeing he had one bargaining chip left.
"If I'm satisfied with your explanation, then I might let you go, not like you have a choice in the matter anyway," Raven said, though he had no plans whatsoever to let this man leave here alive.
Raven slid a hand into his coat pocket and tapped his phone screen without looking, starting the voice recorder.
'The chaos this will cause should unearth anyone still in obscurity when I'm finished.'
"Well then, let's start from the beginning. We sought to establish a foothold on this planet with absolute power, and therefore, we had to explore new methods of acquiring it. One of these ways was through new weaponry, which would allow us to take the world by storm, literally.
This was around the time when one of our research facilities informed us of the slight chance that we might be able to use nuclear power in handheld weapons. We were naturally thrilled at this discovery, but we soon realised the magnitude of resources and energy we would require for this process.
After much debating, however, we finally came to the conclusion that this was the only way, and so we put things into motion. Once we realised how much power these weapons could give us, it was a no-brainer."
"Too bad that the cataclysm happened," Raven exclaimed in delight at their failure.
Ivanov continued, after bitterly acknowledging the comment. "At that time, we were talking about guns that could erase small villages with beams of energy that caused an uncontrollable nuclear reaction when they hit their target.
It was basically a mini nuclear bomb that could be aimed with great precision at anyone you wanted.
That's not all, either, as we figured we could also make weapons that killed only using radiation. This would literally be invisible, and a high enough dose of radiation can cause death in a matter of hours or days."
"It was pretty obvious why everyone became obsessed with this, as we could silently eliminate anyone we wanted. After all, there is no visible beam or any sound at all. The problem still was how we were going to get that energy," Ivanov said, who had almost forgotten about his predicament but now honestly recalled the events of the past.
"Enough with your rambling… So bla, bla, bla, you wanted power, and you were building some fancy new weapon. Where does my father come into this?" Raven impatiently questioned.
"Ri-right, I was getting to it. Well, as I mentioned before, the process of experimenting and making these weapons took massive amounts of energy. So much so that it was almost impossible for the government to obtain so much for their headquarters.
Instead, we were forced to split up our research into different facilities all around the country and divert energy from the area into those facilities."
He paused for a second to catch his breath. "Such a large project was extremely difficult to hide from the outside world, but it was even more difficult to hide from our own people. After all, these people live and breathe this country, and some naturally noticed the changes that took place due to the now regular power cuts and the air of secrecy that hung over Moscow, especially near the Kremlin."
"Your father was one of those people who did notice, and so for the betterment of the country, we had to do what we had to; to keep this a secret," Ivanov changed his voice to sound innocent and magnanimous, to have any chance at appealing to Raven.
"As if I would buy any of that nonsense. You killed him due to your greed for power, and you bastards even had my mother and little brother killed for good measure… Hahaha…"
"It was a complete mistake for you to keep me alive. After all, I plan on making anyone involved feel hell before they die in pain and suffering. Just remember, when this whole country goes down in flames, you were all involved in creating the demon that plagued it."
"No, please, like I said, we were forced to kill anyone who found out about the project by the prime minister, and it wasn't up to me at all."
"Well, you should rejoice that I will eventually send him to meet you soon enough." Having extracted everything that Raven wanted out of him, it was time to finally have some fun.
Slash!
"Arrggg!!!" It was almost instant.
"So then, how does it feel to be powerless, to have everything taken away by someone else, to be controlled by another?"
"How do you think I felt? Being all alone in the world at the age of 15. I was even forced to do the bidding of those rotten men for three whole years." Raven was releasing his pent-up anger and rage, knowing this was the best time to get consolation and not have it drag him down in the future.
"S***, please stop the pain. Please help me. I will do anything you want, so please.
I have a daughter, the same age as you. I don't want her to be alone, so please, I beg you to have some mercy and let me live."
'So he thought dangling his daughter's life might save his own. Pathetic.'
The meaning of bringing his daughter into this meant that Ivanov was on his last legs; he had laid all his cards out on the table and was clutching at anything to make Raven pity him.
He knew very well that he was not a great human being. He followed the powerful until he could reach the top, and when he did, he started to abuse the power he had obtained.
He himself believed that he could do whatever he wanted without much consequence if he was powerful, but ultimately, he was mistaken.
There was always someone stronger.
And now the deeds of the past had come to take revenge.
"Haha, and you think I would care enough to let you off the hook for what you have done?"
"…"
"You know what, I forgive you, actually. After all, I can't really blame you for what you did, as it is the right of the powerful to step on the weak.
I bet you felt nothing at the idea of eliminating my family in cold blood. After all, why wouldn't you when you had the—
But now, I have the power to do anything, and some useless human qualities aren't going to hold me back. Did you really think that I would care about your daughter or something so meaningless as morality?
Now, since I want to kill you, I will do just that. You see, being weaker means that you are at the mercy of the strong, and now, even more so than ever before, power means everything."
"You are crazy! Please stop, even if you have this much power, you can't possibly—"
"Who the f*** gave you permission to speak??"
Thud!
A kick to the abdomen sent Ivanov flying into the wall behind him. He staggered and coughed up blood as he tried to get up.
"Please, I can help you if only you gave me a chance," he stuttered, knowing he would die if this continued due to already having lost so much blood.
"You are just a useless sack of meat, so shut up. How about I burn your mouth shut?"
"No, no ple... arggg…"
"Mmmm."
"Oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that, considering he can't even scream anymore. Let's open it back up," Raven mused as he stabbed a knife into Ivanov's face to part his lips, almost impaling his tongue in the process.
"Aah, vlease, save ve," Ivanov bellowed in pain. At this point, he could barely speak properly as it was excruciating to bring his two wounded lips together.
…
Raven spent a few more minutes enjoying playing around with Ivanov's life, making him feel so much pain that even his enemies would feel sorry for him.
He was now slowly bleeding out, and the light in his eyes had already started to vanish. One of his legs was frozen, the other arm was clearly scorched, and many parts of his body were lacerated with cuts.
…
Soon, he was dead.
"That definitely does it."
"I've let anger out at least." Raven was actually quite pleased with his handiwork, as it was obvious to anyone that Ivanov died in the worst pain possible.
…
Amelia Ivanov had never loved the house she lived in.
It was too large, too polished, too empty.
Her earliest memories of it were cameras, not comfort. Her father had insisted she smile for guests, for parties, for photographs that ended up in the papers the next morning with his name in bold.
Her mother had been the only warmth in those rooms. When she died, Amelia was thirteen. No one ever explained what truly happened, only that her father was "too busy with work" to be there in the final hours. Amelia never forgave him.
He filled the silence by pushing her into the spotlight. A few commercials, a small role in a children's film, endless staged photographs. She learned how to laugh on command, how to look clever and perfect. People called her Russia's "sweetheart." She felt like a doll.
At school, other kids envied her face on billboards. They didn't see the way she cried in the bathroom, makeup smeared, phone buzzing with her father's reminders not to embarrass him.
Then the System came. For the first time, something belonged to her alone. When the blue window appeared, it gave her a class rare enough to make headlines — Grand Mage. She thought maybe this would free her.
Her father only smiled the way he did at cameras. "You will bring honour to our name."
She wanted to scream.
That night she lay in bed, braid loose, staring at the ceiling. The guards walked the halls. Her father had gone to another late meeting. She curled around her pillow, wishing her mother were still alive, wishing for anyone who would see her as Amelia instead of Ivanov's daughter.
She drifted to sleep like that.
She didn't know someone had already broken into the house. She didn't know her father's screams would wake her before dawn.
…
"FATHER!!"
Raven had taken his time with his prey. That silence — no guards bickering in the halls, no heavy footsteps — had finally dragged Ivanov's daughter from her room.
The quiet was wrong. Too wrong.
She hated her father. She had always hated him. But seeing him broken, gone forever, made the floor vanish beneath her feet.
Her throat tightened, yet she forced her voice out.
"Nooo… what have you done?" she cried, face streaked with panic, though her tone tried to sharpen into anger, as if she could intimidate the figure standing over her father's corpse.