The mansion breathed a heavy, alcohol-laden silence.
Alaric moved down the dimly lit corridor, his boots leaving faint, wet smears on the expensive carpets. Every step he took away from the headless ruin on the bed was an exercise in pure mechanical function. His mind was spinning a chaotic web of self-preservation, but his body remained completely steady.
He reached a heavily carved oak door at the end of the hall. He paused, his hand hovering inches from the polished brass handle.
Possibility one: the room is entirely empty.
Possibility two: Kruch's security or lingering relatives are hiding behind the frame, waiting or completely unaware.
Alaric stared at the wood for three long heartbeats. If there were people inside, entering meant more split skulls, more wet splatters, and more precious minutes bleeding off his fifty-minute ledger. If it was empty, it was a waste of breath.
He didn't open it. He didn't care. The primary asset had been liquidated, the rest of the estate's inventory would be settled by the fire anyway.
Turning on his heel, he bypassed the door and navigated the layout until he located the kitchen. Alaric didn't waste a single motion. He located the valve for the house's internal heating system and tore it open, letting the pressurized, liquid blue coal gas hiss violently into the room, pooling across the tiled floor like a dark, volatile oil.
He pulled a matchbook from his trousers. He struck a single match, the sulfurous orange spark casting a sharp, brief shadow of his bamboo mask against the kitchen wall. He didn't drop it there.
Remembering the layout of the perimeter, Alaric knew the front courtyard was now crawling with Kruch's external night guards, alerted by the distant, bruise-colored glow of the Ashworth fire painting the horizon. Going out the main entrance would invite an immediate confrontation.
Holding the burning match carefully, Alaric quickly retraced his steps back through the corridor, passing the room he had left unopened, and stepped back into the ruined study where Kruch's headless torso lay cold.
He stood at the edge of the shattered window frame, the very breach he had carved with Singularity. The cool, crisp air of the private gardens surged into the room, smelling faintly of winter ivy and oncoming destruction.
With a smooth, practiced flick of his wrist, Alaric tossed the burning match backward into the trail of escaping gas lines. He didn't wait for the roar.
He instantly dropped through the empty window frame, landing lightly in the snow-covered garden below.
A split second later, a deep, earth-shaking thoom vibrated through the soil as the interior of the Kruch mansion ignited into a furious, howling furnace of blue coal flame, blowing the remaining glass outward into the night.
Alaric didn't look back at the dancing fire.
Moving like a shadow through the dark hedges, he sprinted back toward the jagged archway he had cut into the granite perimeter wall, leaving the burning fortress behind as he locked his sights on the final target.
Alaric started running towards his last and final target of this dark night. The smell of his sweat mixing with the smell of snow formed an unusual sweet and sharp smell.
Alaric continued to run. This is the last target.....last time.
Alaric looked back, the house was burning vigorously. What if....there was a person..he or she will probably burn to death....but it's still better than death given my Singularity.
His boots hit the earth with a thudding sound. Am I hating myself at this point ? No...no..it's okay..i suffered because of Volt not them.
But still I'm killing them ? Because Volt is someone who is far above me. No....this is probably the best choice. The beginning of Volt's destruction fuels from the death of others.
The mantra repeated in his head, a cold, desperate attempt to balance the chaotic sheet of his own morality. He was running on borrowed time and a biologically mutilated frame that didn't know how to tire.
His mind was a battlefield of conflicting perspectives a jagged, fractured ledger where the line between a businessman and a slaughterer had been completely erased.
He didn't care anymore.
The market had to be cleared.
When Alaric finally approached the perimeter of the Lek Estate, he skidded to a halt in the deep shadows of the alleyway, his breathing shallow and ragged behind the bamboo mask.
He had expected to carve another hole. He had expected to hunt through dark corridors, bracing himself for the wet, sickening sound of a third skull bursting under the weight of Singularity. Instead, he was met with a sight that made his heart stutter.
Standing entirely outside the grand iron perimeter gates not the mansion doors, but the outermost boundary of the estate was Will Amkrik lek.
He wasn't running.
He wasn't screaming for his guards.
He was simply standing in the middle of the snow-covered street, wrapped in a heavy fur coat, watching the distant horizon where the twin orange glows of the Ashworth and Kruch fires painted the night sky.
As Alaric's dark silhouette stepped out from the shadows, the purplish steel of Singularity humming faintly in his right hand, Will slowly turned his head. His eyes locked onto the faceless, wooden visage of the bamboo mask.
"Who are you?" Will asked. His voice wasn't trembling. It was entirely flat, hollow, and drained of the arrogant smugness he had possessed at the party just hours prior.
Alaric didn't answer. He didn't say a single word. He simply closed the distance, his boots crunching deliberately against the snow, the weightless crystalline blade glistening under the pale moonlight.
Stopping a few paces away, Alaric raised the weapon slightly, its point directed at the merchant's chest. Through the narrow slits of his mask, Alaric's voice came out cold and distorted.
"Are you not afraid... seeing a weapon in my hand?"
Will looked down at the purplish edge of the blade, then looked back up at the mask. A dry, pathetic excuse for a smile touched his lips.
"No," Will whispered, shaking his head slowly. "Because I already anticipated this."
He pointed a gloved hand toward the distant, bruised sky.
"When I heard the first blast sound and saw the burning of the house... I figured it out. I knew it was Eldrin. And then... when I heard the second blast rumble through the sector, I knew it was Mark."
Will let out a long, frosty breath that dissipated into the freezing air. "So, in a way... I had already accepted it. I knew the audit had come for us. And for that... I put fire on my own house."
Alaric's eyes widened slightly behind the wooden mask. He instinctively looked past Will's shoulder, shifting his gaze toward the grand mansion sitting deep within the courtyard.
It was true. The estate in front of him wasn't exploding, but a thick, heavy black smoke was pouring out from the lower windows. Orange tongues of flame were already licking at the grand curtains inside, burning slowly, methodically, from the inside out.
Will hadn't waited for the executioner to light the match, he had liquidated his own assets before the shadow could touch him.
Alaric walked further towards him as he spoke through the mask. "But what if...the death is the most painful death given to someone."
A small pathetic smile came on Will's face. "Then probably that's my faith...I have nothing to lost...i have already lost things even before all this started."
Alaric stopped. It was a completely different ideology than his.
Will looked towards him, that small pathetic smile having changed into a smile of acceptance. "Have you heard about sixteen hardest mission of life's by priests in cathedral."
Alaric nodded.
"Then according to you what's the hardest on those sixteen ?"
"I never thought about that."
"For me....it's acceptance the only mission a person can never conqueror there will always be a feeling that I missed it or a feeling of regret."
Alaric closed the distance between him and Will as he asked, "Do you regret this ? Your death ?"
"No."
Alaric raised his Singularity, ready to stab him. Will knew this very well. But before Alaric could stab him, Will asked, "Who are you ?"
Alaric pushed his muscles. The blade pierced through his chest. Alaric didn't know if Will was alive, but he answered.
"Alaric."