Chapter 549: Rope And Road Flares
Amira needed a moment and Laz knew that, so he didn’t say anything to her right away. He just looked at her and noticed her staring at what she had done. But he saw no remorse or guilt in her eyes, just a look of numbness.
’That can be fixed at least,’ Laz thought as he turned back to see Brittany was no longer wailing on Robert.
Laz couldn’t help but praise the cockroach for his ability to live despite the beating he had just been given. Or maybe it was because it was one chosen hitting another chosen. Had it been Amira doing the damage, Robert would already have been dead.
Brittany stood with her eyes closed while Robert’s barely moving body lay on the ground, close to death, but not quite there. Coming up to him, Laz rolled him over and noticed the bruised and beating body was still rather intact as it seemed that after the original nut punch, Brittany had directed her kicks to his back and stomach, avoiding the head. Perhaps she knew that she would kill him if she did, or perhaps she didn’t want him blacking out from pain. Either way, it kept him alive and that was good enough for Laz.
Pulling a bottle of water our from his spatial pouch, Laz poured it on Roberts head and then slapped him a few times, until he woke up.
"Hey. HEY! If you want to act dead, I’ll kill you for real. How’s that?" Laz said, after slapping him one last time. It wasn’t hard slaps, but combined with the water it stung a whole hell of a lot.
"FUCK YOU!" Robert shouted before Laz slapped him again.
"You ready to talk?"
"FUCK..."
Laz didn’t even wait and slapped him again.
"You ready to talk?" Laz’s voice was even and calm, acting like this was some sort of a job interview and not an interrogation.
"FU..."
Laz slapped him again, this time a little harder. If Robert wasn’t seeing stars before, he was doing so now for sure.
"You ready to talk?"
Robert didn’t respond right away this time, so Laz slapped him again.
"You ready to talk?"
"YES. OK FUCK..."
"Good. Tell me something that makes it worth me letting you go," Laz ordered, but in the same monotone voice.
"Like what?" Robert asked threw gritted teeth.
Laz slapped him again.
Brittany, who was paying attention from the side, couldn’t help but laugh a little.
"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR?" Robert screamed, causing Laz to slap him again.
"I just don’t like your tone. And how about that temple up north? You’re father’s some sort of big deal in this city right? Did he find out about anything?" Laz said, not expecting anything, but asking for the hell of it. He had no intention of letting Robert live, so to him, if he could at least gain something like information from him, at least this whole side thing would have been worth it.
"OH! SO YOU DO KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS? THEN YOU SHOULD..."
Slap.
"You’ve exceeded the maximum words allowed for your response. Please only answer yes or no in the future unless asked to explain. Thank you for your cooperation," Laz said, still monotone.
Brittany almost couldn’t hold it in, neither could Amira who had come to join her.
"So temple?" Laz asked.
"I KNOW. I KNOW... IT’S A PLACE... THEY ARE LIKE A CULT... ANYONE CAN JOIN. And ... and..."
"And what?" Laz asked.
"You didn’t slap me for not answering with just yes or no..."
Slap.
"MOTHER..."
Slap.
"WHAT THE FUCK..."
Slap.
Robert was starting to lose teeth as this point, so he just shut up.
"Go on," Laz instructed.
"It’s... you can get power from it. I don’t know how it works. But you can get money from others or you can give them girls or guys to get money. And once you do... you can buy anyone else there. Everyone has a price. If you join, you will have a price as well. It’s the only way to join. And you can’t steal the money from others... you can only win it or earn it by selling them or yourself. One hour at a time... uh..." Robert was rambling on, his head in pain and his thoughts disoriented."
"Show me some of this money," Laz said, completely confused.
’The fuck? Lust cult? Buy and selling yourself and others? How the fuck does this work? And why? Like... are you really so horny as to want to sell yourself just to buy others?’ Laz’s thoughts raced in many directions but came to almost no conclusions.
"Here..." Robert said, barely managing pull out his wallet. Laz opened it and looked inside, only to find regular cash.
"Its... behind the cards..." Robert said, barely managing a whisper. If anyone looked closely enough, they would see a slight smile on his face.
Laz took all of the bills from the wallet and handed them to Amira, the normal ones, before looking for the ones behind the cards.
He found folded wad of them and unfolded them to view them closer.
As Laz felt the weird papers and looked at the red ink, he suddenly got a bad feeling.
Before he could react, the paper started glowing and a strange symbol appeared on it. Just as Laz tried to drop the paper, recognizing a rune but not knowing what it meant, the rune shot into his arm and forced it’s way into his center. With Robert laughing, Laz turned his attention inward to see what was happening.
The rune was in the sky of his inner world, the domain of his lord realm power and seemed to be drawing in energy to grow stronger while also growing brighter.
’Is it going to explode?’ Laz thought, wondering just what would happen if it did. Laz always felt like this inside of himself was a manifestation of his internal energy and not a real place per say. So the idea of something attacking in here was never something he had thought about until now.
Just as it seemed like the glowing rune had absorbed enough power, the apocalypse ring appeared, becoming visible. At the same time, the golden purple palace suddenly seemed to glow brightly, causing a light that was millions of times brighter than that of the rune.
The glowing rune began to fade at a quick pace, but it didn’t fully disappear. Just when it seemed like it was going to vanish however, the red ring sent out a tendril and captured it before drawing it to itself.
As Laz looked on, amazed, a small black flame appeared on the tendril and began melting the rune until nothing was left but a strange puddle of fluid that was then absorbed.
Just before it vanished, Laz felt a gaze land on him and heard a laugh along with what sounded like someone saying, ’Interesting.’
Then the rune was gone and everything was at piece.
Coming back to himself in the outside world, Brittany and Amira were at his sides while Robert was still laughing.
"Serves... him... right... If.... a... non... member... tries... to... take... a... bill.... they... get... their.... bodies... taken... over... by... a... god...." Robert managed to mutter out before body wracking coughs made him shut up again.
"So that’s what that was, huh?" Laz said, before grabbing the money that had fallen to the ground and stashing it away in his spatial pouch.
"How... are.... you....?"
"How am I still ok? Alive? Me?" Laz said, pointing at himself.
"Simple. That’s not the first god I’ve encountered.... hell... it wasn’t even the strongest..." Laz responded, getting an eye roll from Amira and Brittany sense they had already heard this line before from him.
Only Robert had a look of horror in his eyes since he knew that it was indeed a god who had placed a seal on those papers.
"Well. I can see that’s everything I’m going to get from you. Thanks for your time and we shall move on to someone else," Laz said, faking a smile before turning to look at Brittany.
"This is you... unless you don’t want to?" Laz said, his voice again soft and gentle.
"No... I need to do this... for me," Brittany said and raised her hand to Robert’s neck.
While he might have lost his voice for now, he was still able to see what was happening with a little bit of clarity despite his wounds. Robert’s face was red, bruised and beaten. But there was still life in his eyes. And at this moment he looked at Brittany with pleading, begging eyes, wanting to be let off. To be allowed to live.
"Oh yeah. I forgot to mention something. After your dead, I plan to strip you tie you up to that post over there. Then... a few pictures that will be spread around cause hey, who doesn’t like a good story, right? One where you have no balls and a shriveled dick? Yeah. That will be the last picture that everyone sees of you. The last memory of Robert here, son of the mayor, huge player and the person who ruined lives and families for his own amusement. And while some will see it and think it was a horrible way to die, many will laugh at how such a ’big’ person was really so very small in the end. Hell... I’ll even shove one of those batons your boys were using up your ass to really complete the image. How’s that sound? And when the families of the victims see that, they will know that in the end... you... were... nothing.... but.... a.... joke...." Laz said to Robert, so close to his ear that he knew that not a single word was missed.
Suddenly, the pleading man turned angry and struggled, struggled for all he was worth. But seeing the weakness suddenly turn to anger over just the mention of his ’reputation’ being ruined was all the convincing Brittany needed.
A small sliver of air, barely the size of a finger launched itself right up into Robert’s noise and entered his brain before bursting out, causing the already fragile organ to erupt in one final surge of pain before he stopped moving and laid still.
"You’re not going to say any words?" Amira asked Laz, a slightly pale look on her face.
"Nope. Fuck this piece of shit. I’m going to find some rope. Make sure those little shits don’t wake up without you noticing," Laz said before running over to his truck.
"What about the girls?" Amira called after Laz who turned around, seeing the three women who were still in a crumpled heap, having fainted when the action started.
"Your choice. Kill them or not, I’ll deal with whatever you decide in a minute... Wonder if marking the pillar with some road flares is going to far?" Laz said to himself as he hurried off.
