'Tsk, how many are they?' Alex wondered as he dodged a fireball, his double-headed scythe flashing through the air to sever yet another head. 'I've killed more than fifty of them, yet they're still coming.'
By now, he had already rescued several of the unconscious guests from the private booths, and they could be seen lying on a floating cloud of smoke trailing right behind him.
'They'd better pay me more than they intended to,' he thought, glancing at the nobles he had just saved.
Some of those people were none other than the young nobles he had escorted from Night Base to Drisidd a few days ago. They hadn't even paid him what they owed him, and here he was, rescuing their asses once again.
Pushing that thought to the back of his mind, Alex finished off the last masked men coming at him, then walked toward another booth. But just as his hand reached for the handle, his instincts screamed in warning—so he instantly sidestepped away from the door.
He had barely moved when the booth door exploded, shards of wood and metal flying across the hallway. Through the debris and smoke, Alex caught sight of a masked man's body being launched like a rag doll, making him raise an eyebrow in surprise.
The masked man slammed into the wall opposite the door and didn't move again. He was either unconscious or dead.
Peeking through the now doorless booth, Alex's surprise deepened when he saw who was responsible for the explosion.
That peek almost cost him his head, though, as a pressurized jet of water shot toward him with such blinding speed that he barely had time to jerk his head back to avoid it.
The next instant, he quickly moved away from the wall just before it shook under the impact of several pressurized water jets bursting out into the hallway.
"Talia, wait, it's me!" he shouted quickly before another salvo of water attacks rained down on him.
When the attacks stopped, Alex let out a sigh and stepped inside the private booth — only to be greeted by a scene far worse than he expected.
The booth was in complete shambles. The furniture was shattered, the walls cracked, and blood splattered across nearly every surface. Dozens of bodies lay sprawled across the floor in pools of crimson.
The sight reminded him eerily of the goblins' booth, except this time, the corpses weren't green-skinned creatures but humans — more precisely, the masked men who had invaded the place.
From what Alex could tell, they had died in various gruesome ways: some had been sliced open and left to bleed out, others had gaping holes in their torsos from stab wounds, and a few looked as if they had drowned, their lungs probably filled with water moments before death.
At the center of all that carnage stood a woman of breathtaking beauty, dressed in a blue gown that clung to her sumptuous curves like a second skin, yet managed not to appear vulgar. Her dreamy blue eyes burned with an intensity that could make anyone avert their gaze. Her entire body radiated fury and killing intent.
Instead of her usual flowing hair, tendrils of living water writhed and twisted around her head like serpents ready to strike. Her gaze was sharp enough to cut, her expression a mix of coldness and rage. She looked like she could tear out a man's throat and make him watch — and the corpses littering the ground were proof enough that she could.
'She's royally pissed,' Alex thought, eyeing the serpentine water tentacles that had replaced Talia's hair. The only times he'd seen her like this were when she was either deadly serious or completely enraged.
It didn't take him long to see why.
'They too,' Alex thought, his own expression darkening in an instant. This was because he had spotted behind Talia the unconscious and lying bodies of Celine and Marinna.
He wasn't particularly close to the two, but they were still family — his cousins, and Amelia's closest friends. He had grown up seeing them often, and the sight of them lying there, motionless, sent a cold anger simmering in his chest.
He had literally watched them grow from little troublemakers into the beautiful women they had become, so seeing them sprawled on the floor like lifeless dolls enraged him even more.
If he, who wasn't particularly close to them, felt this furious over their condition, he couldn't even begin to imagine how much angrier and more devastated Talia—who had been with them—must have felt.
Recognizing him, the tentacles of water on Talia's head finally calmed down before slowly disappearing, leaving her back in her normal form.
As her features became clearer, Alex noticed how disheveled she looked. Her hair was messy, and while she still looked beautiful despite that, her face was smeared with makeup that ran down her cheeks, indicating how much she had been crying.
"A-Alex," Talia said, her voice slightly cracking as she glanced down at the bodies of her two friends. "They are..." Her voice trailed off. She hesitated to continue, as if speaking the words aloud might make the terrible truth real.
"They are alive," Alex uttered without hesitation, making Talia look at him with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. "Think about it — if they were dead, why would these guys try to retrieve their bodies? And for the record, these masked men are from Night. Do you know what Night specializes in?"
"In abducting nobles and blackmailing their families," Talia answered almost absentmindedly, her voice barely above a whisper as the reality of the situation sank in.
"Knowing that, think about it — why would they take the bodies then?" he asked.
There was no hesitation in his tone; he sounded so sure of what he was saying that it seemed as if he were one hundred percent certain. In reality? He had no way of knowing if the unconscious ones were still alive or dead. There were no signs of life, so there wasn't really a way to tell. He just spoke like that to prevent Talia from falling apart. The poor girl looked like a mess, and while he often bickered with her, he didn't want to see her in this state.
He really, really hoped that his theory was correct though.
"Come on, we don't have the luxury to stay here for long," Alex said, forming a cloud of smoke beneath the bodies of Celine and Marinna and lifting them.
Talia nodded, wiped her eyes, and stood up.
When she turned to glance at Alex, she seemed to want to say something, but ultimately decided against it and simply followed him as he walked.
All at once, Alex stopped in his tracks, almost making Talia collide with him.
"Wait, I just thought of something," he said, glancing behind him at Talia. "From my deductions, only those with a strong mind weren't affected by the explosion, so..." His words trailed off.
Talia's eyebrows twitched in irritation, feeling a sudden, strong impulse to unleash a wave of highly pressurized water jets at him. "Are you calling me weak-minded?!" she cried in vexation.
"Me?" Alex said, feigning innocence, "I would never." His smoke mask parted in a flash, revealing his handsome face.
Although he said this, the teasing smile plastered across his features said otherwise.
"And here I thought you weren't an asshole today," Talia snorted.
"Never, Talia babe," Alex chuckled as he resumed walking.
"Don't call me that!"
"Yeah, yeah, sure," he waved dismissively as he stepped back into the hallway.
He expected attacks to fly at him the moment he appeared, or to see a sea of masked men waiting, but instead, the hallway was empty.
'Did I finally get rid of all of them on this floor?' he wondered, moving toward the next booth with Talia closely following behind him.
Just as he thought the floor had finally settled, that thought vanished when he entered the next room.
The booth appeared untouched, the furniture neatly in place and the floor intact, yet streaks of blood marred the surface.
Talia's eyes immediately widened in horror as she glanced toward the center of the booth, where a small pool of blood glistened. At its center lay three bodies, savagely mutilated, limbs twisted unnaturally, and faces frozen in expressions of pain and terror.
Judging by their attire, it immediately became clear who they were.
'I couldn't rescue everyone in time, it seems,' Alex thought grimly as he looked at the bleeding corpses of the three nobles.