"No way! You must've dragged an entire army with you just to kill all of my men! And who the hell are you, anyway?!" Kahima panted and gasped, backing up toward a wall where he kept his decorative swords.
At the same time, Zetto freed both Tiriga girls, who thanked him and said they'd be right back – just needed to get dressed – before rushing off on the verge of tears.
Before Kahima could do anything, the Messenger was already on him. Zetto planted a brutal kick into the nobleman's stomach, sending him crashing to the floor, then beat him furiously, punch after punch.
He could have finished him off with magic in an instant, but this way brought him more satisfaction. After a few moments, Kahima's face was bruised, bloody, and wrecked
Zetto was breathing hard, barely keeping his anger in check.
"I'll make you pay for every Varii and Tiriga," he ground his teeth, full of hate. "For every beast-human who suffered because of you, who was torn away from their loved ones forever. How many did you kill? Admit it, you motherfucker! How many died because of you, counting all those your men slaughtered just for some cheap display?!" he shouted as loud as he could.
Kahima just smiled.
"Are you really concerned with the numbers? When you deal in bulk, you don't even count how much product you sell. Really, does their fate matter that much to you?"
Zetto slammed another punch into Kahima's face, crushing his nose to a pulp. Kahima screamed in pain.
"If you kill me, you will pa-pay for this!" he stammered, trying to sound threatening. "I–I'm a respected magnate and–"
Those words just made Zetto angrier, a fire of hatred burning inside him.
"This–" the Messenger hissed through clenched teeth, "is for every child ripped from their parents."
Red magical auras flared around his hands. Kahima's arms began stretching unnaturally, bones snapping in multiple places, yet the limbs kept elongating, tendons hardening, breaking through the skin, until they twisted into a grotesque spiral of blood, muscle, and skin, finally exploding in a gruesome spray of crimson gore.
Zetto then healed his wounds.
"I'm not going to let you die so easily," he said in a rough voice. "This is for every girl and woman you and your filthy bastards raped." He enchanted his black boots with magic, and purple sparks of energy crackled around the soles. With a single, powerful step, Zetto crushed Kahima's crotch. The man screamed, whimpered, cried, and vomited in pain. Zetto used a minor healing spell just enough to keep him alive. "This is for every person irreversibly taken from their family, their friends, and their love," he added, reaching his hand forward.
Zetto focused on a spell that would channel his Compassion ability into Kahima, inflicting maximum pain. He thought of all the Varii, of Maghra, and the Tiriga. He summoned, deep within himself, their fear, despair, sorrow, and anguish. For a brief moment, Zetto felt as if he'd established a fragile, fleeting connection with the dead.
He poured their anger onto Kahima.
"What… is… happening…" the fat noble gasped. His head began to puffing up like a balloon, and he kept switching between crying, laughing, screaming, and cursing. "Who are these people? They're not my parents! My sister… my fiancé…" Kahima mumbled fragments of sentences and words as the experiences of those he had harmed flooded his mind.
After a few minutes of madness, his bloated head exploded like a bloodied sac.
Zetto's only reaction was a short, cold laugh.
He ended up as pathetically and miserably as he deserved.
Zetto cleaned the blood off himself using a simple spell. At that moment, the two Tiriga girls came back, wearing normal everyday clothes: black shorts to mid-thigh and short-sleeved tops.
"Are… are you Dayun?" one of them asked. "You have to be! Our prayers were answered!" she said happily.
"Maybe," Zetto replied thoughtfully, his gaze falling on something that gleamed in the sunlight coming through the room, near Kahima's hand. The object had fallen from Kahima's robe.
"That's the key to the basement," the long-haired girl said. "Kahima keeps his most valuable specimen there, one he never showed anyone. Any slave who dared go inside ended up dead."
The red-haired girl stepped over Kahima's lifeless body, kicking him just for pure satisfaction, then reached into the opposite pocket.
"And this is the key to his savings, kept near his 'treasure'."
"Thank you for your help," Zetto said with a faint smile. "Let's go. We'll rescue the last person here." The Messenger headed toward the door across the room.
"How do you know where to go?" the long-haired girl asked, in disbelief.
"It's one of my abilities. Doesn't matter. I want to get out of here as fast as possible and take you and the rest of the Tiriga to the safe lands we're headed to".
The girls exchanged surprised looks, silently confirming they'd heard correctly. Soon after, they followed Zetto.
The Messenger ran like mad.
Whoever's in there, hiding from the world and terrified, praying in their heart to be saved or to die…
It's not just a prayer – it's a helpless cry, barely holding on.
Don't worry, I'm coming for you. If only I could send these thoughts through Compassion…