Thursday, October 25, 1349
Looking down at the array of Mystical Items Kiyotaka had obtained so far, he quietly steeled his resolve.
Following the previous night's volatility at the Bravehearts Bar, Kiyotaka could feel the Barbarian potion finally beginning to assimilate inside him. The sensation was exhilarating, just like before, and somewhat concerning too. Once again, Kiyotaka was reminded how he needed some sort of anchor to "himself" as it was very easy to lose oneself while "acting."
While the digestion paled in comparison to the time when he used to be a Sequence 9: Lawyer, it was substantial nonetheless.
By his own estimation, he had digested roughly 45% of the formula. This progress was the direct result of a sequence of pre-calculated actions, such as: his confrontations with the Highlanders, the absorption of local gang remnants into his own Zmagner Gang, and the recent escalation at the bar.
During all of these "rogueries" Kiyotaka had successfully isolated the core mechanics of the Barbarian's "Acting Method." His sudden major digestion during the Bravehearts Bar incident was the result of his actions being aligned perfectly with the potion's intrinsic logic.
To internalize the essence of the Barbarian potion, brute force alone was insufficient since this kind of violence required a systematic framework. The true objective was going head-on into established structures.
If he was not using his "Hyde" persona, Kiyotaka would have leaned towards subterfuge via bribing, trailing, and meticulously piecing clues and findings together. The Hyde disguise, however, rendered such nuance unnecessary.
Yet, mindless cruelty was not the answer. What the prerequisites of digestion demanded was a head-on collision with an existing system. This explained his methodology with the bartender where he issued a single warning and repeated exactly once.
The escalation from there was consistent with a Barbarian's core ideology and was not just random cruelty or malice.
He asked a question, waited, and asked again. When the answer seemed to be hidden and there was no way to extract it, he bashed his head into it —quite literally. In an instant, he had fully flipped the system of hierarchy on its head by resorting to violence.
The fork throw was also a necessary measure. Unlike the man with the goatee, he did not shout back at him or escalated through dialogue. Instead, he simply answered the disruption in his own immediate and disproportionate manner.
Since the thin man with the goatee was operating within the social system of the bar such as "numbers advantage," public shaming through volume, he — or Hyde — bypassed that system entirely with one throw of a fork.
"Controlled violence. This sequence would be quite fitting for Ryuen." Kiyotaka murmured to himself.
Then, he casted his gaze back at the table.
In front of him were a total of 6 Mystical Items.
The first one was a simple ring with a red gem on top. It was made out of a Sequence 9: Hunter Beyonder Characteristic, granting enhanced physique, Danger Intuition and expert Trap Laying abilities. Kiyotaka had named it Jäger, however, he decided not to bring it today.
He planned on selling the ring to Miss Justice in the next Tarot Club meeting.
The second one was a crimson bracelet called Ember, corresponding to Sequence 7: Pyromaniac. It granted all of the abilities of Jäger plus five spells that stemmed from pyromancy.
The third one was a fishnet glove that was made out of human skin and had putrid veins spiderwebbing it. He had named it Cyst and had the abilities of Shadow Lurking, Shadow Shaping, Disguise, Flesh Bomb, Flesh and Blood Curse.
The fourth was actually one of his newest additions. It was the mystical item for which he had paid thousands of pounds to obtain. This new Mystical Item was quite bizarre as it could change its shape at will and corresponded to a Sequence 6: Faceless.
It was turned into a mystical item after Klein had requested Azik for an identity shaping instrument and Azik had sent him one of the trapped Beyonder Characteristics from the Creeping Hunger.
Since Klein was worried about Kiyotaka's well-being, instead of using it himself, he gave it to him for an appropriate price.
Kiyotaka named this Mystical Item Guile. The name was quite fitting due to its abilities which included Transform, Flame Controlling, Damage Transfer, Divination and Enhanced Balance.
The fifth item was another one of his newest additions which was converted into a Mystical Item via Maric and Sharron's connections. Kiyotaka had paid an extremely huge sum for it, which resulted in him being totally broke at the moment.
It corresponded to a Sequence 6: Devil, a Beyonder Characteristic he had obtained through Mal. It was in the shape of a pair of glasses which looked like it had flowing lava inside it. Wearing it made the wearer's general appearance really wicked and evil and just looking at the wearer made people obsessed, scared or angry.
Kiyotaka had named the pair of glasses Gloom.
And the sixth and final item was something he had obtained from the Beyonder Meeting of Mr. Eye of Wisdom. While it was not a true Mystical Item and was more of a Beyonder Weapon, it was really necessary for him due to the upcoming situation.
It was a whip woven from the feathers of a Holy Sunbird. It may be worn as a belt when dormant and its strikes were cloaked in holy flames capable of severely wounding undead and reducing weaker creatures to ash and this weapon was named Scourge.
Looking at his arsenal, Kiyotaka equipped Ember around his arm, Guile in the form of a ring around his middle finger and Scourge around his waist. He was wearing a long, leather coat and a giant mask with a long beak at the front.
Once he had equipped the three items, he placed Gloom and Cyst in his pockets. The downsides from those two Mystical Items was quite a lot, so he planned on only using it when necessary.
Guile was able to amplify his emotions but with Barbarian enhancing his mental capabilities, it was hard for someone like Kiyotaka to lose himself to it. However, he still maintained a safe level of caution against it.
It was the same for Ember as well, given how chaotic and destructive his thoughts got while using it.
Once all of his preparations were done, Kiyotaka willed some of his spirituality in Guile and began reshaping his features. His skin grew pale and his eyes behind the mask grew dark and stormy shade of green.
His hair that was straight and silky also changed, turning curly and black and his height increased by a centimeter or two. Even his facial features became sharp and more handsome.
Once everything was ready, Kiyotaka opened the window of his hotel room and leapt out. Due to the operation today, he had decided to get a hotel room near the Bravehearts Bar.
Once he leapt out, he looked around and confirmed that no one but Mal had seen him. The hunched man was standing with the usual greedy look on his face. Pinching his crooked nose, he seemed to remove the layer of gathered oil over it and bowed to Kiyotaka.
"Everything and everyone is in place. I will go into hiding now." Mal reported cautiously, keeping his voice as low as it could be.
"Alright. Thanks."
Mal disappeared from his sight as soon as he nodded, disappearing into the shadows.
Letting out a shallow breath that shuddered behind his plague mask, Kiyotaka took long strides towards the bar. There were some strange glances in his direction from drunk men, but mostly he was out of sight.
This was because Kiyotaka had used Guile to divine an ideal path to take which avoided the eyes of police.
Divination was something most people could do, but it was much easier for Pathways which specialized in it. Kiyotaka now had enough Spirituality to perform basic level divinations which did not involve Beyonders using Guile as a medium.
However, he made sure not to over-rely on divination.
At its core, divination can be considered as a tool of circumvention for presaging obstacles. That went against the core ideals of a Barbarian. The entire ideological underpinning of the Acting Method demanded a head-on confrontation with whatever system stood opposite.
Too much divination would've definitely calcified into a reflexive dependency, and that was entirely un-ideal.
Before long, Hyde arrived at the Bravehearts Bar. However, instead of entering inside, he took the way around it. From the open windows, he saw his gang members standing here and there, some indulging in free food and others quietly doing their duties.
Making his way around the bar, Hyde's eyes landed on someone. It was a thin but muscular man. His hair was shaved very short, and his hair stood erect like spikes. The thin man looked back and his eyes that were full of madness squinted for a moment.
Just as a flicker of recognition flashed in his eyes, Hyde suddenly closed the distance between them in a flash. His palm rested on the thin man—Tyre's chest as he instantly used Flames Infusion on him, trying to inject huge amounts of flames into his body and combust him in one fell swoop.
However, with supernatural elements at play, it was hard for things to work so smoothly.
Thick fur began to grow over Tyre's body, instantly adding a layer of protection. The flames that Hyde felt were going to invade Tyre's body like an infectious parasite suddenly reeled back, as if being pushed back by his immune system.
"Hound of Zmanger, eh!!!" Tyre bellowed as he raised his hand that was full of long claws and dripping with poison. He slashed his hand in a diagonal arc.
Hyde quickly stopped trying to infuse flames into him and instead quickly conjured a fireball, throwing it at him. The fireball was met instead with a clawed hand which resulted in a small explosion, causing smoke to billow out and upwards.
Using the smokescreen, Hyde quickly low-swept Tyre with as much force as he could. With Ember increasing his physical abilities on top of his own physical abilities as a Barbarian, he was able to knock Tyre off-balance.
However, in doing so, Hyde felt that he had kicked some mystical metal. His entire shin shook and for a single second after knocking Tyre down, Hyde limped as if his bone had received significant damage.
Regardless of the pain, Hyde quickly recovered and got on top of Tyre.
Tyre moved, leaving an afterimage after himself, however, Hyde was able to use Danger Intuition and his Lawyer's abilities to break down social situations rapidly. His hand shot out and caught Tyre's claw hand at the wrist before it could fully retract.
Tyre immediately yanked back but Hyde didn't let go.
Instead, he torqued the wrist inward, using Tyre's own pull against him and bent the joint past the threshold of Tyre's pain as he thrashed, trying desperately to break free.
His free hand raked across Hyde's coat, tearing through leather and grazing skin underneath, however, Hyde was able to use Cyst's control over flesh and blood to quickly isolate the poison from a Werewolf.
Hyde cranked again and Tyre snapped his jaw toward Hyde's shoulder.
Hyde leaned back just enough, causing the teeth to find air and used the lunge to drive Tyre's wrist further into the lock. The Werewolf was freakishly strong but strength without the right angle was just pressure, and Hyde had the angle.
Suddenly, Hyde used all of his strength and a quick crack echoed in the back alley of the Bravehearts Bar. Tyre didn't scream or wince, instead he wrenched his entire arm backward that had nothing to do with technique.
However, he was able to break free from Hyde's grip purely because the bone was already broken and the pain had stopped being a deterrent. Taking advantage of the moment, Tyre lunged, however, Hyde was not going to regain his footing just like that.
Hyde sidestepped, not away from Tyre but across, cutting inside the arc of the claw of the unbroken hand rather than retreating from it. The claws passed close enough to his mask that he heard them rake the beak.
In the same motion, Hyde's arm hooked over Tyre's extended arm at the elbow, trapping it against his own body in an over-hook, and his hip drove into Tyre's midsection like a battering ram.
Once again, without resorting to hand-to-hand combat, Hyde had regained control over Tyre's momentum. Instead of instantly throwing him, he walked him two steps forward, using Tyre's own velocity to collapse his base, and then drove him chest-first into the wall of the alley with enough force that the stone-wall cracked.
Tyre, however, recovered in an instant. The regeneration was already knitting something back together. Hyde instantly realized it as the Werewolf's body stopped compressing and started pushing back.
He couldn't give him the space to use it.
Hyde's free hand shot under Tyre's broken wrist arm that Tyre was instinctively protecting and threaded through in a figure-four, locking the forearm against his own chest while his other arm came over the top and cinched around the back of Tyre's neck, forcing his head down.
In an instant, Tyre lost his base and angle as both of his arms were compromised — one being broken and the other one trapped — and his neck was bent so much that generating explosive force became nearly impossible.
However, he was not going to quit so easily. The Werewolf's legs churned as his claws scraped furrows into the stone ground while trying to drive backward and slam Hyde into the wall behind them.
Hyde rode the somewhat berserking Werewolf, keeping his hips low and his weight distributed forward, turning every burst of Tyre's strength into circular motion rather than linear.
Suddenly, Hyde began collapsing the figure-four. There was a lot of resistance from the other side, but given how Tyre was compromised quite a lot, the little physical superiority meant nothing.
Hyde kept tightening the figure-four like a crab's vice around its prey's neck.
A wave of bone crushing pain washed over Tyre as his good hand shot back in a desperate, graceless grab for Hyde's coat. The claws found purchase on Hyde's forearm and drew blood, causing him to twitch and tighten even further in response, causing Tyre's joint to bend.
Tyre's body dropped its weight entirely, a last-resort collapse that no technique could fully account for and the sudden dead-weight broke the angle barely enough for the lock to loosen a single degree and Tyre tore his arm through the gap with everything he had left, leaving skin against Hyde's sleeve.
He stumbled forward, both hands damaged to varying degrees, fur bristling, chest heaving.
Hyde straightened and dusted his coat. The scratch mark on his arm had begun to turn purple.
From the moment when Tyre made his first move, Hyde had realized that Tyre outclassed him in speed to the point of even perception-blitzing him if he was not careful. And their strength was almost equal after equipping himself with multiple Mystical Items.
As such, a direct confrontation would have ended badly and very quickly. So he had abandoned the idea of striking him hard and fast entirely. Instead, he decided to do things on his own terms, just like how a Barbarian should, meeting someone else's system head-on with your own.
That is why Hyde began to resort to grappling and wrestling instead. And for someone who was able to dispatch adults many times his size and leagues above his weight class before he turned 10, this was akin to playing a sport on home ground!
Using just grappling alone, he was able to break both of Tyre's arms!
Hearing the commotion, one other man suddenly burst out of the bar's window, shattering the window. He looked down at Tyre and then up at Hyde who was still wearing his long beaked mask.
He growled, seeing as how both of Tyre's arms hung limply at his sides.
Just as Hyde saw the second man, he turned around and instantly began to run away.
"Get that bastard!!" Tyre growled as he stood up himself.
Just as he and the newcomer were about to dash, Hyde flicked his wrist and flames suddenly gushed out of Tyre's mouth, ears, nose and eyes and his stomach began to grow until it looked like an over-inflated balloon. His broken hands and his feet too began to show signs of rot and purple veins spiderwebbed his entire body.
In the following instant, Tyre exploded into a giant mess of flesh and flames, throwing putrid flesh everywhere.
Flame Infusion, Delayed Explosion and Flesh Bomb!
Hyde did not look back and kept running with all his might!
Without wasting a single second to stop over his dead mate's body, the newcomer dashed behind Kiyotaka with an even faster speed after reaching into Tyre's pockets and retrieving something.
Meanwhile, in the middle of Tyre's disintegrated pieces, something began to materialize in a flash of darkness. It was a blackish-green fang.
However, as soon as it appeared, it looked like someone had picked it up and then the following moment, it disappeared.
*****
Author's Note:
I had a little difficulty in naming the Mystical Items, but then I realized, the simple naming in LOTM is quite effective, so I quite literally named the items after what they did.
Jäger means Hunter in German, Ember is called ember because... well, you know why.
Cyst was given it's name due to its weird composition and the putrid veins on top. Usually Cyst is a membranous sac, but well, it sounded cool in my head.
Guile... Well, it means "craft; deceitful cunning; artifice; duplicity; wile; deceit; treachery" and what is Fool Pathway if not all of these things.
Gloom is an odd-ball as it just came to my head and I named it that. Sure, there could've been better alternatives, but is what it is.
As for Scourge, it literally means "means of inflicting severe suffering, vengeance, or punishment" I guess we all know where this is going. Right! A Sharron x Kiyotaka fanfic with Scourge being their BDSM toy!
Jokes aside, it was not very fun to write this chapter. Klein and Kiyotaka's dynamic have changed and the fights are getting progressively higher level too. God bless my soul.