Violence unfolded in brutal symphony: Vernon snapped a leg at the knee with a vicious kick, femur protruding through skin in a white spike; he gouged eyes with thumbs, popping them like grapes amid screams that turned to wet rasps; a throat punch crushed larynx, the victim suffocating in silent agony.
One thug got a knife into Vernon's side, twisting—blood welled hot—but Vernon retaliated by ripping the blade free and plunging it into the attacker's heart, twisting savagely until the body went limp.
He hurled corpses like weapons, one body slamming into two others, spines cracking on impact. Gunfire roared; a round punched through his coat into his bicep, but he pressed on, grabbing a shooter by the jaw and tearing it downward—mandible ripping free in a spray of flesh and screams.
The upper levels joined the fray, rappelling down or firing from catwalks. Vernon scaled a ladder in bounds, coat trailing like a shroud.
On the platform, he dismantled them: a headlock that crushed vertebrae with a pop; a boot to the chest that sent one plummeting twenty feet to the concrete below, limbs shattering on landing; fists pummeling faces into unrecognizable pulp—cheekbones caving, teeth scattering like bloody dice.
One begged, "Please—mercy!" Vernon responded with a knee to the spine, paralyzing him instantly, then a stomp to the head that ended the plea in a final, merciful crunch.
The leader was last, cyber-arm whirring as he unloaded a full clip. Vernon dodged most, taking a graze to the brow that split his old scar, blood sheeting down his face.
He closed in, dodging a mechanical punch that could crush steel. Vernon grabbed the arm, twisting with raw power—servos whining, metal bending until it tore free in a shower of sparks and hydraulic fluid.
The leader screamed, stump spurting blood. Vernon finished him with a choke—fingers digging into flesh, windpipe collapsing, eyes rolling back as life ebbed in strangled gasps.
Twenty-eight bodies lay scattered, broken and still, the mill a charnel house of blood, mud, and rain-washed gore. Vernon stood amid the carnage, breathing even, coat shredded, body a map of fresh wounds—blood mingling with rain on his scarred torso. No triumph. No remorse. Just the hollow efficiency of a tool wielded by Kai.
He surveyed the dead—faceless thugs, no families, no ties. In this war-torn world, they were ghosts already.
His face remained calm, eyes distant—no rage, no satisfaction. Just execution.
He scanned the scene for quite a long time, the rain washing away evidence.
These men... no families, no one to claim them. Street rats, like so many before. Vernon felt a hollow twinge—not pity, but a grim acknowledgment.
In this fractured world, even monsters deserved earth—deserved a grave.
" I will give you a grave " He said to them .
He found a rusted shovel in the mill's debris, its handle splintered but serviceable.
Under the relentless torrent, he dug. The ground resisted, mud sucking at his boots, rain stinging the fresh cut on his eyebrow, mingling with blood from his shoulder.
His broad shoulders flexed with each thrust, muscles burning but unyielding—dense, combat-built power turning the earth.
The ground kept fighting back, mud clinging like accusations, rain stinging his wounds, turning blood to pink rivulets down his abs and thighs.
His broad shoulders heaved with each thrust, dense muscles straining, veins bulging in his arms as he carved twenty eight graves— each for one.
The graves were deep, yawning maws in the storm-lashed dirt, water pooling at the bottom like tears for the forgotten.
Lightning illuminated his labor: hair matted to his sharp jaw, eyes distant and haunted, the fresh cut on his brow weeping steadily.
Thunder crashed like judgment, wind whipping his coat as he dragged bodies one by one—limp weights, faces frozen in agony, limbs trailing grotesquely.
He tossed them in unceremoniously, piles of twisted flesh accumulating in the watery bottom, rain pooling around them like a baptism for the damned.
Hours blurred in the deluge; his wounds burned, fever already whispering from the cold and exertion. When the last corpse thudded in—the leader's one-armed husk—Vernon shoveled back the earth, mud heavy and unyielding, each load a dull thump echoing his fractured soul.
The storm raged on, erasing footprints, diluting bloodstains, as if the night itself conspired to forget. The grave sealed flat, indistinguishable, Vernon stood over it, shovel dropping from bloodied hands. No prayer. No marker.
Just silence, broken by the metronome of rain—a dramatic requiem for the unclaimed, a mirror to his own awaiting end.
---
Vernon returned to the mansion as dawn clawed at the horizon, the grand structure a bastion of shadowed luxury amid the city's decay.
His long black coat, torn and sodden, dripped a trail of water and blood across the threshold, open to reveal his bare chest streaked with crimson rivulets from a dozen wounds.
His loose black pants clung to his long legs, barefoot steps smearing mud and gore on the marble floors.
Servants scattered like frightened birds—maids dropping trays with clatters, footmen paling and retreating to alcoves, their eyes wide with a mix of worry and primal fear. Whispers hissed: "Master Vernon... he's bleeding everywhere..." "What horror did he face?" But terror sealed their lips.
Mr. Eldrin Vale shuffled forward from the foyer, his frail hands wringing, face etched with paternal dread. "Master Vernon," he croaked, voice trembling, reaching out tentatively. "You're wounded—let me call the physician, please—"
Vernon halted at the grand staircase, his sharp eyes sweeping over them all, cold as steel. His voice emerged low, laced with lethal promise: "If anyone disturbs me... I will kill them."
The words hung in the air, cold as the rain outside. No one moved. No one breathed.
Eldrin's outstretched hand dropped, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, but he stepped back, bound by devotion and dread.
Vernon ascended, each step labored, wounds pulling with fresh agony.
He reached his room, the door slamming shut, lock engaging with a final click.
Inside, the vast chamber enveloped him—dark walnut panels absorbing the faint light, velvet drapes like congealed blood.
He stripped slowly, methodically: coat sloughing off like dead skin, hitting the floor with a wet slap; pants peeled away, revealing more gashes on his thighs.
Naked, scars old and new mapping his body like a testament to endurance, he pulled on fresh black pleated pants, loose and low on his hips. Bare-chested, ignoring the blood still trickling, he moved to the bathroom, the door closing softly behind him, the rush of cold water soon drowning out the world.
To be continued....