Chapter 15 - Atrocities

Within the Shorn Manor, in the master bedroom, the family head, Aceen Shorn, and his wife were currently sleeping in their bed. This was not an odd scene, as it is normal for people to sleep. However, at this instant, a dark-robed figure with jade green eyes was staring intently at the sleeping couple.

'I wonder how I should do this. Being too quick won't be any fun.'

Wesley was currently pondering how to kill the two. He didn’t want to kill them in their sleep since that would be too easy an escape, but he also didn’t want to spend too much time here, having already used half of his mana pool warping into the Manor and searching for their room.

'Hmm, let's try doing it this way.'

Having made up his mind, Wesley instantly released his Dark Globe to cover the entire room. The moment the Dark Globe was activated, all traces of light disappeared from the room, and a chilling cold spread. Dark Globe was not a complicated spell; one simply used their dark mana to stimulate and attract all the darkness elements in the area.

This causes all the other elements to be ejected from the area where the darkness elements converge. Light and fire are immediately expelled since they are incompatible with darkness, while wind, water, and earth can also be expelled, though it takes a tremendous amount of mana to do so. Therefore, when Dark Globe is activated, a gloomy darkness and chilling coldness engulf anyone within its range.

The moment Aceen and his wife felt the cold in the room, they instantly sat up and looked around. However, they couldn’t see a single thing. In fact, they couldn’t even see their own hands when held in front of their faces. How could they see anything when all light had been expelled? While the couple wondered what was happening, a low, cold voice reached their ears:

"If you shout, you will die."

The voice was so filled with cold killing intent that, the moment they heard it, they instantly realized there was no way they would leave this room alive. But at that moment, the wife couldn’t stand the pressure:

"Aaa..."

By the time the first sound left her lips, a second didn’t follow. A deafening silence descended upon the room. Aceen instantly realized his wife was most likely dead, as he felt her body slump lifelessly next to him. His heart felt as though it had been stabbed a million times, but he didn’t want to die, so he kept his mouth shut and started calculating. This person could not be an assassin, since he would've just killed them in their sleep. This meant the attacker wanted something. If he wanted something, it must be something Aceen had, which meant he could find a way out of this alive.

Aceen decided to speak, but he did so in a low whisper, to avoid being confused with a shout:

"What do you want from me? Anything you want, I’ll give it to you. Just spare my life."

'Oh, this one is not too dumb. I wonder how far he's willing to go to stay alive.'

"How much is your life worth?"

Aceen immediately let out a breath of relief. If money was all the person wanted, then this could be easily solved.

"I will give you one million gold. What do you say?"

There was only silence. Not a single reply came, which caused Aceen to become extremely worried. He instantly realized that his offer might have been too small.

"Five million gold?"

Aceen was once again surrounded by silence. He was starting to get anxious. How much could this guy want from him? Perhaps his entire wealth? Although he was somewhat unwilling to part with his family's entire fortune, it still wasn’t worth losing his life over. Gold could be earned back with time, but a life lost was gone forever.

"Fifteen million gold. That is the entire wealth of my family. I can’t give you any more."

"That is acceptable." This time, a reply came.

Aceen instantly felt a tremendous weight lift off his shoulders. It seemed he was going to get out of this alive.

"The gold is in my vault, which is in the basement. I'll take you there..."

Before he even finished his sentence, his head left his body, a somewhat relieved expression still on his face.

'Thank you for your donation.'

Wesley instantly canceled his Dark Globe and walked toward the wall. He then invoked his Dark Warp and reappeared inside a room ten feet away, where a bearded man was snoring. Wesley didn’t even bother waking him up; he simply swung his sword toward the man’s head and chopped it off.

'There is no easier death than dying in your sleep. You should be glad I feel too sleepy to play with you.'

Wesley then warped out of the room and reappeared in the next one, finding a similarly snoring man, only this one seemed a little younger than the first. Without even hesitating, Wesley chopped off his head the same way.

'What are the chances...'

Wesley briefly thought that maybe these people weren’t actual Shorn family members, so he went around a few more rooms in the manor. Aside from the servants' rooms, which were packed with maids and soldiers sleeping, the only people in the upper-level rooms were the four he had already killed. This eased his worries, and he proceeded to the basement where the vault was.

This basement was similar to the one in the Black Manor, only this one had a metal gate at about the halfway point and was very well-lit. The gate was about three feet thick, making it rather hard to break into without a key. Fortunately, Wesley didn’t need a key.

Wesley’s Dark Warp allowed him to bypass barriers and doors. Dark Warp was far more complicated than Dark Globe. It required nearly double the mana consumption and needed a lot of fine control. One would use their mana to form a tunnel of darkness between the shadows at two different points. The more mana spent, the longer the tunnel. However, one should not use all their mana, as doing so would cause the tunnel to collapse, trapping them in a material-less void.

Wesley warped into the vault and was surprised to find that the room was filled to the brim with neatly stacked gold. He was impressed by the wealth the Shorn family had accumulated, but he knew most of this wealth came from the blood and sweat of other people.

Wesley immediately stretched his right hand out, and dark shadow seeped from it like fog, covering all the stacks of gold. Dark Dimension was a basic storage spell used by most dark mages. Its mechanics were very similar to Dark Warp, but when materials were placed into the tunnel, the caster immediately withdrew their mana, collapsing the tunnel and keeping the materials suspended in the void. The items suspended in the void could be retrieved, but only by the original caster, making it impossible for dark mages to steal each other's treasures.

The stacks of gold in the vault immediately disappeared into the shadowy fog. With that done, Wesley walked to the furthest room of the vault and warped outside the manor. Since the basement spanned the whole length of the manor, including the back and front yards, the furthest walls were the outer border of the house.

Wesley found himself in an alley behind the Shorn Manor. He then warped away and reappeared in an alley five hundred feet away.

*'I should be careful not to be seen by anyone. I’d rather avoid people talking about seeing a shadowy figure near the place where a noble family was wiped out.'*

Wesley walked from alleyway to alleyway until he found himself outside of the Sixth District and into the Seventh District. He wouldn’t dare warp again, as his mana pool was nearly empty, so he had to stick to walking through the inconspicuous alleyways.

As Wesley was walking towards the Black Manor through the alleyways, as if making Michael's prophecy come true, three figures blocked his path. They were wearing dark hoods and had short swords in their hands.

"Give us everything on you, little one, or we'll take it off your dead body."

'Great. I would rather avoid killing near where I live since it’ll leave a trail.'

"I am in a good mood tonight, so I will let you live, as long as you move out of my way."

Wesley spoke in a cold, detached voice filled with indifference, as if he didn’t even feel threatened by these three armed men in front of him. The three men, hearing Wesley's words, felt odd. They knew the kid in front of them couldn’t be older than ten, but for him to speak with such confidence, he must have something up his sleeve. Still, the three men were unwilling to believe that such a child could do anything to them, so they looked at each other, nodded, and then swung their swords at Wesley all at once.

*Sigh... Now it can't be helped.`

Seeing the three short swords swing toward him, Wesley didn’t show a single strand of fear. He simply placed his hand on his hilt, and the moment the swords were half an inch away, he drew his sword while dodging forward. After half a breath, three headless bodies fell to the ground behind him.

To the inexperienced eye, it would look like Wesley just walked between the three men and suddenly his sword appeared in his hand as the three men lost their heads. In reality, however, Wesley had swung his sword three times, each swing bypassing the men's swords to strike their necks. This was Wesley’s Silent Counter.

Looking back at the three dead men who lay behind him, Wesley felt a little bitter. He knew that perhaps they resorted to crime out of necessity, but he also knew there were some people who commit crimes even when they have other options. He wasn’t kind enough to ask for their reasons, especially if they swung their blades at him. In the depths of his heart, he knew they wouldn't hesitate to kill, so why should he?

*Sigh. These idiots' bodies look similar to the ones I left back at the Shorn place. Anyone with half a brain would notice the similarity. Now I have to dirty my hands.`

Wesley began mutilating the three robbers' bodies. He didn’t want to leave similar corpses near his actual residence, so he had to make it look like these men were killed by a different method than the one used on the Shorn family.

Wesley resumed his walk towards the Black Manor. Fortunately, he didn’t meet any more robbers on the way and made it back to the manor without any further complications. The manor, which had been bustling with activity a short while ago, was now deathly quiet, without a single soul in sight.

*'It seems everyone is asleep.'*

Wesley walked through the front door and headed upstairs to change out of his bloodstained clothes and get some sleep. When he reached the upstairs, he was surprised to find Lane sitting in front of his room, asleep.

'This Lane is really diligent. I wonder if he was waiting for some news.'

"Lane. Hey, Lane. Wake up."

Wesley called out to Lane while patting his shoulder. Lane groggily opened his eyes, and upon seeing Wesley, his eyes immediately sharpened, and he stood up with haste.

"Master."

"Haha, you should go get some sleep, Lane. You look tired."

Lane hesitated, and his lips quivered as if he wanted to say something. However, after noticing the blood all over Wesley’s clothes, he realized what had happened. A faint smile crept onto his face as he spoke:

"Yes, Master. And thank you."

"Yes, yes. Now go."

Wesley patted Lane on the shoulder as he walked past him and into his room. He then took off his bloodied clothes and stored them in his Dark Dimension to be disposed of later.

'This has been a fruitful day.'

Wesley decided to get some short sleep before heading to the basement to refine his mana. After all, he had spent quite a lot of it.