Chapter 69: Do You Dare?

“Kill him.”

Zorak nodded. He had kind of expected this. It was the most logical decision she could have taken to get out of her current crisis.

With him dead, the people who were after him were going to halt their pursuit as their target was non-existent. This meant they would not trace his movements down, thereby leaving Zuri out of the equation.

And this was the perfect opportunity to get rid of him.

He was weaker than Zorak. He was wounded and had lost his mind to rage, which meant he could not take logical decisions such as running away.

Zorak entered a combat stance, his expression serious.

He had determined that the dead Zack was an Adept. He could not tell what had happened, however Makun had dealt with him.

Zorak knew he was stronger, but that did not mean he would overlook Makun.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

He charged at Makun, his heavy physique leaving stomps on the ground as he charged his golden brass knuckle with Ashe ready to deal with Makun.

WHOOSH!

His fist cut through the air in a blur of condensed Ashe and raw physical power. The brass knuckle gleamed under the dim streetlight, each ridge carved with intricate patterns that enhanced impact. Zorak was not holding back. He had read about what a cornered berserk could do.

Makun’s glowing eyes locked onto the oncoming strike but he had difficulties following it. Zorak operated at a level higher than his.

That did not stop Makun from following his berserk instincts. He twisted his torso, his feet sliding across the crack pavement and swooosh!

Zorak fist sailed past his head, missing only by inches. However, the wind from the punch alone made Makun’s hair whip backward, while he staggered a couple steps.

Zorak did not stop. He pivoted mid-charge, his other fist already swinging upward in a brutal uppercut aimed at Makun’s ribs. This time, Makun could not dodge.

The brass knuckle connected with a sickening CRACK, and Makun’s body took the brunt of it, air exploding from his lungs as he was lifted off the ground and sent flying backward accross the alley hitting an old building who had no one living in it.

Makun lay on the cold pavement, his body broken beyond recognition.

His face was deformed from Zack’s earlier onslaught, swollen and bruised, barely resembling the twenty-three-year-old man he had been hours ago. His right jaw was cracked from Zack’s last attack, the one he had allowed to connect in order to grab Zack’s wrist.

His left jaw was shattered from Zorak’s palm strike when he had lunged for Elias. His intestines were twisted. His stomach was torn open from Zorak’s brass knuckle, blood pooling beneath him in a dark, wet stain.

Any normal Initiate practitioner would have died by now. Elias still had not woken up, and Zack had gone light on him. But Makun was still breathing. Barely. If not for the excess Ashe flooding his body, if not for his bigger-than-normal Route Core, he would have already died.

He lay there on the floor next to the building he had crashed into, the last bit of consciousness fading away. He could feel the chains tightening on his spirit body, as if he could not keep up the fight with them anymore. They were not being destroyed and rebuilt anymore.

They tightened in such a way that all of the excess Ashe that had poured into his body was being constricted. The crack that had formed earlier, the breach to the Deep, was slowly closing as the resonance between Makun and it was lost.

Makun regained his consciousness at the edge of losing it. His burning eyes slowly turned back to brown. The excess chaotic spiritual energy slowly settled back.

Is this the end?

All of this was a result of the accumulated injuries he had ignored as a berserk, and one clean punch from an Adept who was fully active, unlike Zack.

He lost consciousness as his eyes closed.

On the side next to Elias, to which she had rushed, Zuri looked at the fight bewildered.

He should not have been able to dodge that first punch, she thought.

Zorak was an Adept, and five days ago Makun had no idea about mysticism. How could he even move under the pressure of someone like Zorak? Let alone the fact that he normally should not be able to move at all, he was wounded, broken and barely clinging to consciousness, yet he had dodged. Twisted his body at the last second. Reacted on pure instinct.

It made no sense.

Zuri had seen Zorak fight before. She had seen him put down rogue Initiates with a single strike. She had seen him break through hardened defenses like they were paper. And yet Makun, a five-day-old mystic who should have been dead three times over, had moved.

It wasn’t any extravagant movement or fast reaction, No, It was a normal movement that was enough for him to avoid the killing blow.

What are you? she thought, staring at Makun’s crumpled form. What did the Deep do to you?

She did not want to know nor did she want be involved. She had told him to leave never to bother her again. And yet here he was, dragging death and chaos into her life again.

Zuri quietly prayed for this to be over.

Zorak slowly moved toward Makun. It was done. The berserk energy had subsided, and now Makun lay there defenseless.

What an irony, he thought.

Earlier, Makun was the one who had moved in such a fashion toward Elias. Now it was Zorak moving toward him. To show that this world they were in was dictated by the strong, and Zorak had been stronger.

Zorak looked at Makun, his expression calm and devoid of mercy. He had no ill feelings toward this boy. In fact, he did not even know this boy. However, they had different interests.

He had to be executed.

He raised his fist, ready to execute the unconscious Makun.

However, as soon as his fist was raised—

BOOM!

A pressure unlike any other descended on Zorak, who struggled to stay up, while Zuri had fallen to her knees, with a convulsing Elias next to her. They heard a voice, calm but full of anger.

“Do you dare?”

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