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Chapter 46: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
🕑 Added 2025-06-30 13:53:13 +0000 UTC"Regent Jin!"
Blake Whitmore's roar shattered the office windows as he vanished in a blur of motion. The air itself seemed to tear apart where he had stood. In the next heartbeat, he materialized high above the city's skyline, his body crackling with raw power as he faced the epicenter of the sinister energy that had been gnawing at his senses.
The figure waiting for him was a nightmare given form. Regent Jin stood like a vulture perched over carrion, his ancient face carved from malice and shadow. Beside him, a younger figure clutched a golden scale that pulsed with otherworldly light. The youth's winged hat and boots marked him as the wielder of the Master-level [Hermes, the God of Commerce] card—the very source of Regent Jin's dreaded moniker: "The Ghost Scale."
Blood-red card materials cascaded onto the golden scale like drops of liquid sin. Each one that touched the metal surface sent a whisper of dark bargains through the air, and with every whisper, the malevolent aura choking New Metro grew thicker, more suffocating.
"Regent Jin! You knew your plan was discovered?!" Blake's voice cut through the air like a blade. The fury burning in his chest was ice-cold now, crystallizing into deadly focus. The pieces of their shattered operation fell into place with sickening clarity.
"Hehehe," Regent Jin's laugh was like glass grinding against bone. "If my man Five hadn't been there to handle those street rats, I'm afraid you would have kept your precious little secret intact."
Brother Tiger. The operative Jonathan had released. Blake's jaw clenched as he realized the trap they'd walked into. They could have eliminated him, but that would have sent alarm bells screaming through the Spirit Begging Society's ranks. They'd been forced to choose between acceleration and dormancy—and now they were paying the price.
Behind Blake, shadows began to writhe and coalesce. The darkness took shape, forming into a towering figure draped in crimson robes, its face hidden beneath a hood that seemed to devour light itself. The Red-Robed Judge had arrived.
"Then you will not be leaving here today." Each word dropped from Blake's lips like a death sentence.
Regent Jin's smile was a razor's edge. "If you think you can stop me, then by all means, try." He had only one purpose here: to chain Blake Whitmore in place while chaos consumed the Federation's heart. Every scream, every drop of blood spilled in New Metro's streets would serve his masters' hunger.
Back in the office, Russell's heart hammered against his ribs as he watched the Red-Robed Judge's imposing form. The Master Cardmaker hadn't abandoned them. They still had a chance.
Valerius's face had gone white as bone, his hands trembling as he waved frantically at the students. "Get out! All of you, get out now!"
The students stood frozen, their minds struggling to process the horror that had just unfolded. Golden Talent Credit—a front for the Spirit Begging Society. The contracts they'd almost signed. The fate they'd narrowly escaped.
Then a new voice slithered through the office like poison in their veins.
"Valerius," it hissed, each syllable dripping with malevolent promise. "You wanted to become diamond-level, did you not? Allow me to give you a helping hand, hehehe."
The Red-Robed Judge's cold snort shattered the spiritual pressure that had frozen the students in place. But their relief lasted only seconds before their eyes locked onto Valerius, and horror replaced every other emotion.
"AHHHHH!!!" Valerius's scream tore through the office like a siren of the damned. "This is it! This is Diamond-level power!" His voice cracked, becoming something inhuman. "I HATE YOU! BLAKE WHITMORE! REGENT JIN! MAY YOU ALL DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH!"
His body began to tear itself apart. Muscles bulged and split, skin stretched beyond its limits, bones elongated with sickening cracks. What emerged was no dragon—it was an abomination. A writhing mass of scarlet flesh and exposed sinew, pulsing with veins like crimson lightning. The creature that had once been Valerius opened a maw lined with rows of jagged teeth and released a sound that shook the building's foundations.
ROOOOAR!!!
The skyscraper's windows exploded outward in a shower of deadly shards. The flesh-dragon's massive bulk smashed through support beams like they were toothpicks. The building groaned and began its death throes.
"Why are you still standing there!? RUN!" Russell's voice cut through their paralysis.
Glass and concrete rained down like a deadly blizzard. The streets below erupted in screams as debris crushed cars and sent pedestrians diving for cover. The elevators were death traps now—their only escape was the fire stairs, thirty-three floors of crumbling hell.
The building shuddered with each impact from the thrashing monster above. Russell's mind raced through options as they fled down the stairwell. Then inspiration struck.
"Listen to me!" he shouted over the chaos. "I have a flying mount that can take us all down!"
The terrified students turned to him like drowning men seeing a life preserver. "We're counting on you, Russell " one screamed. "Russell, if we get out of this, I'll never forget what you did for us!" another added, his voice breaking with emotion.
They reached the 29th floor, and Russell was the first to slam his shoulder against the fire door. It gave way with a metallic shriek, and he stumbled into the office space beyond.
What he saw there burned itself into his memory like a brand.
The office was a charnel house. Flesh demons prowled between the cubicles, their forms grotesquely twisted parodies of humanity. Tattered office uniforms clung to their mutated bodies—the remains of Golden Talent Credit's employees. Some still wore their name tags, their faces now unrecognizable masses of teeth and eyes.
"The Spirit Begging Society!" Russell's voice was a growl of pure hatred.
"What is it, Russell? What's in there?" The voice came from behind him, but Russell didn't answer. He simply stepped aside, letting them see for themselves.
The collective gasp that followed was like air being sucked from the room. These were brilliant minds—they connected the dots instantly. The contracts. Valerius's transformation. These monsters. The fate that had awaited them all.
"If we had signed that contract..." one whispered, his face the color of ash.
"Yeah... what a pity for these ordinary people." The words carried the weight of survivors' guilt.
But grief was a luxury they couldn't afford. Russell's cards materialized in flashes of light. Luffy's rubber fists stretched and hammered through demon skulls. Kaneki's kagune sliced through flesh like crimson whips of death. Yoriichi's blade became a streak of solar fire, cutting down everything in its path.
The demons barely had time to register the threat before they were obliterated. Gore splattered the walls as the three cards carved through the office like a hurricane of destruction.
Cole Kong stared at Kaneki in awe, watching the ghoul's kagune tear through enemies with surgical precision. Russell is a monster, he thought, a mix of fear and admiration coursing through him.
Kaneki's kagune shattered the floor-to-ceiling window in a shower of glass shards, opening their path to the outside world. Wind howled through the opening, carrying with it the sounds of chaos from the streets below.
Russell summoned Pidgeot, the massive bird's wings beating powerfully as it hovered outside the broken window. He turned to the others, his expression grim but determined.
"You all go down first. I'll stay here and come down last."
The words hit them like a physical blow. They had expected him to save himself first—it was his card, his right. But Russell was choosing to be the last one out, to face whatever danger remained.
"Russell..." someone started, but Russell's sharp command cut him off.
"What are you still waiting for!? Go!"
One by one, Pidgeot ferried the students down to safety. Each trip felt like an eternity to Russell, alone in the demon-slicked office with the building dying around him. Finally, only he remained.
Looking at the carnage-strewn office, he allowed himself a moment of relief. "Good. Nothing went wrong."
The words had barely left his lips when the ceiling exploded.
BOOM!
A massive scarlet form crashed through the concrete and steel like a meteor of flesh and fury. Dust and debris filled the air as the creature landed in a heap of rubble directly in front of Russell. As the smoke cleared, the monster's true form was revealed.
"Hehe... eat... eat... eat..." The breathing was wet and heavy, each exhale accompanied by strings of viscous saliva. A secondary mouth gaped in the center of its bloated abdomen, lined with rows of shark-like teeth that gnashed hungrily.
The expensive suit clinging to the creature's mutated flesh was the only clue to its former identity. Russell's blood turned to ice as recognition dawned.
"Mr. Sterling."
The words came out as a horrified whisper. As expected, no one from Golden Talent Credit could escape the Society's hunger.
The creature that had been Sterling lunged forward with surprising speed, its massive claws raking through the air where Russell had been standing a split second before. The battle for survival had only just begun.
(End of this chapter)
Comments
Raphael Espinoza Angulo
A great shame
