“W—What?
You’re still alive?” Malphas shrieked, scrambling back until he tripped over his bed.
“Y—you should be dead!
The Order Break!”
Soren stared at Malphas’s trembling form and scoffed, taking a step forward.
Malphas had the audacity to be scared when he was one of the many causes of Soren getting pulled into the Abyss.
He should’ve been prepared to face the consequences if he was going to pull one off on Soren.
“I was supposed to be… until I clawed my way out of death,” Soren said, his voice devoid of warmth or mercy.
He didn’t draw the Dream Sword that weighed heavily in his cloak.
No, he didn’t need to.
He simply took another slow step forward, the floorboards creaking beneath his weight.
With every inch he closed, the more terrified Malphas became as he begged for forgiveness.
“Soren, wait!
Listen to me!” Malphas begged, his back to the wall as his trembling arm held the knife forward.
“It wasn’t a setup!
I swear by the Angels I didn’t know!”
“You swore this was an easy job,” Soren said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
“You gave us intel that was completely wrong.
The guard was waiting for us.”
“I—I swear I didn’t know!” Malphas cried out, tears welling up behind his thick glasses.
“I got the intel from another scavenger!
He told me that it was an easy mark!
How could I have known someone was going to assassinate the Divine Emperor?!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Soren replied, a step away from the bed and towering over the trembling man.
“Equivalent retribution, Malphas.
You know the way of the scavengers.
Your actions cost Shindo his freedom and likely his life, and nearly cost me my life.”
Without warning, Malphas’s left hand flicked upwards.
Soren narrowed his eyes at the unusual movement before he instinctively tilted his head to the side as a hidden blade sliced his left cheek and drew blood.
Blood trickled down Soren’s cheek, but his expression didn’t shift.
The dagger landed with a clang on the floor as it missed Soren’s head.
He stared at Malphas’s left hand, outstretched, before he looked straight at Malphas who was trembling even more.
With a desperate scream, Malphas jumped out of his bed and brought the trembling knife in his right hand to Soren’s neck.
“DIE!”
Soren grabbed the offending arm and squeezed, hearing a satisfying crack as the arm bent in an unnatural angle.
“AAGH!” Malphas cried, dropping the knife as the tears poured from his eyes from the fright and pain.
Ignoring the cry, Soren’s other hand shot forward with blinding speed and gripped Malphas by the throat.
In a fluid motion, he grabbed the falling knife with the hand he used to break Malphas’s arm and used the back of the knife to strike Malphas in the gut.
At the same time, Soren lifted Malphas up and threw him across and out of the room.
Malphas flailed wildly before he landed with a cry, desperately gasping for air.
Soren walked over, the cold rage swelling as he touched the cut on his cheek and noticing blood.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Soren murmured, looming over Malphas’s bruised body.
“I told you… equal retribution.”
He kicked Malphas’s groaning body over the wooden railing.
The body fell a full story and into the main floor filled with partying scavengers.
Malphas’s body landed with a thud, crashing and breaking the table below him.
The tavern floor fell dead silent as Malphas writhed on the ruined table, clutching his broken bones with a hysterical whimper.
The present scavengers stared at the groaning rat on the floor before they slowly looked up towards the middle floor.
Soren stood at the edge, his expressionless face, illuminated by the pale yellow lights, staring down at Malphas’s broken body.
Without a word, Soren vaulted over the broken wooden railing, dropping a story and landed on the floor with a heavy thud that shook the ground.
Several scavengers instinctively backed away, pulling their belongings with them as they stared at Soren with a mixture of fear and respect.
The atmosphere in the hall grew thick and suffocating as the presence of an Awakened threatened to choke those who got in Soren’s way.
“P—Please…” Malphas sobbed, coughing up blood onto the floorboards.
“L—let me live…”
Soren walked towards him with deliberate steps—each footstep echoing like a death knell in the silent hall.
“Which scavenger,” Soren whispered, Malphas flinching at the cold tone.
“Which scavenger gave you the intel?”
“It—it was… It wasn’t a scavenger,” he cried out, weakly flipping to his stomach and prostrating himself before the demon in front of him.
“It was… a Syndicate member.”
Soren froze, his boot hovering mid-step as he processed what Malphas said.
A Syndicate member.
A sharp chill cut through his veins, thawing the cold rage into a creeping dread.
He whipped his head around, eyes darting frantically across the room, scanning every unfamiliar face.
The Syndicate was a rising powerhouse that was established recently.
They were a ruthless plague and seized power through force—a group that had countless Ascenders within their ranks.
Not even the Scavengers could stop their uprising, forced to the backlines like many other groups as they watched helplessly as the Syndicate took over much of the Undercity.
Nobody knew where they came from, but many whispered that they came from the Outer Continents—beyond the black, starry border that cut off the ocean.
Their unusual camaraderie and ghastly powers certainly made the rumors easy to believe.
“Soren…” a booming voice called out above, snapping him out of his downward spiral.
He looked up, straining his neck to see a silhouette of a man at the very top of the Scavenger Headquarters.
He watched as the silhouette jumped the railing and fell, landing with a crash in front of Soren and cutting him off from Malphas.
He heard the broken body behind the figure sigh out in relief.
“I see you’ve grown,” the figure said, the dust masking his features but Soren already knew who the man was.
It was a Great Scavenger.
“Scrappy,” Soren muttered softly.
The dust cleared to reveal an ironically huge, muscular man with abnormally bulging muscles and a bald head.
Scrappy got up from his crouched position and looked at Soren with arms crossed, an amused grin on his face.
“Soren,” the man greeted back, cockily.
“You can’t go around killing fellow scavengers like that!
I know we don’t necessarily follow laws and ethics but c’mon my man!
Lighten up!”
“He killed Shindo and nearly killed me,” Soren replied, remembering how Shindo was trapped in the Abyss—essentially dead.
“By The Divinity, he knowingly sold me out to the Angeldamned Syndicate!
You always believed in equal retribution, right?
Well, I was trapped in the Abyss.”
Scrappy’s smile dimmed before a thoughtful expression replaced it, looking at Soren.
“They wanted you and Shindo?” Scrappy questioned, moving forward to inspect Soren closer.
“Why?
What do you guys have that is valuable enough that they would plan a trap for you?”
Soren took a wary step back, aware of the strength of Scrappy.
He was one of the boss’s right-hand men and that meant that he was a Great Scavenger—probably as long as Soren has been alive.
Being a Great Scavenger meant that he was both experienced and an Awakened.
“I’m an Awakened now, Scrappy,” Soren warned, sending a pulse of his aura around.
The aura fueled by fury made many scavengers shrink away, but Scrappy merely stared at him.
Scrappy’s face finally turned serious as he looked—seriously looked—at Soren with calculating eyes.
Scrappy finally realized the jaded personality, hardened face, and white hair that replaced the timid Soren from before.
“I see,” Scrappy said, his tone muted.
“Surrender yourself to us and we can protect you from the Syndicate.
They want something from you and we can stop them.”
Soren scoffed, his mood plummeting.
His fingers brushed against the hilt of the Dream Sword inside his cloak as he took measured steps back, away from Scrappy.
He could tell Scrappy was intrigued on what the Syndicate wanted from Soren.
Scavengers were a selfish bunch and he didn’t doubt for a single moment that if Scrappy found something useful from him, Scrappy would steal it and possibly kill him.
“C’mon, Soren,” Scrappy said darkly, spreading his arms wide.
“I swear by the damn Angels that I’ll keep you safe.”
Soren grit his teeth, letting out a sharp breath, and threw himself backwards away from the dreadful Great Scavenger.
If the cretin swore by the Angels then Soren knew he was lying—the infamous tell when Scrappy spat out a lie.
“Scavengers!
Get him!” Scrappy roared, his voice booming like thunder through the hall.
“Whoever captures or kills him gets that neat Abyssal Sword I can tell he’s hiding.”
Greed flared instantly across the room, drowning out their fear of a freshly Awakened.
Dozens of men drew rusted blades, notched heaven crossbows, and raised heavy clubs, rushing in like starving hounds.
A couple of scavengers moved to block Soren’s exit through the doorway but he simply slipped past them, using his heightened body to the limits.
Dozens of bolts flew towards Soren.
Noticing this, Soren grit his teeth and pulled out the Dream Sword from his sheathe and transformed the lithe longsword into a heavy broadsword, blocking his body from the rain of arrows.
Transforming the Dream Sword swallowed a decent portion of his entropy reserves that he unlocked since breaking the Order of Awakening.
However, some of the dreadful drain was mitigated by some of the entropy being pulled from the white stone—no, the Order Essence.
The steel tips bounced off the shield-like sword and buried themselves into the wooden support beams and floor behind him with dull thuds.
Before he could recover his footing, a hulking scavenger wielding a spiked iron mace lunged from the side of Soren with a guttural roar.
Soren crouched low beneath the swing, slipping inside the man’s clumsy guard and struck the brute’s chest with a heavy palm.
The impact struck with an explosive force, shattering the attacker’s cheap breastplate and sending him flying into the other scavengers charging at him.
Soren panted, feeling the drain of his reserves from the physical exertion and entropy draining.
The rest of the scavengers didn’t allow him to rest for much longer, charging at him all at once after catching a glimpse of what the Dream Sword could do.
Unlucky for those bastards, the Dream Sword was soulbound to Soren.
“Don’t let him get away!” someone cried out.
Soren breathed out, clearing his head, and pushed off the floor.
He shot towards the doorway, every fiber of muscle in his legs straining to get him away from this dreadful place.
Before he could cross the doorway, a sudden crack echoed over the clamoring crowd.
He felt a sharp tingle within his core, sending every hair on his body up, and ducked.
A massive fist, wrapped in dense pressure came crashing above where his head would be and crashed into the doorframe.
The blast wave threw Soren off balance, sending him tumbling across the floor until he hit the walls next to the doorway with a dull thud.
Dust and shattered rock rained over his tattered cloak until it cleared, revealing a gigantic frame hunched over a shattered wall that exposed the Scavenger Headquarters to the outside world.
“You’ve grown, kid,” Scrappy growled, stepping out of the rubble while bulging muscles swelled even larger.
“But you’re still a greenhorn when it comes to fighting like an Awakened.”
Before Soren could push himself up, Scrappy eyes glowed yellow before he vanished from his spot.
The ground beneath the giant cracked from the sheer force of the launch.
He reappeared in front of Soren, a massive fist rippling with pressure drove forward like a siege ram, slamming into Soren.
Soren grit his teeth and brought the heavy broadsword up and braced himself as he resigned himself to his painful fate.
The blow connected, sending Soren flying through the crumbling wall and to the cavernous streets of the Undercity.
Soren tumbled across the stone pavement, coming to a halt after crashing into a street stall.
Soren coughed as he felt every bone and muscle in his body ache from the impact.
However, the combination of his enhanced body and the Dream Sword taking the brunt of the punch allowed him to remain conscious without anything broken.
Passersby in the streets gasped, walking towards the devastation before pulling away in panic as a dangerous pulse of Scrappy’s Awakened aura scared them away.
“You should’ve just taken my deal,” a voice boomed through the shattered breach.
Scrappy walked out of the clearing dust and into the dim streetlights, walking towards Soren with a menacing glint in his eyes.
“Now you’ve made a scene and the Syndicate most likely knows about our little… scuffle.”
Soren struggled to get up, his entire body protesting.
However, he forced his hurting body up as fury and adrenaline coursed through his body.
He spit out a glob of spit and blood, holding out the heavy broadsword out in front of him with steady hands.
He couldn’t outrun Scrappy so he had to fight him right there, using what he gained in his journey travelling the Abyss.
“Scum,” Soren hissed, raising a hand and beckoning Scrappy forward.
“Come on then.
Force me.
Hiding behind a horde of weaklings to land a surprise attack is… pathetic.”
Scrappy’s face darkened, his cocky grin vanishing completely as he locked eyes with Soren, walking closer to Soren.
Deep inside his core, a strange, profound warmth ignited once more—the same warmth he felt when the Abyssal Titan descended and when Scrappy launched the surprise attack.
“I was going to let you live, Soren,” Scrappy said, pulling his arm back and muscles rippling.
“But you called me a coward.
So pay with your life.”
Scrappy struck forward, his arm blurring with the power and speed being released from his muscles.
Soren closed his eyes and breathed out, letting the warmth in his core flood his body.
He snapped his eyes open, letting the warmth flooding his body pour out into the world.
A blinding white light expelled from his body and casting a flat circle of white, radiant energy around him.
The moment the light engulfed Soren, he felt a rush of strength and energy flood him.
The shouting onlookers froze mid-gasp, the shouting from the scavengers behind Scrappy paused, and Scrappy—whose incoming punch had been moving as fast as a cannonball—slowed down to an agonizing crawl.
Soren stared at the near-frozen scene before a stunned smile cut through his blood-stained face.
His chest burned with immense strain as something alien in his core drained rapidly to sustain the scene before him, but he ignored the agony.
He casually stepped out of the path of Scrappy’s crawling fist and walked to the side of the giant.
He looked into Scrappy’s focused yet motionless eyes which were still locked on the spot where Soren had stood moments before.
“You poor bastard,” he whispered softly, raising the heavy Dream Sword high above his head with a threatening glint in his eyes.
“I’ve encountered something infinitely more perilous than you.
What makes you think you can kill me?”
He brought the Dream Sword down.