De'Volk's grin twitched as he studied Bara's face, then flicked his gaze to Malik—still silent, still smoldering with barely-contained destruction. The knife in his hand stopped spinning.
"You think this little performance scares me?" De'Volk asked, voice low but steady. "I've seen monsters. You're just kids playing in shadows you don't understand."
Bara tilted his head, amused. "Says the man two seconds away from pissing himself in silk pants."
Malik took one step forward. Just one. But the lights above flickered. The cursed aura that radiated from his body coiled tighter, as if something old and angry was waking up.
De'Volk stood now, slowly, deliberately. The air around him shifted as he activated a sigil ring on his finger—pulsing faintly with a green rune. From behind the throne, a safe embedded in the wall hissed open, revealing a strange floating orb—pale green, crackling with inner lightning.
Bara raised a brow. "A cursed focus?"
"Modified," De'Volk said. "Synthetic. Experimental. Bought it off a foreigner with no tongue and three eyes. Cost me a fortune."
"And here I thought we were the weirdos," Bara muttered.
De'Volk grabbed the orb and slammed it into his chest.
The reaction was immediate. Veins of sickly green light spread under his skin. His muscles swelled, bones cracking as his body expanded, reshaped. The once-arrogant crime lord now hunched, chest heaving, skin turning ashen and scaled. Eyes turned completely black, mouth distorting into something jagged and inhuman.
When he spoke, it was like two voices overlapping.
"You came for money," the creature rasped, "but all you'll get is pain."
Bara sighed, stepping back and brushing dust off his shoulder. "Malik?"
Malik didn't wait.
The floor cracked as he dashed forward—a blur of motion. He leapt, fist cocked back, cursed energy spiraling around his arm like a vortex. De'Volk met him mid-air, claws swinging. Their clash sent a shockwave through the room, blowing out hookah embers and ripping velvet drapes from the walls.
De'Volk roared and spun, tail lashing out—yes, a literal spined tail had emerged from his lower back. Malik ducked under it and rolled, touching the marble floor. It reshaped beneath his hand, cursed energy turning it into a jagged platform. He kicked off it and launched upward, spear in hand.
The monster swiped again, catching Malik mid-air and hurling him into a pillar, cracking it in half.
Malik emerged a second later, blood trickling from his lip—but his grin was feral now.
"That all you got?"
He touched the broken chain hanging from a light fixture, and in an instant it morphed—curling into a segmented, cursed flail that pulsed like a living creature. He swung it hard, wrapping it around De'Volk's arm. With a yank, he pulled the beast forward and drove a knee straight into its face.
Bone snapped.
The orb pulsed in De'Volk's chest—he regenerated almost instantly, snarling.
Bara, leaning against a cracked pillar, watched the battle like it was a sport.
"That's new," he said, squinting at the orb. "It's keeping him alive. Target the core."
Malik nodded once.
The air got heavier. Darker.
Malik's body began to glow faintly—his cursed essence thickening, bleeding out of him like smoke from a wildfire. Every step he took left the ground blackened. He touched the flail again—and it grew. Longer, heavier, the heads now spiked with jagged runes.
De'Volk roared again, tail striking like a whip, claws flashing.
But Malik was faster now.
He weaved through the attacks, slammed the flail across the beast's face, spun, and plunged the cursed spear he'd reshaped earlier into De'Volk's stomach. Not deep enough to kill—but enough to stagger.
"Now," Bara shouted.
Malik surged forward, ripped the spear out, and with his other hand—open-palmed—he grabbed the orb embedded in De'Volk's chest.
Cursed essence coiled into his fingers.
The orb screamed. Literally. As if alive.
It cracked.
Then—
Boom.
A burst of green and black energy exploded outward—knocking everyone in the room off their feet. Smoke. Screaming metal. Splinters of power.
When the dust cleared…
De'Volk lay crumpled on the ground, his body reverting slowly to its human shape. Naked, shivering, unconscious. The orb was gone—vaporized in Malik's hand.
He dropped what was left—just ash—and walked over to Bara.
"Money's in the vault," he said quietly, voice rough. "Back wall."
Bara gave a low whistle, then strolled over to the now-exposed vault and peeked inside. Gold chips. Mana credits. Data crystals. A few exotic vials with glowing liquids. Jackpot.
He pulled out a small pouch from his pocket which sucked in everything in the vault clean.
"Payment received."
Then he turned to Malik, slinging the pouch over his shoulder.
"You good?"
Malik nodded once.
"And him?" Bara gestured to De'Volk.
Malik glanced down. "Let him crawl. Word will spread faster that way."
"Ah, poetic justice." Bara chuckled. "Remind me to buy you lunch."
Malik tilted his head. "You owe me breakfast first."
They turned and walked out, stepping over bodies and broken dreams like it was just another Tuesday.
Behind them, silence reigned.
Until one girl, still hiding behind a broken couch, whispered:
"…Who are they?"
A second girl, shivering, replied:
"They're not heroes."
"No," the first agreed, eyes wide with awe. "They're something worse."
De'Volk's smile faltered slightly as the cursed aura thickened, pressing into the room like a weight. Malik's silent presence behind Bara was more than just intimidation—it was a death sentence waiting to be signed.
The girls around the room froze, some quietly slipping out through back exits. Even the thickest of De'Volk's guards hesitated. You didn't stare down cursed eyes like Malik's and come out the same.
De'Volk's fingers stopped spinning the knife.
His voice dropped lower, oozing smugness but hiding a flicker of fear.
"You came all this way for a few thousand silvers? You're either desperate... or stupid."
Bara's grin widened, dangerous and electric.
"Oh, we're not here for the money anymore."
He pressed his foot harder into the cushion between De'Volk's legs.
"We're here for the message."
Malik moved—one step forward, and the temperature in the room dropped. The cursed dagger in his hand hummed, vibrating like a caged beast.
De'Volk leaned back slightly. His act was cracking.
"You touch me, and you'll bring the whole Crimson Chain down on you."
"That's cute," Bara said, voice a little too soft now. "Let me tell you a secret, Volk…"
He bent closer—his voice practically a whisper now, breath brushing the man's ear.
"We're already at war with worse than your little circus. The only reason your lungs still work is because I like the sound of you begging."
Malik raised the dagger.
De'Volk snapped.
"FINE!"
He shoved Bara's leg away and stood abruptly, breathing heavily now.
"The vault's behind the painting. Third tile, left side. The codes are embedded in the lion statue's mouth."
Malik didn't even blink. He stepped aside as Bara sauntered over to the velvet painting—an obscene image of De'Volk in his youth, half-naked on a throne of women.
"Disgusting," Bara muttered, yanking the frame off the wall and tossing it aside like trash.
He tapped the third tile.
A low click.
The wall parted slightly with a hiss of steam.
"Malik," Bara called, flicking the ash off a cigar he'd somehow lit. "Would you be a dear?"
Malik stepped forward, brushing his hand along the lion statue's fanged mouth. A pulse of cursed energy flowed through it—and the lock clicked open. A hidden compartment shifted, revealing a reinforced metal vault with biometric runes and mana-sealed locks.
He touched the surface.
In seconds, the cursed essence from his fingertips slithered through the enchantments like acid through silk. The runes fizzled out, and the vault door creaked open.
Inside?
Stacks of silver notes, rare gems, mana vials, and rows of data drives—all black-market records. Enough dirt to bury half the city's underworld.
Bara gave a long whistle.
"Oh, you've been very naughty, Volk."
"I gave you what you came for," De'Volk hissed, his bravado cracking. "Now get the hell out."
But Malik didn't move. He turned slightly, face calm—but his hand was still glowing.
Bara raised a brow.
"Malik?"
Malik's voice was quiet. Final.
"He trafficked kids."
The air stopped.
De'Volk's face twitched. "You have no proof—"
"You branded them," Malik said flatly, eyes burning crimson now. "We found one. Her back still bears your sigil."
Bara's face lost its usual humor.
"You know," he said, stepping closer again, voice flat now. "I was going to let you keep your spine."
De'Volk reached for a hidden blade.
Malik moved before it even left the sheath.
One cursed strike to the arm—bone snapped. Another to the knee—ligaments torn. And then, a slow, deliberate shove backward. De'Volk collapsed into his chair, coughing and sputtering, his limbs twitching under the curse's slow invasion.
"Do you want to live, Volk?" Bara asked coldly.
The man nodded frantically, his ego completely shredded.
"Then you'll do exactly as we say. Every transaction. Every name. Every sick bastard you've sold a child to—"
He leaned closer.
"—you'll hand them over."
De'Volk could only whimper.
Malik stood silently behind Bara, the shadows still writhing around his feet.
Bara turned to go. "Oh. And clean this place up."
He gestured to the unconscious guards and cursed wreckage.
"Next time we come by, I want scented candles and jazz music."
They walked out—casually, as if they hadn't just dismantled a criminal empire in a single evening.
The night swallowed them whole.
And behind them, De'Volk screamed.