(A/N: Long chapter ahead ~2.8k words so buckle your seats and get ready)
A calm voice echoed through the brewing snowstorm, as if a Calamity had awakened on Earth, threatening to annihilate the very existence of the human race.
"Open."
Shik-shik.
Silence. A moment of silence. As if the world was on pause. Time stopped? Of course not.
"Fire."
BANG, BANG, BANGBANGBANG!
Gunfire shattered the night.
CKRSHSH!
Shattered glass fell everywhere, the bulletproof vehicle groaning and collapsing under the intense firepower, giving not a moment of time for argument.
PEW!
A bullet went off course and grazed Vladimir's left ear, drawing blood, narrowly missing an inch of his life.
'SHIT!'
Vladimir cursed with narrowed eyes, tossing his rifle down into the SUV. No room to aim properly here. He ripped out his Colt 1911 from his belt, ducked as low as he could manage, and violently yanked Xin down with him to shield him, as if his life depended on it.
But Xin didn't flinch at the overwhelming force. Staring at the soldiers surrounding them, he calmly raised his hand, then clenched it into a fist, as if the world burning apart had nothing at all to do with him.
Vladimir bit his tongue in anger at his boss's orders. He knew better than to interfere when Xin got those eyes.
But his eyes hadn't changed... So why did Vladimir still hesitate?
At the sudden unexpected question that had materialized in his mind, Vladimir raised an eyebrow in confusion, only to shake his head and slap his face to bring himself back to reality.
He looked back to the current situation with a grave expression painted across his face, weighing the consequences and losses they would suffer if this went on.
It was by no means a time to freely joke.
Meanwhile, Xin's mind raced: angles, weapon placements, exits. Coldly calculating, he grabbed his knife case, pulling free the Microtech Jagdkommando. No time to admire it.
"Everyone, out of the car! Five... four... three..." a soldier barked the countdown, folding each finger down with deliberate slowness, as if savoring and sneering at the time they would need to snuff the lives out of them.
Xin didn't waste a second. He brought the knife by his right eye with not a hint of fear, his hands firm, not betraying an ounce of trembling. Vladimir, realizing too late what he was up to, reached to stop him—
Splurt!
Xin jammed the blade into his own eye without hesitation, piercing the pupil until the blade pierced the white as well. Blood poured from his right eye, as if his eyes themselves were an alluring, beautiful, and artistic canvas.
There was no pause. No scream. He carved vicious slashes down his cheeks, thighs, arms—tearing skin, shredding his shirt, painting himself in blood, as if he had awoken from between the dead.
However, a scene flickered in his mind for a fragment of a second of a certain man with a lab coat, laughing like a madman.
He flinched, before composing himself.
Five seconds. That's all he needed to change from a handsome and cute-looking young man to a blood-drenched pale man, looking like a zombie that fell from a horror movie into the mortal world.
Ruthlessness was not the act of being ruthless toward others.
In reality, ruthlessness was the ability to be ruthless to yourself when the gains outweighed the losses. That was the true meaning of ruthlessness.
"One!"
Click!
The last second ticked down. The door creaked open.
Xin stumbled out, hands up, visibly trembling, blood staining the snow beneath his bare feet.
The soldiers tensed, weapons trained on him as if expecting retaliation. He limped toward Nikola, his voice breaking and cracking like a beaten child's.
"P-please don't shoot! I-I was kidnapped! They tried to kill me!"
He pointed back at the SUV, exactly right where Vladimir was hiding.
Inside, Vladimir's fists clenched. He had never expected to feel the cursed emotion once more in his life... the emotion of... betrayal.
But even so, he kept still, whispering prayers to whatever god he believed and did not believe in through gritted teeth, believing in the slim chance of divine intervention occurring.
That was his only hope. If he manically began to shoot at every living being in the vicinity, he would run out of ammo before long, marking him as good as a dead man walking in broad daylight.
Nikola hesitated. Gave a sharp order in Russian. Two men peeled off toward the car.
One soldier stepped up to Xin, raising his rifle, murmuring coldly with a cold fierceness blazing in his eyes, mimicking the unstable weather of Russia:
"Вините свою удачу..." (Blame your luck, brat.)
He pulled the trigger.
TAK-TAK!
Two bullets cut through the frosted air.
The young man collapsed with wide eyes, blood pouring from a bullet wound to his head, the expression of betrayal slowly losing its muster.
PUFF!
He collapsed on the cold snow that swallowed him like an expensive queen-sized bed, convulsing.
Blood leaked from his head, the lights in his eyes dimming before completely losing their shine.
Dead.
Or so the man thought would happen.
In one motion, the young man pushed the barrel aside, slashing the soldier's throat wide open with a surgeon's precision, using the beautifully carved and intricately patterned scalpel.
Blood sprayed as the man collapsed, choking on his own blood, his bloodshot eyes never leaving Xin's.
Xin saw all kinds of emotions through his eyes. Anger. Hatred. Sadness. And most importantly... regret?
"I... don't like the look in your eyes at all." With an empty look, Xin disappeared from the onlooker's view, immediately appearing in front of the man as if he had teleported.
Without a breath of waste, he stabbed both of the man's eyes in succession, twisting the scalpel inside with a 'squelch' before the man's futile efforts to preserve his life failed him.
Badump. The heart beat one last time before it went to eternal sleep.
Meanwhile, Vladimir, who had been peeking from the car since the gunshots stopped, saw that his boss had not betrayed him, but only used a tactic to surprise the enemy.
'He... didn't betray me?'
His master had not abandoned him.
"Boss! Let me help you!" Vladimir shouted.
Xin facepalmed. Idiot. Vladimir, with his low IQ, just had to go and set off the alarms of extinguishing the life of a soldier. Since Xin's position was in the back along with the sound of a gunshot, the other soldiers did not spare as much as a glance toward the place where the young man had been shot.
But exposing his trick, Nikola in a spur moment twisted his head toward the young man who was now standing, blood dripping from his face and body, the frost in the ice storm slowly creeping into his body, biting it.
He wasn't the only one; upon seeing their boss frowning and gazing behind him, their eyes followed suit and saw a view which made blood rush to their brains and boil uncontrollably.
All hell broke loose.
Xin closed in on the nearest soldier before the poor man could understand what was happening, ripping the rifle from his hands, twisting it hard—
CRUNCH!
The wrist snapped.
"AAAAAAAAARGH!" A shrill scream emanated from the man, swallowed by the snowstorm's swirling storm that refused to expose the poor man's cries to the rest of the soldiers.
Xin drove a knee into his ribs, jammed fingers into the man's eye sockets, then bit a chunk out of his neck like a rabid animal, tearing it off the man's jugular vein with the precision of a tiger stalking its unfortunate prey.
He spat the flesh out as the man's body collapsed to the ground.
Ratatatat!
Bullets flew.
Xin danced through them like a ghost, moving low and fast.
He grabbed another man, locking him in a headlock, twisting his hands vertically instead of horizontally.
One brutal wrench.
SNAP.
The man's neck twisted 180 degrees vertically, the jaw shattering.
Xin seized the corpse, using it as a shield. Bullets tore into the body.
Vladimir raised his pistol then froze.
Xin's blood-drenched face stared back at him, his hollow eyes staring back.
If you stare into the abyss long enough...
It will stare back at you.
Vladimir finally comprehended the meaning of this saying.
Mine.
The message was clear.
He gulped a mouthful of saliva, his fingertips holding the pistol betraying a hint of dread.
Xin burst forward again, tackling two soldiers at once. His scalpel flashed, slicing one man's throat artistically.
The man's skull caved under the weight, brain matter splattering the ground.
Xin stood slowly, blood dripping from his fingers, a wide, monstrous grin splitting his face.
His eyes locked onto the last soldier—the only one left standing, calculating whether to fight... or flee.
Silence enveloped the battlefield.
Nikola, who had held his shotgun, silently threw it to the side of the snow as he took slow, deliberate steps toward the young man, clapping, as a smirk made its way across his face, with the crunching snow of his footsteps echoing.
CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!
The man's claps dimmed as he approached the young man. The man silently slipped his burly hands into his pocket, pulling out a cigarette box. He opened it, took a cigarette out before offering the young man one, who was curiously eyeing him.
"Ты хочешь присоединиться ко мне?" (Kill well, smoke better, care for a cigarette? he offered, dropping his bad English accent, the cold breeze slowly pushing the lid of the cigarette box.
The young man closed his eyes for a moment, as he contemplated the man's offer.
His eerie smile—enough to make the devil beg for forgiveness—started to dissolve. Gently opening his eyes in the cold weather, he inhaled the freezing air through his nostrils.
It was the cold that made him truly alive.
He marched over to the man in serene tranquility, as if he had not extinguished the lives of men screaming 'bloody murder' a few moments ago.
"конечно" (Certainly), he answered with a small smile.
Nikola, who heard Xin answer in Russian, had his eyebrows twitch. However, his expression changed as he started chuckling to no one in particular.
"So, you could speak Russian after all?" With a narrowed yet curious gaze, his eyes scanned the young man's body.
In response to his question, Xin only shrugged indifferently and spoke with a flat tone.
"Well, you could speak English pretty well too, so we're tied."
He blew a puff of smoke beside Xin as they both stared into the distance, looking beautifully at the endless dark horizon.
The man then holstered up his black pistol, which Xin eyed curiously. He aimed at the SUV that Vladimir hid behind before shooting the engine and tank with his 15 rounds.
*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
He continued to shoot the tank even after his pistol ran out of ammunition.
TIK! TIK! TIK!
Upon hearing his magazine being emptied, he clicked his tongue is disdain and tossed it a distance away.
BOOM!
The SUV blew up and set in flames as Vladimir narrowly dived from the explosion, as bits and shards flew in the air at high speed, akin to bullets, and scratched his face.
Nikola cracked his neck and knuckles as he drew his brass knuckles from his pocket and a butterfly knife as he assumed a stance with a grin.
"Well then, lets get started" he smirked as he launched himself towards Xin using his full power.
Nikola reverse gripped his knife as ducked towards Xin's heart, planning to impale him and stop his carotid system.
Xin however had different plans, as he closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and pushing the man's arms to the ground briskly like lightning, tilting his body and forming his hand into an unmistakable, unambiguous knife form, attempting to strike the man's cervical artery.
The man expecting this however braced himself with his thick forearms, swiftly blocked the attack using the brass knuckles and assumed a stance that was between boxing and systema, leaping back and perusing Xin with a cold, pragmatic gaze.
Xin, however, did not leave him a chance to scrutinize him as his figure blurred.
Nikolas eyes widened and hovered alertly everywhere around him, as he protected his head. He however struck the ground which made it tremble due to his massive size, as a small body narrowly missed being turned into toothpaste.
The young man's left hand touched the ground, and his right was in a claw stance, with his
Jagdkommando knife stuck between his gritted teeth, as he twisted his body, his kick landing on the man's liver; a mix of capoeira and Taijutsu.
To a normal human being, such a kick was enough to turn one's liver into corned beef in a container. However, because of the man's bulletproof vest and well-toned, bulging muscles underneath, all this led to was a mere pained grunt that escaped from the man's lips.
The young man however was not satisfied with this, as he once again preformed a handstand on the cold snow, his legs wrapping around the man's head, before he performed a summertime assault, carrying a man worth of 180 kg, and slamming his head into the solid ice below.
BAM!
The man, even with a concussion and his head was severely wounded, grabbed hold of the young man who had yet to back handspring back to his position as he gripped the young man's arms tightly, and violently twisted it in an unnatural method, which broke his arm in the process.
CRACK!
The young man, with his arm now broken, retreated slowly, looking at his enemy with his intense eyes, not disturbed by his arm that was loosely dangling by his side.
His elbow bone had stabbed right through his skin. He dislocated his two shoulders completely.
With his unbroken arm, he held the knife in his arm as he threw it. The man who had not expected this sudden and unforeseen action, swiftly dodged the knife as he looked back to the young man's position, but was surprised with finding the young man had disappeared.
He warily looked around him, before he felt a small hand that had wrapped around his face and was immediately slammed to the ground, as cracks started to form in the ground and started spreading to even as far as the SUV.
'When did he come behind me?'
The man immediately coughed blood violently mixed with his dry laughter before speaking to his soon-to-become killer.
Cough! Cough!
The man's breathing became rough, displaying the effectiveness of Xin's surprise attack. Most likely, the man had injured if not obliterated his internal organs.
Nikola knew his end was near. He did not have much time left, so he decided to swear one last time to his killer. Who knew? Maybe the gods would shower him with their blessings and one day meet this man again to kill him himself, should he live.
"Haaah.....I-i h-hope you die a horrible deat-" Before he was able to continue his sentence however, his face was immediately crushed by the young man's foot, who held no morals, nor held his 'enemies last words' in any type of respected position.
To him, last words were simply unnecessary.
Death was decided based on 'natural selection', so last words had no meaning to them.
Words that were merely speculations, wishes, or regrets.
From a nihilistic or existential perspective, death renders all speech meaningless, as the person will no longer be around to witness any consequences of their final statement.
Xin reflected upon this as he kneeled and punched the man who was on brink of death.
BAM!
The young man, with his ever stoic face, kept punching the man's face at the same place.
.
.
*Punch* *Punch*
For around an hour, the young man kept punching the man's face despite the man being lifeless.
Blood and other matter sprayed on the ground, as the young man's bloodied and torn fists kept punching the ground where the mans head once used to be, now no more than matter here and there.
Despite the pain and numbness that slowly creeped in and made its way into his bones because of the cold, the young man, without a ripple of emotion in his eye other than his indifference, kept punching the man's face.
He punched once more before confirming that the man's irritating face was no more.
Slowly, standing up on his wobbly legs that had turned numb due to the cold, he silently observed the result of his actions, wiping his bloody hands on the pure, white snow.
To any bystander, he would look like a monster that came straight out of a horror movie.
Silence.
The checkpoint was silent.
A heartbeat.
BADUMP.
An invisible hand crawled in the air.
BADUMP.
The smell of death emanated.
BADUMP.
When Hearts stopped, so did the tongue.
BADUMP.
it is-
BADUMP.
TOO-
BADUMP.
LATE.