As soon as I crossed through the barrier, a scream echoed through the air. Even though I literally didn't have a heart in my human form, it wasn't calibrated that perfectly, unlike Big Bro's human form, I could still feel it stop in my chest. "Shion!" I realized instantly who the voice belonged to.
I didn't bother waiting for Raya to follow me, I practically teleported to the central plaza, where I heard the scream come from, Spatial Motion be damned. When I got there, it felt like time itself was suffocating me.
The scene in front of me was the most horrifying thing I'd ever seen. There was a spear buried deep in Shion's back. From my vantage point, I could see that the light had already left her eyes, her spinal cord snapped, her heart pierced.
She was already dead, her arms wrapped around a small hobgoblin child, protecting the girl even in death. As I watched, the knight who'd done the deed, with his dazzling, ornate armor and cold, impassive expression, pulled his spear out of Shion's back and hefted it in his hand, balancing it while the horse beneath him snorted.
"Shion… SHION…!" Before the body had even hit the ground, I was holding her head in my arms, frantically trying to heal her. The wound closed, her spine regenerated, and her heart instantly fixed itself.
But it didn't beat. As the knight began shouting about judgement, declaring war on Tempest, or whatever other bullshit he wanted to spout, her heart didn't beat. As he hefted his spear once more, her heart didn't beat.
As he drove the spear into my own back, her heart didn't beat.
And as the spear disintegrated in his hand, Shion's heart didn't beat. No signals traveled from her brain; no light shone in her eyes.
She was dead. This bastard… killed her.
Gingerly, carefully, I laid Shion's head down on the cold pavement, patting the head of the crying little hobgoblin beside her, as I pulled myself to my feet and turned around.
Shion wasn't the only one in this plaza who'd already died. There were dead hobgoblins all over the place, soldiers doing their jobs, parents and children who hadn't even had the strength to run once the barrier got up, barely able to stand. As I watched on, one of them raised a sword, in order to drive it down toward the neck of a helpless hobgoblin, trembling in fear as he tried to protect a kobold.
Then, that soldier died. No warning, no ceremony, nothing. He simply exploded in a mist of blood, on top of his horse, his armor and weapon gone, too. The other ninety-or-so soldiers, including the commander in front of me, looked over at the empty horse in stunned silence, unable to believe their eyes. They'd expected death, a struggle, but they hadn't expected one of their own to be dying. Especially not like that, just instant.
But it wasn't going to end up being just one of their own. The knight bastard closest to him went next, exploding into a mist of blood with no warning at all.
It was only then that the soldiers began realizing that their partners were actually dying, unable to even fight. Instantly, they lost their cool. A few screamed. A few pissed themselves, or vomited.
The vast majority urged their horses to get out of there, as quickly as possible. Those were the next to die.
One by one, I used my Thread Arts to eradicate the bastards down to the last man. Finally, he was alone. The captain, the bastard who'd killed Shion.
I gave the others a quick death. I wouldn't allow the same for him.
"Run." I ordered him.
He paused for a moment, looking at me. It was clear that he was trying to decide between fight or flight, but that wasn't a choice.
"Screw you!"
"Then die." A young man raced at me with a ferocious snarl. Immediately, I deduced that he was with these bastards. He had an impressive aura. Within this barrier, he might've even been a challenge for Shion.
But to me, he was garbage. As soon as he got within two feet of me, I told the bastard to die, and immediately, his body was superheated to the point where it instantly turned into ash in a human-like form, before dispersing into the wind.
The effect that the dumbass's instant death had on Shion's murderer was immediate. He took his horse by the reins, and he galloped right out of there, towards Tempest's western road, the one that led to Blummund.
Naturally, before he got away, I made sure to mark him with Curiosity, so that I would always know exactly where he was. I wanted to give him the hope of surviving another day, so that I could crush it myself.
"Raya, get as many people as you can, and have them… gather the bodies." I ordered through gritted teeth. Raya nodded, moving to carry out my orders with a heavy heart.
Meanwhile, I still had work to do.
Sprouting wings from my back, I flew to the top of the dome created by the barrier, looking down. Using Curiosity, I was scanning for any remnants of the bastards who'd killed Shion.
And I found two, but I could leave the woman (who was already in Rigur's custody) until later.
"...I'm sorry, Gobta." I knelt down and brushed his hair gently. He was laying face-up in the streets, just discarded like trash. Still gripped in his hands, like it'd been fused to his palm, almost, was the sword I'd once made for him. The handle glowed a soft red light, the blade shattered from repeated, small cuts, like he'd been using it against someone notably more skilled than him, capable of cutting through the magisteel blade like butter. In fact, I knew with a glance that was exactly what had happened, and in the end, he'd lost.
The result was the gigantic slash wound that stretched across his chest, from hip to shoulder. He'd died within seconds.
And I hadn't been there.
"You know, I never quite understood just how incredible the feeling of cutting someone down could be. It's so addicting! I suppose you must be a slime, from the way those wings dissolved, not that it matters." The bastard in front of me said, licking his lips like he'd found a feast after fasting for decades. "Add yourself to my body count!"
He didn't go for the head, but an arm. I watched as it plopped off and landed inside Gobta's open wound, before dissolving into pure magicules. My eyes drifted to the stump, which showed a whitish slime. It didn't heal right away. It was like space had been manipulated to somehow believe that my arm was still attached to my body.
Since it didn't believe that it was hurt, my regenerative factor didn't work on it.
Interesting. I absorbed the spatial effect with Curiosity, but my analysis showed that I couldn't quite replicate it with my current powers.
As I thought about it, the blade went for my other arm. I barely bothered watching as it clanged off, unable to pierce, now that I'd analyzed the spatial effect.
"Wha- HOW?!" Kyoya shouted. He'd never faced this before, something that he couldn't cut. He tried, over and over again, but I'd already altered my Multilayer Barrier, so he was powerless, and it horrified him. He couldn't accept it.
But Kyoya's horror would only grow. He wasn't my match, nor was he my prey.
He was my victim.
He'd attacked me with his sword in futility dozens of times before it finally hit him. He stumbled, falling to his knees, before his face followed, hitting the pavement. With how tough he was, though, there wasn't a single scratch on him.
Only then did I address him, not taking my eyes off of Gobta's prone form. "It's a neurotoxin. Big Bro's skill designed it. First, you lose control of your body. Paralysis. Then, you'll begin feeling an intense buzzing sensation all over your body. Micro-twitches from your muscles, as your nervous system begins to shut down. That's when the pain will start. Then it'll be your sense of touch, taste, smell, then your hearing and eyesight. You'll be completely cut off from the world for a full minute between that point and brain-death." I explain coldly, "You have one minute before your senses begin shutting down. Two and a half until death. With my skills, I can only extend your sense of time 10,000 times. To you, it'll feel like eighteen days or so. Have fun."
And with that, my business with Kyoya was over. Leaving him to die in the street, alone and scared out of his mind. I wanted to extend his sense of time further, to the 100,000 level that mine was at, but I couldn't quite apply that to others, since it was a part of my Chaos Warrior unique skill, not Curiosity.