He began opening the toolkit.
"You know," he began, "if you just tell me all you know about this Enoss guy, I can let you go."
"Obviously, I'll rough you up a little so the client doesn't think we're in cahoots, but that's a possibility."
He picked a long, sharp metal dagger. There was no separation between handle and blade, just a long, refined slab of silver.
He looked at it with pride.
"I'm a good man, I promise. You're what, fifteen? Thirteen? Not older than seventeen, that's for sure."
"Surely you don't think I'm so heartless as to find joy in senseless torture. We, Hounds of Greed, are nothing if not correct, stand-up lads, you hear me?"
He looked at the suddenly silent Uriel.
"So, what do you say? A little bit of betrayal in exchange for your life? Seems like a deal if you ask me."
Uriel remained silent.
"Mm." Lirik nodded. "Well, if it was that easy, the client wouldn't have called us."
He got closer and, with gentle precision, used his blade to begin cutting Uriel open, his long silver dagger digging into flesh as if it were butter.
For some reason, the moment the metal came into contact with Uriel, he violently began to shift and struggle, pulling and screaming with all his might.
"MMMMMMMMMMMM!"
It burned. It felt like a field of stars had suddenly filled his insides, burning not only his body but his mind, as if his thoughts themselves had become blazing infernos.
But it was also cold, deathly so, followed by a million blades, seemingly tearing his flesh apart, shattering and cleaving him in every possible way.
Just from mere contact.
"Oh, please, be quiet. Don't you see my little friends are having a chat over there?" He pressed the blade deeper, cutting into Uriel's palm and running it along his arm, all the way to the shoulder.
He cut it open precisely, exposing bone and the arm's internal structure alike.
"Let me tell you a bit about myself."
He set the dagger aside, then pulled metallic pincers from his toolkit.
Using them, he grabbed Uriel's bone, chuckling as the latter violently shook his head, most likely begging, and fought hard.
"I was born in a little city called Merlist, in the west of…"
He pulled.
"MMMMMMMMMMMM!"
"…Ulthima, not far from the ocean. I was actually a bit of an outdoors boy, homeschooled and all."
He placed Uriel's torn humerus, ulna, and radius aside, the long, bloody bones steaming against the cold air of the space.
Then he picked up the dagger again and focused on the boneless sack of flesh Uriel's arm had become.
"You know, it's actually a funny story. My father used to be an accountant for the Federation, and my mother a general's daughter in…"
He continued.
…
BANG!
Enoch slid across the ground, eyes narrowing as he immediately dove forward, ducking beneath the violent cleave that tore through the air.
SHAH!
Winds rose and compressed under the old man's strength and halberd. His hip rotated inward and his right leg stepped back, narrowly dodging an upward slash from Enoch.
His extended arm swung back wide, then cycled through the air—from east to north in a semicircle, then from north to south in a sharp line—a falling, meteoric sunder aimed for Enoch's head.
CLANK!
Enoch crossed both swords overhead, bearing the brunt of the old man's power head-on. His knees buckled, his arms faltered, his back nearly gave way.
But he blocked nonetheless.
His blades suddenly turned into slithering creatures of rotting flesh that surged forward as he retreated, dragging the old man's halberd with him and shattering his balance.
The lie eaters sank into the old man's body, which had over time become covered in as many wounds as Enoch's.
His jaw tightened, pain flashing through eyes that had once been stoic.
CLICK!
He blinked, and suddenly armour adorned Enoch, a fist already digging into his gut.
The old man was lifted off his feet. Enoch's armour and the lie eaters embedded in the former's body resonated, bridging together to multiply the damage of a single punch.
For as long as Enoch's lie eaters remained within him, one attack echoed with the power of three. And with the number he had sunk into the old man, this blow might as well have carried the collective strength of a hundred men.
"Gah!"
The old man hacked out a mouthful of blood, too slow to dodge or block Enoch's sweeping high kick, which slammed into his side and sent him flying.
Enoch's armour dissolved, his expression pale, but he did not relent.
His core thrummed, and across the air, hundreds of lie-eater swords formed, instantly igniting, filling the empty skies of the space with their radiance.
His aether burned all at once, and his blades grew, along with the flames, from a few meters long to hundreds.
His hand swiped down toward the still-tumbling old man, and the blades followed, streaking through the air toward their target.
BANG! BOOM! BOOOM!
Each sword fell with enough speed to tear through armoured tanks, the flames along their edges igniting further and exploding on impact.
Explosion after explosion followed, and before the old man could react, his body was riddled with holes, burnt, compressed, and destroyed in the span of a blink.
[First Wave Cleared!]
Enoch fell to one knee, a large wound torn across his back aching fiercely, many smaller ones bleeding freely and soaking his skin.
His core was empty, but unlike Uriel or the other awakened of the settlement, he possessed an aether recovery method.
A lie eater appeared in his palm, condensing into a grotesque mound of pulsating black flesh.
Without hesitation, he bit into it, swallowing and processing the energy within, rapidly replenishing his core.
After a few dozen lie eaters were consumed, he was already back at half capacity.
He exhaled and stood, back straight, eyes fixed forward, toward the rapidly weaving, manifesting figure in the distance.
[Second Wave!]
A longsword appeared in his grasp as his armour returned and his body thrummed with power.
His wounds were forcibly stitched shut by threads of condensed lie eaters, the bleeding halting instantly.
'…'
None could fathom the sheer control he wielded over his spark.
PAH!
The old man reappeared in the distance.
'I need to be quicker.'
Another chaotic battle began.