Silas began walking toward the Judgement faction’s neighborhood, his steps slow and heavy as he thought of everything he’d done and was going to do.
Plans flew through his mind as he discarded most of them and contemplated a few.
There are millions of things that could happen right now. There were so many possibilities that he could not account for them all. Unlike Earth, people were not bound by weak bodies and technology. Earthlings were easy to understand. They were easy to predict. They were small, unintelligent, and most of all, basic.
They all thought alike. They were essentially sheep, even some of the higher-status humans out there. Sure, one could say the same about Gilea, but there was one key difference: Gileans were harder to manipulate and anticipate than Earthlings.
It was the fact that Silas himself didn’t know enough about them to understand how they worked. He essentially lived in a backwater town, and when he did eventually leave it, he moved to an even weirder city filled with runaways and outlaws.
He could only really think within the box since thinking outside it would require more information about the behaviors and attitudes of the people outside Uladia and Darkless, and that was simply not something you can get from reading books.
“Game! Wassup bro! You come here to train? I can train you!” A man suddenly called out to him. Looking over at him, Silas could see that the man seemed to be blushing heavily as he walked over to him. The redness reached all the way up to his ears as he stumbled toward him.
“Uhm. I’d like to be trained by someone… Clear minded?” Silas shrugged while the man folded his arms in anger.
“What? Are you calling me stupid?!” He roared, catching the attention of everyone nearby, causing them to flock like sheep toward them until they finally circled the two of them.
“Not really. I’m calling you drunk. I don’t like drunk people. They’re super unpredictable.” Silas scratched the back of his neck while trying to cut the awkward tension between them.
“…”
“…”
However, for some reason, no one said anything the entire time. They continued to glare at him before finally-
“Ahhhh!” The man laughed and pointed at Silas. “I was just kidding bro! I couldn’t get angry at you.” The man tried to lean closer and give Silas a hug, yet as if he was avoiding a plague, Silas jumped over him without even a moment’s hesitation before walking away before they could reason he wasn’t among them anymore.
“…” And before Silas could get far, he saw a blue-haired woman standing next to a door, her eyes locked onto Silas’ as he walked toward her.
“You don’t seriously think I’ll train you after what you did?” She sneered.
“Oh? Describe for me, what was my crime here? Telling you the truth? Informing you exactly what you were thinking. Telling you how far below me you are?” Silas asked as his eyes narrowed slightly.
“Is telling the truth really a crime?” Silas asked again before walking even closer.
“Or, does it scare you that I am capable of knowing every single step of your plan before you even begin planning it?” He grinned at her, his smile widening by the second as his words echoed in her mind over and over again.
Grabbing her arm, Silas began to walk away from the lounge with her by his side. She didn’t really resist, but that was probably because she didn’t have a reason to.
As they got further and further from the lounge, however, a bad feeling began to crawl up her neck, making her shudder and pull away from his grip.
Yet, just when she did so, she understood the situation she was in.
She couldn’t pull away. Silas’ grip was like a steel vice, however, after feeling the pull from her, he looked her in the eye for a moment and let go.
Rubbing her wrist with a look of pain in her eyes, she spoke-
“If you wanted me to train you, you would have done it there… Why are you bringing me here?” She asked.
“Why am I bringing you here, you ask…” Silas chuckled before revealing the full strength of his killing intent and pointing it directly at Seraphine.
Suddenly, she dropped to her knees within an instant before wheezing as it had suddenly become hard to breathe.
Corpses began to slowly come out of the floor, their faces unrecognizable, and the sounds coming out of maws seeming like nothing but unintelligible nonsense.
“Miss Seraphina… Let me ask you a question…” Silas muttered, as his hand grew closer to her.
Suddenly, she could feel him caressing her cheek, yet his touch had no warmth in it.
In fact, it felt like every inch of his skin was filled with tiny spikes sending shivers of cold through her entire nervous system.
“You’re quite strong… Well, compared to most people in this city. Gold 2 you said, right? That’s about a solid-amethyst’s level of strength, right?” Silas stepped back and pointed his hand at her while a water magic circle appeared before his hand.
“The question is, what makes you think that you are worth anything in my eyes?”
“What makes you think I even need you?” Silas asked, yet after waiting for a few seconds, all he got as a reply was her breathing heavily.
‘Now that I think about it, hasn’t my killing intent gotten stronger after my fight with the assassins?’ Silas thought to himself before shaking his head slightly.
If he wanted this to work, he needed to make sure Seraphina was truly terrified of him.
“I’ll train you.” She wheezed from in between breaths.
“Good, but we both know that I’m not here to be trained…” He muttered, and she instantly understood what he was saying.
“You want intel… I can give you everything need… Everything you desire.” She whispered as she tried her hardest to fight against the killing intent without bringing out her own.
She didn’t want Silas to think that she was being aggressive against him, after all.
