However many seconds or minutes that passed, Dan had no clue. The only thing he knew was that Judith’s reasoning to “euthanizing” her own sister was because it was right?

  Out of all the crazy shit he had been put through today, Dan could not have possibly anticipated that he would be defending Jane’s honor against her evil older sister.

  “My god,” Dan whispered. “W-what kind of person are you? Did you ever bother asking Jane how she felt before making such bullshit assumptions? What fucking right do you have to choose if your little sister lives or dies? That’s not something you or the shard or anyone can decide!”

  “Oh spare me the melodrama Dan,” Judith said, waving him off. “Not only was it a mercy, but I thought it was appropriate payment I was owed.”

  “Oh don’t you fucking tell me,” he said, pointing his finger at her. “Don’t you dare tell me you did it because Kodak paid you a lot of credits to get the job done. If you killed your own flesh and blood for some extra cash, that is the sorriest thing I’ve heard in my eighteen years of living.”

  Judith shook her head. “Oh come on. Even I don’t think money is the only thing that matters in this world. Jane owed me for the time and energy she fucking stole from me. Having to feed her, bathe her and do all other shit for her robbed me of everything. Whatever goals and dreams I had were put aside just to be her caregiver. I was nothing more than a glorified maid for that little bitch. It still boils my blood that she became an agent for the other side.”

  The Bloodknight backhanded the wall next to her. The impact hit like a direct shotgun blast against the wall, easily causing a giant crater. Dan was astonished. Out of all things to be angry about, Judith was genuinely angry about her obligations to help out a family member.

  “When I tried finding her in our old home, she was nowhere to be found. Had no clue where the hell she could have went. She doesn’t have favorite places, no friends, and she couldn’t walk very far. Where could she have possibly gone? I didn’t have much time to find out since I was notified of an invasion by the Alpha Corp. I discovered much later on that somehow, someway, little Jane found her way to the Alpha Corp and joined them.”

  No shit, Dan thought. It was obvious that Jane found a group to pledge her loyalty to. At least the Alpha Corp helped Jane to become the agent he knew today. Kodak and her own sister only saw her as a burden to be eliminated.

  Dan never knew that this level of family dysfunction could exist. He thought about his memories with his mom. It was true that between the two of them, Dan was always the more physically capable. When it came to gathering or stealing food, he was the one who could move quicker on his feet and carry more weight. And when necessary, he would do the fighting, not just to protect himself, but his mom and what little resources they had for themselves.

  But even when he did more than his fair share on some days, he never once experienced any feelings of resentment or anger towards his mom. It didn’t matter whether she was pulling her weight or not. Family bonds and having an ally to help through struggle and hardship was what prevented him from going crazy during his time in New York.

  He couldn’t fathom that Judith felt absolutely none of those feelings of attachment towards Jane. Out of all the enemies he had fought and killed over the years, before and after becoming an agent, Judith was by far at the top of his list for most vile monsters.

  Judith took her eyes off him and stared off to the side. While she wasn’t looking, Dan racked his brain trying to understood who really was in front of him. Judith wasn’t just a crazy powerful agent who happened to use magic. She was a lunatic with nothing in her heart.

  The pops and cracks of gunfire hit Dan’s ears beyond the lobby and he immediately got out of sight. He pressed his back against the wall.

  “We’re going through another exit,” Judith said. “Follow me.”

  The Bloodknight walked deeping through the floor and Dan cautiously followed. Not only was he wary of enemies possibly ambushing them, but he kept his guard up around Judith. One way or another, Dan would have to fight this psycho some day.

  Judith led the way to an alternate exit and pushed the door open. Dan soon followed behind her and grabbed the HoA rifle off his back.

  “Don’t stray too far behind,” she ordered. “Ada just gave me a waypoint to follow.”

  “And she can’t share that with me because?”

  “I think you’re forgetting that your girlfriend is my subordinate and she reports directly to me,” she said chuckling.

  They were back on the streets. But it didn’t take long until they encountered enemies. Barely half a block away from the building they had exited, Dan stopped in his tracks when he saw Church agents pop in and surround them. While he was racking his brain counting the enemy’s numbers and gripping his rifle tightly, Judith seemed completely unbothered. The Bloodknight stood straight with her arms crossed. She gave an amused huff.

  “You little shrimps think you’ve already won?” she taunted.

  “What would an infidel like you know?” one of the agents said. “You’re surrounded.”

  Judith glanced over her shoulder. “Dan, take the two behind us. Leave the rest to me. I won’t even break a sweat.”

  Dan eyed the rest of the group of Church agents. He had counted eight that had surrounded them in the middle of this street.

  Judith instantly blurred into action while Dan spun on his heel and popped off a few rounds of his HoA rifle. The first two shots curved around one Church agent thanks to her psychic field. But the third radioactive rod easily penetrated her robes and out through her back. She slumped forward and fell.

  The next agent teleported and reappeared in from of Dan. The Church agent lashed out with a slash from his sword above shoulder height, aiming to chop Dan’s head off.

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  Warp dancer activated.

  The agent’s movements instantly slowed at the last possible moment where his blade was mere centimeters away from Dan’s neck. He sidestepped the sword swing and raised the barrel of his rifle at the fanatic’s head. He pulled the trigger and sent a radioactive rod through the skull of his enemy, frying his brain with burning green radiation.

  Time resumed back to normal and the agent crumpled onto the pavement. He glanced at what was happening on Judith’s end. The Bloodknight had already left five corpses lying on the ground. Two of them had their heads forcibly contorted one hundred eighty degrees. Another two had bullet wounds to the head and the fifth dead agent had both his arms ripped off at the elbows. Judith truly lived up to her title.

  Judith carried one agent off the ground, her hand clasped around his neck as he struggled to break free. Dan saw the infamous red flash from the Church agent’s eyes, an obvious warning sign of the glare attack. The Bloodknight was unfazed as she gathered corrosia energy in her palm and simple covered his eyes, effective cancelling the attack. Dan remembered Judith doing something similar when he tried using the glare on her during the final round of the Combat Games. Judith, disguised as a contestant, simply put her hand over his eyes and completely blocked his attack.

  After the Church agent had failed in his retaliation, Judith smashed her forehead into the man’s face and dropped him like a bag of garbage onto the pavement.

  To Dan’s expectations, Judith was a powerhouse. He quickly killed one Church agent and against the second opponent he used his warp dancer to gain the upperhand. While his fight concluded relatively quickly, Judith had eviscerated six agents in the same time frame.

  The last remaining Church agent that was being choked by Judith still moved as he tried crawling away from the Bloodknight. Judith glanced at Dan and waved him over. Dan knew he wasn’t about to have a good time but knew that disobeying the Bloodknight was off the table. He slowly walked over to her while the wounded Church agent was still pulling himself along the pavement.

  “We didn’t get a chance to finish our lovely history lesson back there,” she said.

  Dan glanced down at the Church agent still dragging himself along the pavement. He still hadn’t put much distance between him and Judith.

  “Looking back with hindsight, my life would have amounted to nothing but wasted time and energy had I not become an agent and abandon my old life. My parents were killed and my sister ended up joining an enemy shard and now stands against me as an enemy. It honestly sickens me how much being a caregiver to that little bitch had taken from my childhood.”

  “I can’t believe you’re still on about this nonsense,” Dan said. “I already know that you’re a piece of shit that would abandon your folks the instant something shiny comes along. What more do I need to learn from this bullshit story?”

  Judith gave him a low chuckle and than patted him on the head. “So the lesson still has sunk in yet? Well then, I’ll take a more direct approach then.” She glanced at the wounded agent still trying to crawl away from her. “You see, once I became an agent, I could kill, conquer and obtain anything I could ever want through my own hands. Kodak-Cresh empowers me to be truly powerful. My chains were broken, no longer weighed down by useless family obligations and bonds. Being an agent was my true path to enlightenment and power.”

  Judith began walking toward the Church agent. He hadn’t gotten far, just shy of eight meters away from the Bloodknight. She bent over and grabbed the fanatic by the neck and lifted him up. Judith was carrying a fully-grown man with one hand like he was a stuffed animal. “I think actions should convey the point I’ll be making.”

  The Bloodknight grabbed the hand of the Church agent and snapped the man’s thumb, breaking it. She proceeded to rinse and repeat for each of the agent’s fingers until all five were snapped and broken on his left hand. To the agent’s credit, he didn’t scream. But Dan could still hear the groans and whimpers from the agent.

  Watching Judith move onto the Church agent’s other hand and going through each finger and breaking them, Dan felt something strange bubble up from within. It wasn’t sympathy for the Church agent. Dan knew that he was an enemy and would do anything in his power to see such foes dead at his feet. But he also knew that he had been beaten and was no longer a threat. If he still wanted to kill the Church agent, a simple bullet to the head would have been enough.

  What Judith was doing to the poor agent was straight up needless cruelty. She wasn’t doing it to interrogate for intel or even for personal revenge. The smile and smug expression on the Bloodknight’s face told him this was just entertainment for her.

  Somehow, Judith didn’t think breaking all ten of the man’s fingers was enough. While still lifting the agent up by the neck, she slowly lifted her other hand up to his face. Without warning, she shoved her thumb into the agent’s eye socket.

  The Church agent, who had shown an impressive level of restraint against this brutal torture, fianlly screamed and flailed about in Judith’s grip.

  “Woah what the fuck Judith,” he said. “What the hell are you doing to him?”

  Judith glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “What does it look like?”

  Dan gave her blank stare. Somehow he had to explain to her why needless torture was wrong. “He’s already beaten. There’s nothing more to gain from torturing him like that. It’s just cruelty.”

  “Conflict between shards is cruelty, my wayward son,” she said with a predatory smile. “Besides, I’m proving a point by doing this in front of you.” She glanced back at the agent and began shoving her knee into his groin. Over and over.

  The Church agent screamed for his life as his crotch was attacked repeatedly without any sign of stopping.

  “The power and stature as a Bloodknight allows me to do this,” she said confidently. “Strike fear into my enemies. Besides, since he’s the loser of this battle, I the victor gain the right to so as I please with him. His life is mine to take whenever I wish.”

  Judith’s repeated kicks to the man’s groin eventually stopped triggering any response from him. The agent fell limp in her grip and the Bloodknight dropped him to the ground. His corpse flopped onto the pavement.

  Dan only had one thought that came to mind after watching such a senseless beating. So he asked for Judith’s true thoughts.

  “How did you really feel when the shard ordered you to euthanize Jane?” he asked. “I mean, did you even put any thought into what they were asking you to do? Did you even feel any guilt that you were going to take your sister’s life away from her just because she was disabled?”

  He watched Judith carefully and her glee from the torture session slowly melted away. Her face hardened. “I did feel something that day, that moment. I mean, everyone has emotions, right? I did feel what you would call guilt, killing my sister. Someone who had the same blood as me. But you know what? That was why I had to do it. By killing her, I would forcibly severe the bond we had together. I would be freed of these useless feelings and finally become the powerful agent I was meant to be.”

  Dan couldn’t imagine being so power hungry and ambitious that he would completely severe ties with the ones he loved.

  “I can’t believe you. How can you be like this? Were you manipulated by Kodak into killing your own sister?”

  Judith’s facial expression didn’t budge. She stared at him with her gold irises popping our of her bloodshot sclera. “Tell me something Dan. Is it manipulation when you get what you want?”

  Dan clenched his teeth. In his free hand, he curled his fingers. Each second that passed he felt a cocktail of both rage and fear at Judith’s lack of humanity. The Bloodknight flashed out of existence and then arms wrapped around him from behind.

  Judith whispered in his ear. “I can help you fulfill your deepest desires too if you accept my offer.”

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