Chapter 52 - EP.2 Mountains of Corpses, Seas of Blood 6

"Aaargh!"

The man collapsed with a death cry.

As Ash cut down the last of the guards, an eerie silence settled over the lobby. It was hard to believe the space had been filled with gunfire and screams barely a minute earlier.

Blood and chunks of flesh. Severed cyberware strewn everywhere.

Those were the things that filled Club Inferno's lobby.

"All clear. Shall we move on?"

Zero had approached Ash unnoticed. He was drenched in blood from head to toe.

So was Ash.

Watching blood drip from the tip of his sword, Ash recalled their conversation at the hideout just before they left.

["The fastest route to the VIP lounge is through the main stage area, then along the staff-only passage into the private rooms."]

["Is that where the Chamber of Contemplation is?"]

["According to the information I obtained, yes."]

["Then our route is settled."]

'Time for the second phase, then.'

Having reviewed the plan, Ash gave a silent nod. That was the signal. As though on cue, the six swordsmen left the blood-soaked lobby.

* * *

Jack Five was in a foul mood.

'That goddamn chip, chip, chip! Fuck, what's so special about one lousy little chip?'

He was currently stationed in the DJ booth, the highest point overlooking the main stage. Sunk into a fairly luxurious sofa, he glanced toward the stage, endlessly groping the prostitute nestled against his side.

Some hundred mercenaries and ninjas stood in a disorderly crowd filling the floor. Sewer rats drawn by the scent of money.

Jack Five's face twisted into a scowl, as though merely looking down at them irritated him.

"What the fuck is this shit in the middle of the night?"

The reason for his foul mood was simple. He had been right in the middle of fucking when the call came, forcing him to hurry over.

["We need to recover the data chip. I'm going to spend some credits hiring mercenaries, so I need you here to lead them."]

"Does that asshole Maestro think he's my boss or something? I'm so fucking sick of this job."

Not that he could refuse.

The pay was good, after all.

He had once roamed freely across the Outer as a Pathfinder. How had he ended up at the bottom of this sewer, playing lackey?

That thought only doubled his irritation.

'Let's get this over with.'

He intended to finish this tiresome briefing quickly and give the woman beside him a proper fuck.

Springing up from the sofa, he headed over to the DJ console and grabbed the microphone.

"Looks like most of you are here, so let's get started. All right! Shut the hell up, everyone! I'm about to tell you what to do!"

His gravelly voice boomed through the speakers, silencing the murmuring mercenaries.

"You've probably heard the basics, but you have exactly one objective! The data chip! Bring it back, and you're done!"

Looking down over the stage as he spoke, he turned to a club employee.

"Put up the pictures."

The employee hurriedly worked the console. Soon, images of five men and women and a single humanoid appeared on the enormous screen behind the main stage.

"These are the bastards who have the chip! Six targets! I don't give a flying fuck whether you kill them or leave them alive. Just get that chip back! Do that, and you'll get twice the credits the Maestro promised..."

It happened just then.

BOOM!

A heavy crash rang out, accompanied by a tremor strong enough to make the main stage shudder.

"What the hell?"

The noise continued for a while. Listening closely, he thought he could hear occasional gunshots, too.

"Hey! Someone go out and take a look! What bastard has the nerve to make a racket while I'm giving a briefing?"

At his gravelly command over the microphone, a few mercenaries standing nearest the main stage entrance headed toward the soundproof door.

One of them opened it to check outside.

SPLURT!

With a strange bursting sound, bright red blood sprayed like a fountain. The mercenary who had opened the door collapsed without even a scream.

"What the fuck...?"

A stir passed through the main stage area at the bizarre, chilling sight. Every eye turned toward the soundproof door.

Six human-shaped figures stood side by side in the doorway, silhouetted against the lobby's comparatively brighter light.

Every one of them held a sword.

The figure in the center—a humanoid with a body made entirely of machinery—spoke. A low electronic voice resonated across the stage.

"I wondered why there were so few in the lobby. So this is where you all gathered."

The slender woman beside him replied.

"Perfect. We can take care of them all at once."

This time, the figure in the tiger mask took up the conversation.

"There aren't as many as I expected. As you said, striking first seems to have been the right choice."

An exceedingly calm exchange.

Jack Five did not care for that calmness at all. They were utterly composed, as though he and his men didn't even merit consideration. Displeased, he bellowed.

"Who the hell are you?"

The humanoid answered his furious demand, gesturing with his chin toward the screen ahead.

"Can you not see for yourself?"

Jack Five glanced back at the screen without thinking. The six wanted photos he had put up moments earlier caught his eye.

Only then did he realize who these uninvited guests were.

The very targets they were supposed to capture had come to them.

Speechless for a moment at the absurdity, Jack Five then roared with laughter into the microphone, nearly blowing out the speakers.

"Bwahahahaha!"

After laughing for a good while, his eyes flashed with murderous intent.

"Well, that makes things easy! Hey, you bastards! That's them! Those are the fuckers you're after!"

At Jack Five's shout, everyone filling the main stage area gripped their weapons.

"Shoot! Kill them all!"

As though his shout were the signal, the crowd filling the main stage area raised their guns.

But the swordsmen at the entrance had long since vanished.

"What? Where...?"

Everyone there, Jack Five included, was bewildered. But they had no time to stand around in confusion.

"Aaargh!"

Someone had begun to scream.

A mercenary on the edge of the crowd crumpled, blood spurting from his neck.

No one had seen who attacked him, or when.

That was the beginning.

Screams and the horrific ripping sounds of flesh tearing erupted simultaneously throughout the dim main stage area.

"Aaaargh!"

"Behind us! They're behind—ghk!"

The mercenaries stumbled about, unable to decide what to shoot or where to aim. All the while, more lives were snuffed out.

"F-fucking hell! Lights! Turn on every light! Now!"

At Jack Five's roar, the employee in the DJ booth frantically worked the console. Every light installed in the main stage area began blazing at full power.

From that moment on, the confusion doubled.

The lights installed in a club—particularly around its main stage—served a very different purpose from ordinary lighting.

The moving lights and laser units swept about wildly, while the incessantly flashing strobes began pulsing at maximum power as well.

The darkness was certainly gone.

But what replaced it was a storm of light that scrambled their vision. Beneath the dazzling lights, people screamed as they fell.

Pandemonium had descended without warning.

Caught in it and terrified, the mercenaries finally made the worst possible choice.

"Shoot! Just fucking shoot!"

"Over there! They moved that way!"

They began firing indiscriminately at shadows flickering amid the dazzling lights, without even checking whether their bullets were aimed at friend or foe.

The screams, sporadic until then, suddenly multiplied.

There was no music beneath the brilliant lights. Instead, countless people filled that silence with screams.

The scene descended into uncontrollable chaos.

"Fuck this!"

Spitting out the curse, Jack Five roughly shoved away the woman he had kept tucked against his side.

"Eek!"

He paid her scream no heed.

He extended both arms. The outer armor on his forearms opened with a mechanical whir, and heavy gun barrels emerged from within.

"Enough! Die! All of you, die!"

BRRRRRR!

Flames flared from the thick barrels protruding from his arms as they poured a furious barrage into the main stage area.

Jack Five's bullets made no distinction between friend and foe. He simply held down the triggers, aiming at anything he glimpsed moving among the frantically sweeping lights.

"Bwahahaha!"

Once he started shooting, he began to think this was actually for the best.

Trying to accomplish anything with these sewer rats would only give him a headache anyway. He could grind them all to pieces, friend and foe alike, and as long as he retrieved the data chip, there would be no problem.

"Yeah! This is how it should be! I'm Jack Five! A top-class Pathfinder! I used to roam the Outer! I'm not meant to rot in this sewer with vermin like you!"

Suddenly, he remembered his former self.

It had been like this back then, too.

He had advanced by grinding everything in his path to pieces, whether Grotesques, Sentinels, or humans.

He had never needed to answer for any of his violence. There had been no need to weigh his options or fret over details.

Jack Five had been free.

"This is it! This is it!"

At some point, he had begun to grin. It was a vicious grin, grotesquely twisted like the face of a malevolent demon.

"Well, now. Rather than make up for your subordinates' shortcomings, you rain bullets down upon them. What a truly wicked man."

"...!"

An electronic voice had sounded behind him.

Jack Five froze. His pupils dilated.

'When? How?'

The brief questions flashed through his mind, but something more important demanded his attention. Jack Five twisted around as fast as he possibly could.

He intended to swing his arm-mounted machine guns around and shred whoever was behind him.

But the owner of that electronic voice—Ash—was faster.

SPLURT!

Before Jack Five could even turn around, Ash's sword pierced his heart.

"Guh... hah...!"

The blade had passed clean through him, jutting out of his chest. Staring at it, Jack Five barely managed to turn his head.

"Who... are... you...?"

"I have no name to offer a scoundrel like you."

The blade slipped out of his chest, then swept horizontally through the air.

Jack Five's neck lay in its path. His head was cleanly severed.

His head hit the floor with a wet thud. His body swayed for a moment before collapsing, blood gushing from it.

Ash looked briefly at what was now no more than a heap of meat, then addressed the man hiding in a corner of the DJ booth.

"Come out."

At the quiet electronic voice, the employee raised his head, hiccupping repeatedly. Ash pointed the tip of his sword at him and gave a nod.

"Turn off the lights. Not all of them—only the ones moving about so wildly."

The employee nodded frantically, hurriedly crawled out, and worked the console.

At his touch, the storm of light that had been wildly clawing across the stage vanished in an instant.

Only the steady work lights remained to illuminate the room.

"..."

The main stage area, finally revealed, looked like a vision of hell. Corpses formed mountains and blood formed seas—a true landscape of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

But some were still alive.

After surveying the scene for a moment, Ash picked up Jack Five's head, approached the microphone, and shouted.

"Everyone, stop!"

He raised Jack Five's head high.

"Your leader is dead! Lay down your weapons, and I will spare you! Anyone still holding a weapon when this head touches the ground will be taken to have refused!"

With that, Ash hurled Jack Five's head high into the air.

It soared in an arc. At its peak, it seemed to hang in the air for a moment before gravity dragged it down toward the floor.

The surviving mercenaries had very little time, so they moved quickly.

CLACK! CLATTER!

They frantically flung the weapons in their hands to the floor.

Then—

THUD.

Jack Five's head landed in the center of the main stage with a dull sound.

Not a single mercenary around it still held a weapon.