The long curved bde sliced through the pque's pouch and slid off the ceramic as Becker took a long step back. The bde quickly recovered and made for his head. Moving again, Becker rose the butt of his MP5 to bash away the polearm, but the attacker was firm and relentless, knocking the weapon back in pce as the trajectory swayed and bringing it down forward.

  Letting the sub-machine gun hang, Becker crossed his fists and punched straight at the attacker's left hand, squeezing onto it and sliding his own left hand on the pole, twisting the opponent's arms like a crank. For good measure, he brought the enemy close, briefly locking eyes with the marauder.

  Murderous.

  Diabolical.

  Feral.

  A haughty predator.

  An axolo in spirit.

  Wasting no time, he pced his left foot between the attacker's legs and crashed his head onto it, yanking at polearm.

  At st, he had disarmed the...

  *Pang*

  Just as the fingertips slipped from the pole, the attacker regain control of the weapon, bringing the pummel onto Becker's temple with an uninterrupted strike that rubbed on his face, nicking him on his right jugur and bringing him in lock with the attacker's shoulder.

  He knew what was about to happen.

  Letting one of his hands loose and doing his best to not be guided down, he reached for the Fairbairn-Sykes Knife, aiming to open the opponent's belly, sink it into the throat and leave a savage gash...

  *Thwop*

  Realizing this, the attacker let Becker go and swiped the knife away with the pummel, switching fast to lop his head off. Catching the weapon in time very close by the bde, he pulled the wild haired enemy close while drawing his revolver with the finger fast pulling on the trigger.

  Becker's shot fired way off, for the enemy nded a solid punch at his neck. Doing his best to keep focus, he recovered just enough to pull himself out just as the bde made to sever his hand.

  The loud resonating sound from the revolver must have wracked the eardrums of the attacker, for a more focused swipe would not have missed, but now Becker was left with neither knife nor revolver.

  Ahead of him, the pummel was positioned low with the curved bde raised towards him - a guard position from which the attacker could change the trajectory of the bde at the st minute when lunging forward.

  There was no space to think it through, neither words nor gestures to cease the moment.

  But there was space to shift for one final attack.

  One that can close in a fraction of a second.

  Holding on to the MP5, he moved fast with one step ahead and raising it upside down so that the barrel just about touched his shoulder. There was nothing in his mind but suicidal abandon, a cool focus on breaking the life of the would-be butcher.

  In turn, the enemy met him close while aiming just below the celiac plexus, ire and disgust burning in the eyes with no care for ending as a blood-squeezed pulp of meat if it meant that Becker's insides spilled.

  *Tzzz*

  Without warning, the enemy spazzed in convulsions, sparks searing the wrists, the biceps, the thighs, the ankles, and the neck.

  Becker's strike went uninterrupted, crashing the butt straight into the face and pushing his weight forward onto his opponent's body, crashing it down on the wooden floor.

  *Cling*

  At st, the jammed bullet came out.

  Without stopping, he pced his weight over his left leg while stepping hard on the enemy's right hand, and with his right leg, brought the heel down with one powerful stomp wherever it may y on top of the enemy.

  As he readied is gun he grit his teeth fighting pain on his hands and his gut, with a sting on his forehead and a thin line of crimson mixing with sweat partially blurring his left eye. He even felt his chin bruise on the right.

  All this he took notice as his aim trained at Ukwan-gana Eldahtarak, still on the floor on a crimson oily pool, trying to rise above with his elbows just about supporting him. His incoherent babble loosing itself in the gurgle of his own blood. He fought the rolling of his eyes and the snapping of his head bending backward as his composure gave way more and more.

  *Pfft-pfft-pfft*

  With a three-burst spit, the MP5SD6 perforated the face and forehead, finishing his reign in three fountains of blood, colpsing in a coffin position with his eyes staring up. Further bursts on the groin, stomach, and knees ensured the corpse would bleed away faster.

  Becker stepped off the one he was crushing and aimed the gun at the remaining enemy's face.

  *Kink*

  His finger stopped just as the trigger was almost pulled all the way back.

  Only now did he saw who the attacker was.

  A servant. A sve?

  A young adult, nonetheless, probably in her mid-twenties or older if he had to arbitrate such a matter.

  Thin bck metallic colrs on her neck, her wrists, her biceps, thighs, and ankles made the flesh slightly bulge out of the tight grips. Her only garments were a short white wrapped one-piece loincloth and a strip of fabric too narrow to cover her breasts completely.

  What kept him fixated on her was not her voluptuous figure, with curvy hips and a rge bust. It was not her long silver-gray hair with a tint of blue when gleaming under the lights, nor her pale yellow creamy skin with a soft orange-salmon flush near where it shined brightest.

  It also wasn't the fact that such a person was what almost opened him up, something sure to be found in Wilrd's literature.

  What kept his eyes scanning attentively from the top of her head to the tip of her toes was the fact that she was still breathing.

  He noticed a bruise on her chin to the right side, but no blood coming out of her nose, nor so much as a busted jaw.

  He had brought her down, but had failed in cracking the skull through the face.

  Becker: [Daft bastard, you...]

  Fighting through the pain, Becker patted her down just in case with his finger on the trigger ready to dispense death, and once in certainty, took out a pair of short-chain manacles from his bag and secured her arms behind her back with an old style key, finalizing by gagging her tight with a nearby cloth.

  *Booh*

  Becker: [Right. Secure doors. Recover weapons. Grab the fx on the ground, secure trophies...]

  Only afterwards did he inspected himself as best he could - acute pain on his chin which seemed to drill straight into his skull, a blow to his abdomen as if from a blunted point, stiff right hand with the palm about to crush itself inward, and the top left hand was searing as if subjected to a heated implement.

  Taking off the glove, a small cloud of steam emanated uncovering a pattern of sigils freshly branded onto the flesh with the meat red and raw as if about to burst in blood.

  *BOOF*

  No need to check the pocket watch. Positioning himself to the doorway from where the sve emerged, he quickly opened it, gun at the ready, and pced the earpiece on himself.

  Becker: *This is Becker. I'm somewhere in the tower. Status - leadership terminated. Repeat - Codename Hideyoshi eliminated. Count one jargha-watamba dead, one prisoner captured.*~

  Wilrd: *Take notice - Air assault in progress; secondary infiltration groups moving in now. Be warned - no sign of Codename Duvalier sighted.*~

  Becker: *Brother...I think I've been hexed. There's some unknown markings burnt on my hand.*~

  Wilrd: *...Anything else?!*~

  Becker: *Nothing more, it would appear. Everything else is negligible.*~

  Wilrd: *...Find a way out. You've done enough.*~

  *Dund*

  Becker: Ah, you tit!

  Grabbing the bloodied sack on the bed and tying it to his bag Becker went after the fast moving sve girl. Catching a glimpse of her feet heading up the stairs he quickly scanned either side before heading after her.

  A faint scent of the sea breeze hung in the air, and a dead silence save for a drone of pained moans.

  Following them through heavy thick masonry and far fewer doors than the floor below he found the sve attempting to bang at one of the doors with her body, tears streaming down her eyes, and cold corpses in light armor over crusted red pools.

  Shoving her out of the way rugby style, Becker inspected through the barred port before turning his attention towards her, cocking the sub-machine gun at her as she sat up on the ground.

  Becker: Stay where you are and don't move.

  Hooking a thermite charge to the busted keyhole, the door at st opened, clearing the short hallway until the ocean was visible through the opposite barred windows.

  And to his right side - bed sacks, other furniture, hanging drapes, a shower room further ahead...

  And dead women on the floor. Equally dressed and cuffed as the one Becker left alive. Mouths agape. Open eyes with the pupils bleached.

  The same women sighted days earlier.

  Closing his eyes, Becker could only motion words out of his mouth as the woman came in close and colpsed to the floor, fighting from losing herself to sorrow and mumbling something through the gag

  Becker: We can't take them with us. I'll perform the bck work. You don't have to see this.

  The sve stared at him with boiling ire and shoulders tensing as she failed in vain to rip in half the chain. She stayed on the ground looking at him as he switched to hollow point ammunition and pced the muzzle in contact with the dead women's palms, their hearts, and their foreheads, the Imperial woman being the st to be rendered this service.

  The sve went towards her and brushed her face upon the lifeless bck-and-blue haired woman, motioning to kiss her on the cheek. She moved overhead unsure what to do next before getting back up.

  Becker: Anything yours?

  She went over to the wall and slipped into a pair of simple slipper shoes, nodding in acknowledgement, and with that, he pulled her away and coated the corpses in nearby mp oil before setting them on fire.

  As he dragged her to the stairwell his mind slowly numbed and his eyes swelled as if being infted.