NOVEL NEXT Chapter 44: Head
Her voice, cool and clear, cut through the silence like a knife.
"Well, well," she murmured, arms crossed as she tilted her head at Damien Bloodbane. "I heard Team Shadowfang was causing trouble. But I wasn't expecting… you."
Damien Bloodbane smiled.
"Jennifer," he said smoothly. "Long time no see."
Her icy eyes narrowed. "Not long enough."
Jennifer Aquafrost's icy gaze never wavered as she snapped her fingers.
"Take them down," she said calmly, like she was ordering tea.
The Aquafrost elites around her surged forward like a tidal wave of fists and fury.
Harry Shadowfang reacted first.
"HELL YEAH! FUCKING BRING IT ON, YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!" he roared, launching himself into the fray like a reckless berserker.
His first punch slammed into an Aquafrost fighter's jaw, sending the guy stumbling backward.
But another opponent grabbed Harry from behind in a tight hold.
Before Damien Bloodbane could react—
Harry Shadowfang threw his head backward with full force.
CRACK!
The distinct sound of a nose breaking filled the air.
The Aquafrost goon let out a pained howl, releasing Harry immediately.
Harry Shadowfang grinned through bloody teeth. "Ha! Time to get a new fucking nose, fuck face!"
Meanwhile, Damien Bloodbane was already moving.
A fist flew toward his face.
He tilted his head slightly, letting the punch graze past his cheek by a hair's breadth.
Then, with lightning speed, he countered—
A precise palm strike to the attacker's ribs, followed by a brutal elbow to the chin.
THUD.
The man crumpled instantly.
But there was no time to rest.
Two more Aquafrost fighters rushed Damien simultaneously.
The first one threw a high kick.
Damien Bloodbane caught his leg mid-air, twisted it cruelly, and—
BAM!
The man flipped backward, landing face-first onto a shattered table.
His partner lunged in, trying to take advantage of Damien's opening.
Bad move.
Damien Bloodbane's foot shot out, catching him in the gut.
The man gasped, doubling over.
Damien Bloodbane grabbed him by the collar and drove his knee into his face.
Bang!
Blood sprayed as the fighter collapsed.
All around him, the net café was in ruins.
Tables were splintered into pieces.
Chairs were flying like weapons.
Glass shards and broken equipment littered the floor.
And in the center of the destruction—
Damien Bloodbane and Harry Shadowfang stood tall, still fighting, still grinning, still knocking enemies down one by one.
The net café manager, still somehow miraculously uninjured, was huddled behind the counter, sobbing into his hands.
"YOU PEOPLE ARE MONSTERS!" he wailed like a chicken being slaughtered.
Another Aquafrost fighter flew across the room and smashed through his Charmander tinted windows.
"MY WINDOWS! MY PRECIOUS WINDOWS! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO GET THAT CHARMANDER GLASS?!"
A laptop exploded as a body crashed into it.
"I'M RUINED! RUINED! I'LL SUE EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!"
Damien Bloodbane grinned to himself.
The manager's ability to deliver an exquisitely anguished running commentary on his own financial devastation while actively witnessing his shop's annihilation in real-time was nothing short of impressive.
YOU BARBARIANS! YOU HAVE NO RESPECT FOR PROPERTY! WHO RAISED YOU?! WERE YOU BORN IN A CAVE?
"SOMEONE CALL THE COPS! CALL THE MILITARY! CALL THE DAMN EMPEROR! I NEED HELP BEFORE THEY TEAR THE WHOLE BUILDING DOWN!"
"He is good." Damien Bloodbane couldn't help but chuckle inwardly. But he didn't have the luxury of bothering with him.
He was juggling multiple fights at once.
Harry was handling himself well, but his reckless brawling style meant he left himself wide open far too often.
And Jennifer Aquafrost's goons weren't weak.
They were strong, trained, and coordinated.
Together, they had managed to push Damien Bloodbane to exert 10% of his skills.
At that moment, Harry Shadowfang was laughing maniacally, locked in a wild exchange of fists with an Aquafrost fighter twice his size.
Their punches blurred, the sound of flesh meeting flesh echoing through the ruined café.
A third Aquafrost goon circling behind Harry, his fists clenched, his body low, moving like a predator about to strike.
Damien Bloodbane moved instantly.
His foot lashed out at the exact moment the goon lunged—
BANG!
His heel slammed into the attacker's chest, sending him flying backward into a table, flipping over it in a tangle of limbs.
The net café manager let out a new scream of misery.
"THAT SQUIRTLE TABLE WAS IMPORTED DIRECTLY FROM JAPAN!"
Damien Bloodbane didn't even look back as he continued weaving through the battlefield.
One by one, they dropped.
Damien Bloodbane's fists moved faster than they could react, his footwork sharper, his instincts absolute.
Until suddenly… His instincts screamed.
Time slowed.
Damien Bloodbane's vision sharpened, his eyes instinctively scanning the battlefield.
Then… He saw it.
An inconspicuous figure directly across the room, moving too smoothly through the chaos.
A young man, one of Jennifer's fighters, had somehow positioned himself next to Athena's Sim Pod. And his hands were glowing.
A massive energy ball was gathering in his palms, its core pulsing with destructive power.
He was about to destroy Athena's Sim Pod completely.
Damien Bloodbane's body reacted before his mind even finished processing.
He exploded forward with everything he had.
His muscles coiled, his blood surged, his entire being became a single force of destruction.
Like a bullet tearing through the air, he blasted forward, his sheer force ripping through the battlefield like a storm.
The shockwave of his launch alone sent the closest fighters flying.
BOOM!
The nearest Aquafrost thug barely had time to react before Damien's shoulder slammed into his ribs, crushing them instantly.
The man's body whipped through the air, crashing into two of his teammates like a human wrecking ball.
They collapsed in a heap, groaning in pain.
More fighters lunged.
Damien Bloodbane didn't even slow down.
His sheer speed crashed into them like a cannonball.
One took a knee to the gut, another caught a brutal forearm to the jaw, their bodies whipped aside like rag dolls.
Harry Shadowfang stared in awe.
"What the actual fuck—"
But Damien Bloodbane was already gone, tearing through the chaos like a hurricane.
In the span of a single second, he had cleared half the battlefield.
And finally, he was within reach.
The energy-wielding assassin finally realized the danger.
His eyes widened in sheer terror.
But it was too late.
Damien Bloodbane's hand flashed, and in that single, final moment his blade sliced through the air—
And severed his head cleanly from his shoulders.
The body fell first.
Then the head hit the floor.
Silence.
The entire net café went still.