NOVEL NEXT Chapter 107: No Mercy!
The smoke from Dominic's explosion still lingered, drifting through the cavern like ghostly mist. Tiny fragments of scorched debris floated down in slow spirals, settling softly onto the blood-soaked ground. The iron stench hung thick in the air, so heavy it felt like a weight pressed against the lungs.
Only a handful of recruits remained.
They stood frozen where they were, trembling uncontrollably, eyes wide and unfocused. Sweat dripped down the sides of their heads, carving thin trails through dirt and dried blood. Weapons slipped in their shaking hands. Knees buckled. Whatever courage they once held as Awakened had evaporated entirely.
They looked nothing like warriors.
They looked like children abandoned in the dark, waiting for the monster to take them.
The first one to break collapsed with a choked, broken sound. He fell to his knees, then all the way down, forehead pressing desperately against the cold stone as tears streamed down his cheeks.
"P… please…" he whimpered, voice cracking. "Please spare me…"
Bruce turned toward him, expression unreadable. He walked forward slowly, the soft echo of his footsteps almost tender in the suffocating silence. When he stopped in front of the kneeling boy, he tilted his head slightly.
"Mercy?" he repeated, as if tasting the word for the first time.
The recruit's breath hitched with hope. A small, trembling light flickered in his eyes.
Bruce lowered himself just a little, placing a gentle hand on the boy's head. The touch was warm, soft… comforting. In that brief moment it felt like Bruce was really considering it...
The recruit sobbed harder, shoulders shaking with relief. He thought, he truly believed, he was saved.
Bruce whispered, almost kindly,
"You already had it… when I killed you quick."
A single, sharp crack rang out.
The body dropped instantly, lifeless.
A strangled scream burst from one of the remaining recruits. His face drained completely, pallor washing over him as Bruce rose with calm precision, wiping a faint speck of blood from his knuckle.
"Please! Please stop! I'll do anything!" another cried, stumbling backward until his foot slammed into a tree far back...
Bruce's lips curved into a light, almost amused smile.
"You'll do anything?"
"Yes! Anything!"
Bruce nodded softly.
"Then die quietly."
A clean arc of steel flashed. The recruit's plea ended in a wet gasp as he crumpled to the floor.
That single death shattered whatever fragile sanity remained.
One dropped his weapon with a clatter and sprinted away. He didn't look back, didn't breathe, didn't think. He just ran, tripping over stone, burnt tree stumps and debris in blind panic.
"Don't kill me! Please! I swear I'll disappear! I won't fight!"
Bruce raised a hand, and the fleeing recruit froze mid-step, hope flickering wildly across his eyes. For a moment, it almost seemed like Bruce might actually spare him.
Bruce exhaled softly.
"No."
The recruit opened his mouth to beg again, but Bruce blurred forward. A swift, clean strike ended his life before his next breath could form.
Another dropped to his knees. His hands trembled as they pressed against the ground.
"M-mercy…"
Bruce crouched in front of him, leaning closer until their eyes locked.
"You know," he said softly, as if confiding a secret, "mercy is a beautiful concept."
Hope, fragile as glass, flickered again in the boy's gaze.
"But like most beautiful things… it's rare. Expensive. Costly."
The boy opened his mouth, maybe to swear loyalty, maybe to promise everything he had, maybe to pray, but he never finished.
Bruce placed two fingers against his chest.
"And I don't feel like paying for it today."
A pulse of power stopped the boy's heart instantly.
Another stepped forward next, voice barely working, limbs weak with terror. "P-please… I-I don't want to die"
Bruce didn't offer comfort. He didn't threaten. He didn't speak at all.
He simply ended it with a single, efficient motion.
The body hit the stone before the echo of the strike faded.
Bruce walked past him without slowing.
One of the final remaining survivors stumbled backward helplessly. His weapon slipped from numb fingers. His lungs rattled as he tried and failed to breathe steadily.
"W-wait!" he cried. "I surrender! Please! You gain nothing from this! You've killed enough!"
Bruce paused.
He actually paused.
The recruit dared to hope, just a little. It was enough to straighten his spine, enough to let air back into his lungs.
"Surrender?" Bruce said quietly. He examined him with mild curiosity. "Now?"
He tilted his head. "I want to see something."
Before the boy understood, Bruce vanished and reappeared behind him. His hand plunged through flesh in one smooth, effortless motion.
The recruit's breath caught. His knees buckled as Bruce slowly pulled his arm free. He inspected the blood running down his arm with clinical detachment.
"Good," he murmured. "Your plea didn't disturb my grip."
He let the corpse fall like discarded trash.
The last survivors were shaking violently, hands clamped over their mouths to stop their screams, tears streaming down their faces. Some couldn't even breathe properly. The place reeked not only of blood but of fear so thick it crawled against the skin.
Bruce gave a soft sigh.
"Why do they act like that?" he muttered, almost confused. "Their deaths aren't real. They'll wake up in the real world… why do they forget this is VR?"
He didn't realize the truth.
Yes, this was Virtual Reality. But Bruce was acting like a psychopath, or perhaps he truly was one.
His sadistic aura pressed down on their minds like an invisible weight, smothering their reasoning, their courage, their ability to think. His brutality, his cold efficiency, the casual way he executed them… it broke something deep inside them.
They didn't just fear dying in the simulation.
They feared him.
Bruce Ackerman.
The terror he radiated stripped the recruits of logic until they could remember only one thing, etched brutally into their souls:
Bruce was death!
***
A/N:
Sorry for the late post guys... What do you guys think of the story so far and the pace...