The Deceitful One

Seeing the light in Anthony's eyes gradually dim, Bryan finally heaved a sigh of relief. He then carefully grabbed the latter's arm that had penetrated his shoulder and slowly pulled it out.

"Aggghh fuck!!" Bryan grunted in pain as he finally pulled out Anthony's arm, causing the latter's lifeless body to fall on the ground like a rag doll.

He then carefully examined his wounds through the tear in his black suit. Bryan could see that the area around the wound had started to turn purple because of the poison.

His breathing became ragged as he dropped to his knees. Bryan's vision was now blurring as a result of his energy expenditure plus the poison that was slowly seeping into his system.

He had to at least impede the poison from spreading. Bryan, with great difficulty, put his hand inside the overcoat of his pocket, as if he was pretending to take something out.

However, like always, he was actually taking out something from his pocket watch. He took out a transparent crystal vial from it, opened the lid, and chugged it down.

This was something he had bought from Livia a long time back. And today it finally came in handy!

The crystal vial contained a blue liquid that served as a healing potion, however, its main purpose was to counter the effects of poison until proper treatment was done.

After drinking the entire potion and feeling that the poison had stopped spreading, Bryan couldn't hold it any longer and he finally lost consciousness. His exhausted body limply fell down right beside Anthony's corpse.

His earlier subconscious action of pretending to take out something from his coat's inner pocket in order to hide the existence of his pocket watch had really helped him out this time, more than he would ever know.

Because from the beginning of the fight till the very end of it, there had always been another person in the room who was observing everything with an amusing smile on his face!

This person hadn't intervened from the beginning because the current outcome was exactly what he had wanted. Always hiding in the shadows and controlling his chess pieces to move in ways that he desired. This was a very dangerous man!

The man was wearing a pin-striped black suit and a black overcoat on top as he slowly walked towards Bryan.

A portion of his wavy black hair could be seen underneath the black top hat that he was wearing. And his eyes… his eyes were the darkest shade of red!

This person was none other than Alfredo's Master! The member of the Holy Blood Sect whom Detective Watson and the Church of Wisdom had been looking for all this while, Sean Marx!

Sean crouched down beside Bryan and checked his pulse as he began to chuckle, "Not bad, kid. You'll live."

He then turned to look at Anthony's lifeless face and sneered, "Tsk tsk, Alfredo has truly raised a useless trash. You deserved to die."

Sean then took out a brown-colored scroll from his inner pocket and carefully put it inside Anthony's clothes. Making sure it would be slightly conspicuous to any person who laid their eyes on his dead body.

He stood back up to his feet and stared at Bryan one last time as he grinned, "Become the thief you were always meant to be!"

With that said he turned around and walked toward the house's entrance. Before even reaching the main door, his body transformed into thousands of small black shadows which, upon inspecting carefully, resembled bats!

He then finally disappeared into the night, leaving no trace of his presence here tonight at this house behind.

About ten minutes after Sean disappeared, Bryan slowly opened his weary eyes. His vision was initially blurry but soon gained focus.

He exhaled a deep breath as he soon got up to his knees. After carefully examining the house and making sure that there was no one around, he heaved a sigh of relief as he slowly got up to his feet.

"Ugh fuck!" Bryan grimaced in pain as he looked at his left shoulder which was bleeding profusely, his left hand hanging limply by his side.

His entire body ached from the previous battle. His head, however, felt only slightly better. At least, the splitting headache had been brought down a notch. Bryan had truly surpassed his physical limits in the previous battle!

Bryan's eyes then fell on Anthony's corpse and he couldn't help but grit his teeth as he thought of the reason why he had followed Anthony here in the first place.

Fury still burning in his heart, he sat on top of Anthony's corpse and raised his right hand, and delivered a solid punch to his face.

"Why!?" Bryan screamed in anger as he raised his fist once again.

"Why did you do it!?"

"That kid was innocent! He wanted nothing more than to live a better life!"

"Why!!?" Bryan continued to punch over and over again as he yelled at Anthony's lifeless body.

Tears streamed down his face but he continued to punch until Anthony's face was disfigured and had become a mangled mixture of flesh, bones, and grey matter.

"Aaaaarrghhhhhhhh!!" His eyes bloodshot, Bryan looked up and screamed in pain, grief, and misery.

His breathing became ragged as he wailed incessantly, thinking back to the times he had spent with Jamie. Although it was short, it was very memorable to Bryan because he saw himself in Jamie.

Jamie reminded him of himself in more ways than one. And over time he had grown very fond of the little kid who tried his best to move out of the slums and provide for his siblings.

After crying for a few more minutes, Bryan wiped the tears and snot off of his face and finally calmed down his emotions.

He then looked down at Anthony's mutilated head, however, this time there was not even a shred of fury visible in his eyes. It was replaced by complete apathy!

Bryan got back up to his feet and was about to leave the house. However, from the corner of his eyes, he caught sight of a brown scroll that was peeking out of Anthony's clothes.

He bent over and picked up the scroll. Once he opened it, his hands began to tremble as his eyes widened, "This… it can't be! Impossible!"