Chapter 15: Watermelon
Present day.
The clock struck midnight, and Grimzna and Peter were deep in slumber within their room. Abruptly, their eyes snapped open, and they sat up in their beds, locking gazes with one another.
“I think it worked, I just felt it.” Peter said.
“Quick, grab your alarm clock.” Grimzna instructed Peter.
Peter quickly picked up his alarm clock and threw it to Grimzna. The clock had strange drawings on its screen, with writing that was hard to understand.
“Did your tinkering on my clock worked, Grim?”
“It’s not tinkering, it was a ritual spell.”
“Well, yeah, your ‘ritual spell’ did not work last time.”
Grimzna took a blank paper from his desk and began marking waypoints on it while glancing at the clock's screen. “What are you doing? What is it saying?” Peter asked.
“Remember when I told you someone was tracking me, and I said I did not like it?”
“Yea?”
“With the materials we bought, I tried making a teleportation device.”
“Which did not work….”
“That’s right, so I thought, if I couldn’t leave this place, and there was someone tracking me. How about I track them back and see who they are?”
“Aren’t you worried that they might be stronger than you?”
“I’m not really worried about that, in my world, there are only 3 people that I know of that could fight against me on par. While there is only 1 person that could defeat me, and I highly doubt they would do well on Earth so it wouldn’t be them.”
“Then what did you do to my clock?”
“I modified it with the leftover materials, you see these writings? They are runes. Whenever someone within the clock’s range used high tier magic or release their aura, your clock would pick it up and displayed its location.”
Grimzna explained as he continued writing down a sequence of numbers on the paper. "This clock holds a pattern that reveals the coordinates of the area where the mana surge occurred."
“What about the ring you made for me?”
“That’s just a detector, people from Agromoth don’t really wear it since we are already attuned with magic in the atmosphere. But if you wear it, you could sense mana just like we do.”
Grimzna handed the paper to Peter and told him to enter the coordinates into his computer.
“It’s quite a distance, it’s out of the city. Looks like nothing but woods out there.” Peter said, as he continued to search for any information regarding the place.
“Noodle Earth doesn’t show everything, I’ll fly over there to check it out myself.” Grimzna opened the window in Peter’s room and stood on the rooftop, readying himself for take-off.
“Try not to get spotted, it’s a private property.”
Sensing an unusual reaction from Peter, Grimzna asked, "You're not planning to ask if you can tag along?"
“What? So that you can refuse my request again?”
“Yep.” Grimzna quickly responded and then shot up into the sky at top speed. The strong updraft he created made the windows shake from the powerful gust of wind.
Peter gazed at the sky where Grimzna had ascended, watching as he vanished into the distance after a brief moment. “I’m gonna go back to sleep.”
…
As he soared through the skies, Grimzna contemplated his course of action should he encounter the individuals who had been tailing him. “They haven’t yet done anything harmful to me, I wonder if they can be negotiated?”
“But what if they are hostile, should I kill them then?”
Approaching the designated area, Grimzna's brow knitted in concentration. Just as before, the whites of his eyes gradually dimmed, while his burgundy pupils morphed into a deep, intense blood-red shade.
Amidst the pitch-black night, Grimzna's vision sharpened, allowing him to perceive every detail with uncanny clarity. He soared above an expanse of dense trees, until his keen eyes caught sight of a substantial structure resembling a church. Adjacent to the building, a fleet of cars was parked, shrouded by the woods and the darkness of the night.
Grimzna descended quietly to the ground, his wings retracting seamlessly. Upon activating his invisibility, he approached the building. Its grand entrance loomed before him, the massive front door bearing signs of forceful entry. The imposing portal had been ravaged, its wood splintered and shattered, leaving a jagged breach in its once-sturdy form.
“Could those who tracked me truly live in such shabby place?” Grimzna pondered aloud, his gaze sweeping over the scene. His attention shifted to the vehicles parked nearby. Upon closer examination, he discerned the telltale imprints of tires on the ground, etchings left by hasty departures of cars.
Facing the imposing front door, Grimzna confronted an abyss of darkness within the building's interior, devoid of any discernible light other than the moonlight that entered from a large hole in the ceiling. His hand grazed the door frame, his gaze fixated on the remnants strewn around the shattered entrance.
"Instead of breaking in, it seems like something broke out. This door was shattered from within.”
With his eyes, Grimzna saw numerous bodies clad in hooded cloaks lay motionless on the floor. The scene was a gruesome spectacle of violence, with severed limbs and lifeless forms scattered amidst the horror. Some had lost limbs, others their heads, and the gruesome aftermath painted the walls and floor with a macabre display of blood and gore.
Grimzna continued on his path, without showing any signs of disturbance. His steps leading him past the grim scene of motionless figures. Undeterred by the gruesome sight, he pressed forward, his gaze now falling upon the shattered wooden benches that lined the interior. These seats, much like the damaged entrance, bore the unmistakable marks of a violent upheaval, their once-intact forms now fractured and broken.
Grimzna whispered a single word under his breath, "[Message]," using a magic spell to communicate with Peter from a distance without the need for spoken words.
"Hu... huh?" Peter, roused from his sleep by Grimzna's mental communication, responded groggily.
“I’m at the scene, and there’s something I want you to see. Put the ring I gave you on the desk and face it against the wall.”
Few moments later, Peter's surprised voice echoed in Grimzna's thoughts, vividly describing the surroundings despite being miles away. It was then followed by the sound of Peter gagging, as if reacting to what Grimzna was witnessing.
“*gag* you should tell me what you wanted to show me before you actually do. I wasn’t expecting to see these things!”
“It’s fine, you are now perceiving the images through my eyes. Other than the sight, you can’t smell or hear anything where I am.”
“Jeez, that made me feel better, can you censor the stuff you see? I feel like vomiting again every time I look at it.”
“I want to ask you, is such occurrence normal in your world?”
“Of course not! It’s the whole reason why I feel disgusted by it!”
“What do you think caused this? This is where the coordinate led me to.”
“I don’t know, bears? I saw some people that looked like they were ripped apart. They dressed like a cult, are these the people that went after you?”
“I would assume they are.”
Grimzna stepped closer to the altar, his gaze fixed on the scene before him. Resting at the base of the altar was an axe, its haft firmly gripped by a pair of severed hands. Atop the altar's surface, a metal chair lay sprawled, its frame contorted and battered, as if subjected to forceful blows.
“Looked like there were a ceremony here, something was seated on the altar.”
“I think those are chains? Near the chair.”
Grimzna knelt to pick up the chains, his fingers tracing the signs of blunt impact and cleanly severed sections of the chains. “These chains are connected to the wall, but something broke off its cuff…”
“What were they restraining with chains this thick?”
As Grimzna prepared to step off from the altar. “Grimzna!!!”, Peter yelled through [Message].
A colossal ball of fire, the size of a car, hurtled towards him with astonishing speed. The fiery projectile struck Grimzna, propelling him forcefully across the expanse of the church and crashing him against the rugged stone wall. The impact of his collision caused portions of the ceiling to collapse and come crashing down upon the spot where Grimzna had been, burying him.
“Hah! You think just because you had invisibility on, I could not sense where you are?!” A man shouted at the direction where Grimzna was, it was the grandmaster.
“I’ll make you pay for what you did…you think you are special just because you are from another world?” The grandmaster said, as he advanced toward.
“I’ll kill you and take your power for myself!” Again, the grandmaster summoned a fiery orb similar to the previous one, aimed directly at the debris covering Grimzna. The explosion that followed sent a powerful shockwave outward, blowing apart nearby objects and reducing the clutter to pieces. As the dust settled, the area became visible once more, revealing the aftermath of the explosive force. There was nothing left at the center of the blast, only charred marks on the ground.
The grandmaster panted heavily, struggling to catch his breath. “Ha... remember this! Tremble before the might of us, the superior beings.” The grandmaster was visibly hurt, his cloak torn, and blood staining his clothes as it dripped from his arm.
“We need to burn this place down. Our hideout's been compromised. Some of our own fled when things got tough. Pathetic! They don't deserve the power.” The grandmaster's voice echoed as he turned to make his way towards the exit.
However, his expression shifted to one of surprise when he noticed Grimzna seated casually on one of the partially intact wooden benches. “What is it you said, something about killing me?”
“Wait…you’re supposed to be dead…”
“Your attack barely hurt me, if you think you could kill me with such low tier magic, you are horribly mistaken.”
“You’re not…it…but you are the same kind.”
Grimzna rose from his sitting chair, walking calmly towards the grandmaster. “What am I not?”
“I know you, we’ve seen you! You are the man that came in contact with the target!”
“Are you the people that have been tracking me?”
"So... you're one of them too, haha," the grandmaster chuckled maniacally, a glint of realization in his eyes.
Grimzna, growing somewhat annoyed by the grandmaster's laughter, signaled to Peter through their telepathic connection. "Peter, I'll cut off the message. We'll talk later."
"Wait, I want to see—" Peter's voice was cut off abruptly as Grimzna severed the connection before he could finish.
“So, Mister, mind telling me exactly what happened here?” Grimzna asked the grandmaster, his voice carrying a polite yet unmistakably threatening undertone.
“We caught one of your kind, haha. We were so close to attaining its pow –” The grandmaster's words were cut short as Grimzna swiftly landed a kick, so rapid that the grandmaster hardly realized his own leg just flew across the room.
The Grandmaster crumpled to the ground, his hands clutching the severed stump of his leg. His anguished cry pierced the air, "My... my leg! Ahhh!!! My leg!!!" A pool of blood began to spread beneath him, further staining the ground where he lay.
Grimzna grasped his hair, pulling him up to meet his gaze. “I don’t really care what you were gonna do to my ‘kind’, what I care is who you did it to.”
“It…was…a girl, with violet hair.” The grandmaster's response was marked by stuttering, his words strained by the pain.
Grimzna tossed the grandmaster aside, resuming his seat on the wooden bench. His fingers tapped repeatedly on the weathered wood as he gazed at the human before him. “Tsk…did she remembering everything? I was sure I killed her last time, does she have some kind of blessing that allowed her to recover from the brink of death?”
The grandmaster, his body battered and broken, struggled to retreat across the floor toward the exit. Leaving a trail of blood as he crawled, he dragged his wounded form across the floor, inch by agonizing inch. Grimzna rose from the bench with a heavy sigh. “It would have been better if you guys found me instead, but it just had to be her, huh.”
As the grandmaster crawled away, a shroud of fear enveloped him, his mutterings a desperate mantra, "Lied... you lied... two of them, you never said...there were two of them!"
Paying no attention to the grandmaster’s ceaseless mutter, Grimzna's voice turned cold and incensed. “I knew it was her the first time I saw her on the street, but I left her be since she wasn’t doing anything.”
Grimzna continued as he placed his right foot firmly on the grandmaster's cloak, halting his attempt to escape. "When she saw me, I was worried for a second since she seemed to recognize me, but then there was something different about her. Hesitation."
Using his left leg, Grimzna applied steady and deliberate pressure onto the Grandmaster's other leg. The Grandmaster's agonized cries filled the air as the excruciating pain surged through him.
“No! Make it stop! It hurts!!” he screamed, the torment intensifying as Grimzna continued to press down, exerting enough force to crush bone.
A resounding crack echoed through the hall as the bones in the Grandmaster's foot gave way under the relentless pressure. His foot now resembled a flattened pancake, its hues shifting to an ominous palette of purple and blue.
Rendered powerless by his now immobilized legs, the Grandmaster lay prone and writhed at the pain of losing both his legs. Grimzna approached, stepping over the Grandmaster to stand before him, then lowering himself into a crouched position.
“As far as I’m concerned, your kind shouldn’t be capable of utilizing magic at all.”
In response, the Grandmaster thrusted his palm forward at Grimzna’s face, he shouted, "[Fireball]!"
A massive sphere of fire erupted and engulfed Grimzna's face, the intense flames consuming him. The force of the resulting explosion sent the Grandmaster tumbling backward.
Unexpectedly, a hand emerged from the dissipating flames, seizing the Grandmaster's cloak by the neck. Grimzna emerged unscathed from the fire, a look of indifference on his face as he remarked, “Haven’t I told you such low tier magic would not work on me?”
"Unbelievable..." The Grandmaster's disbelief was evident as his most powerful attacks, delivered twice with direct hits, failed to harm his target in the slightest. The target stood there, unscathed, and seemingly invulnerable.
"Your magic is useless against me, and it's rather bothersome when you try to use it while I'm speaking," Grimzna interjected, his tone calm yet assertive. "I'll relieve you of that privilege now."
“Wa-” before the Grandmaster could react, Grimzna swiftly seized his hands, his grip unyielding. With a firm squeeze, Grimzna crushed the Grandmaster's hands, causing the Grandmaster to gasp in pain and cut off his sentence.
“There! Now you can’t use them.” Releasing his grip, Grimzna let the Grandmaster's hands to fall to the ground lifelessly, like discarded objects.
Grimzna extended his hand and pointed it at the grandmaster, his fingers assuming an ominous transformation, reshaping into a lethal, blade-like form. “You couldn’t keep your hands to yourself. And now…” Grimzna looked around the chaos scattered across the hall, "...she has remembered everything thanks to you."
With chilling resolve, he continued, “There goes the peaceful life I dreamt of…” The blade on Grimzna's hand elongated, its tip inching closer to the grandmaster's forehead. Slowly, torturously, it pierced the barrier of flesh, it was like cracking into a watermelon. The grandmaster’s skull gave way with a sickening crack, and the insides were soft like Jello.
“I guess no matter what world, there are always people like you that loves poking their nose into somewhere they don’t belong. Now it's up to me, to clean up the mess you made.”
Grimzna conjured a tiny purple flame on his fingertip and flicked it towards the ground. In an instant, the tiny flame roared to life and swiftly engulfing the entire building. As the inferno raged, the structure quivered and groaned, unable to withstand the flame.
Upon exiting the building, the building succumbed, collapsing into a heap of rubble and ash.
“I’m hoping now that we are both in another world, we could at least negotiate. If not, I’ll have to kill you again, Tsui.” Grimzna spoke softly, his gaze lifting to the moonlit sky above.
