Chapter 4. Purging.
1745 Words
The notification blinked in the corner of Cain’s vision like a cursed omen.
[SECRET MISSION UNLOCKED.]
Option 1: Kill Milo and take control of the dock.
Option 2: Spare him and lose promotion and Loyalty Bar skills.
Time Remaining: 03:21
Cain’s jaw locked. His breath hitched as he stared at the screen. Betrayal had a smell—it was cold metal, old wood, and burnt dreams.
The door creaked open.
Milo stepped in, wiping rain from his jacket. “Sorry. Work stuff.”
Cain didn’t move. “Who was it?”
Milo shrugged. “Bosses. Checking in.”
Cain’s eyes slid to the open folder still on the table. Milo followed his gaze. His smile died.
“You saw it.”
Silence stretched thin.
Cain didn’t blink. “So that’s it, huh?”
Milo shut the door behind him and leaned against it. “Look, man… it’s not personal.”
Cain stared at him like he was a stranger. “Not personal?”
Milo sighed. “I’ve wanted that promotion my whole damn life. All I had to do was clean up after a body. I didn’t think you’d survive.”
“I was your brother,” Cain said softly. “You could’ve chosen anyone else.”
“I couldn’t risk it,” Milo said, quiet. “Not for you. Not for anyone.”
Cain stood slowly, eyes wet but voice ice-cold. “You’re a coward.”
Milo had already began positioning himself for a fight, he reached into his pocket and grabbed a pocket knife.
Cain on the other hand stood still, reality dawned on him quite harshly. He really was alone in this cruel world and Milo was an evidence of it.
Seeing Cain was still caught in the trance of realisation Milo realised it was the right time to strike, a now or never opportunity.
With speed he charged towards Cain his dagger held positioned and ready to strike.
Then he moved!
Three swift strikes—ribs, throat, shoulder. Milo staggered, gasping. Cain pulled his pistol, aimed square at Milo’s heart.
Bang.
Milo flinched. No blood.
He looked down. “You missed.”
Cain didn’t lower the gun. “I don't miss,” slowly he backed away, “ever! That was mercy. I don’t want your death on my hands.”
This was it, the final line between the two men who had considered themselves brothers were severed with an act of kindness.
He turned to leave.
[WARNING: THREAT DETECTED.]
[YOU ARE ABOUT TO LOSE PROMOTION AND SKILL.]
[ARE YOU SURE?]
[Cain: Yes.]
Behind him, Milo screamed, “You were always too soft!”
Cain spun just in time to see the sledgehammer swinging at his head.
[DANGER LEVEL: CRITICAL.]
[HOST DECISION DISABLED. SYSTEM TAKING OVER.]
“No—wait, STOP!” Cain shouted.
But he was no longer in control.
His limbs moved with mechanical precision. The gun rose. Finger locked around the trigger.
“MILO, RUN—!” Cain shouted, eyes wide with horror.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Silence.
Blood soaked the floorboards. Milo crumpled in a heap, staring at Cain with glassy eyes.
The control faded.
Cain dropped the gun. Dropped to his knees. Screamed like an animal. His voice cracked in grief, face twisted in something primal.
There were no witnesses. Milo had sent everyone home.
He was alone with the corpse of the one person who still called him friend.
“Why… Why didn’t you just let me go?”
No answer. Just static.
Cain stumbled outside, fists clenched, boots dragging through mud and blood.
And that’s when he saw them.
Marco and Vin.
“Look who it is,” Marco sneered, stepping forward. “The ghost of Cain-freaking-Locust.”
Vin chuckled. “We heard you were alive. Had to see it for ourselves.”
Cain didn’t answer. His eyes were distant, face pale.
“You should’ve stayed dead,” Marco added. “You were better off that way.”
Cain tilted his head, as if listening to something far away.
Then he smiled—wide, eerie, dead-eyed.
“Ah,” he whispered. “So it’s not the people… It’s the source of power. That’s what’s rotten.”
Marco’s brow furrowed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Cain stepped forward. “The world’s diseased. Filthy. Broken. And I’ve been chosen to fix it.”
Vin took a step back. “He’s lost it.”
Cain’s voice sharpened. “Tell me—do you know why you two were never picked for the high-level jobs? For anything that actually mattered?”
Neither answered.
Cain’s tone turned razor-sharp, words slicing the air. “Because when you walk into a room, no one’s afraid. But me? You feel it now, don’t you? That crawling in your spine? That’s fear.”
Marco reached for his gun.
Too slow.
Cain drew first.
The shot echoed like thunder. Marco dropped, screaming, clutching his stomach.
Vin pulled his blade, charged—
Cain dodged, grabbed his wrist, disarmed him, and drove the blade into his thigh. Vin screamed.
Cain stared into his eyes, unblinking.
“You think betrayal’s brave? You think cruelty’s power?” He leaned closer, whispering like a confession. “I’ve seen what power really is. It’s silence. It’s fire. It’s death.”
Vin trembled violently, legs giving out beneath him. “Please—Cain—don’t—”
Cain raised the gun again. “Don’t what? Don’t be what this world made me?”
Bang.
Bang.
Blood painted the dock red.
Cain stood alone again, breathing hard, chest rising and falling in uneven jerks.
He looked down at the three corpses.
Milo. Marco. Vin.
Then he knelt and used the blade to carve slow, deliberate letters into their cold flesh.
THE PURGING HAS BEGUN.
The Next Morning – Black Citadel Compound
Rain lashed against the windows of the penthouse office.
Alucard stood at the far end of the room, eyes locked on the crimson-stained photos scattered across his desk.
Marco—face twisted in horror.
Vin—mouth open mid-scream.
Milo—his oldest soldier, eyes still open.
And in their chests—words carved with devotion.
One of the guards swallowed nervously. “Sir… orders?”
Alucard didn’t answer right away.
He lit a cigarette. Inhaled.
Then, without looking up, he said:
“Send word to the remaining Four.”
The cigarette hissed in his hand like a fuse.
“The Reaper’s back.”
***
The room was dark when the system spoke again.
“REWARD GRANTED: LOYALTY BAR – ABILITY ACTIVATED. Scan subjects for probability of betrayal, measured in % scale. Red = High Risk. Yellow = Unstable. Green = Loyal.”
Cain stared at the floating screen through half-lidded eyes, its glow reflected in the shards of a mirror he hadn’t bothered to clean up. His clothes were still damp from the docks, blood had crusted on his sleeves. He hadn’t slept. He hadn’t even blinked since Milo died. The system had forced his hand, but the choice still burned in his chest like rot.
Still, this new skill… it wasn’t just a reward. It was a weapon.
He grunted and rose, dragging on a clean shirt. His face, half-hidden by shadows, was unrecognizable even to himself. There was something different about his reflection like the soul had finally let go.
“Let’s test this,” he murmured, a chill in his voice.
He already had the perfect subjects in mind.
Milo’s territory was an abandoned shipyard turned underground operations post. It wasn’t flashy just a few men, crates of untraceable weapons, some low-level drug traffickers. But Cain knew better. The real power was in the loyalty the place bred loyalty to Milo.
He couldn't let that rot sit.
Cain arrived masked, dressed in matte black. The mask covered everything but his jaw, which was tense as a drawn wire. They didn’t recognize him not at first.
He stepped into the open, letting the silence announce him before he did.
The workers looked up. Some drew their guns, half-expecting a rival gang raid. Others just froze. A few instinctively looked around for Milo.
Cain raised a gloved hand.
“Your leader is dead,” he said, voice deep and steady. “Killed by my hand.”
A wave of confusion swept through the men.
“Per the code of the underworld,” Cain continued, “you earn what you keep. Milo’s territory now belongs to me.”
He stepped forward, slow, calculated. His presence was eerily calm, his mask giving him the air of an executioner silent, inevitable.
“Name’s Vincent Stable,” he said, rolling the false name across his tongue like glass. “If you serve me, you live. If you challenge that—”
A man stepped forward, raising a pistol.
Cain shot him before the gun even finished rising.
The man’s body dropped with a dull thud.
No warning. No speech. Just silence and death.
Cain tilted his head, slowly scanning the room. The new Loyalty Bar ability activated, and his vision shimmered like glass being heated. Above each man’s head, floating bars appeared.
Red. Red. Yellow. Green. Red.
Cain narrowed his eyes.
“Those with doubts,” he said, voice low, “I’m giving you one more chance. Stay… or walk away. But don’t lie to me.”
Most said nothing.
Some men, terrified, dropped their weapons. Cain watched them. Two of them had red bars. Still flagged as high risk.
He stepped toward one—muscular, neck tattoos, eyes darting like a rabbit’s.
Cain raised the pistol and fired.
One clean shot through the skull.
Gasps. Screams. A few of them backed into crates, trembling.
The other red-bar men switched instantly loyalty bars turning yellow, then green in real time.
“The system recognizes emotional conversion,” the digital voice echoed in Cain’s head.
“LOYALTY POINTS GAINED – FEAR TYPE. +3.”
Cain didn’t blink.
“I’ll rebuild what Milo couldn't. Not out of comfort. But order,” he said, calmly holstering the pistol. “Stay. Work. Betray me—” He glanced at the blood on the floor. “—and you’ll follow.”
No one dared move.
Cain turned and walked up the steps, the room utterly silent behind him.
But as he reached the top, the system whispered again:
“FEAR OR ADMIRATION both lead to control. Loyalty can be earned… or harvested.”
Cain exhaled slowly and stared at the sky. There were no stars.
- Writer
