Troy: The Demon Knight S2: by Nick Venom (distant reading .txt) 📖

wasn’t covered by cardboard. It gave them a perfect line of sight into the building’s first floor and the main room housing slaves. The slaves were working, making clothes, and other types of merchandise for the owners to sell. Some carried heavy items and moved them while others were shackled to exposed pipes, rotting in corners. 

Marie’s eyes skimmed through the slaves, finding a familiar sight within the faces. It was the face of Lainey, but she appeared different. She wasn’t her bright and cheery self, her eyes dead and her face wearing a permanent frown. She was shackled to an exposed pipe, splatters of blood on the pipes. Marie assumed the blood came from Lainey.

“You see your sister?” 675 whispered.

Marie nodded, a big smile on her face. “She’s inside, I see her!” She exclaimed. She quickly regretted her shout of excitement. Some of the slaves and the guards, dressed in the casual attire of luxurious clothing, glanced in her direction. She ducked out of sight, barely able to avoid detection.

“Shhh.” 675 whispered. “They’ll hear you.”

Marie nodded. “I know.” She peeked her eyes over the bottom of the window, peering at the people inside. Her eyes scanned the room, stopping to stare at two men standing in the middle of the room. One of them was another familiar face, shocking her. It was her butler, Christian, standing with an unfamiliar man. 

“What do you mean we aren’t getting the ransom!” The unfamiliar man shouted.

“Shut your mouth.” Christian calmly stated, glaring at the man. “You wouldn’t want to leak unnecessary information that-”

The man shook his head, brandishing a sword. He pointed it at Christian, his comrades doing the same. Christian simply smirked at them. “Is this your decision?” He asked.

The man spat at the ground. “There’s my decision.”

Christian took a step forward, brandishing his weapon - a curved dagger. “Good,” He said with a menacing smile. He took another step, disappearing from Marie’s sight. She scanned the rest of the room for him, noticing glints of him. He appeared in front of one guard after another, disappearing a second later. The guards collapsed to their knees after he disappeared from them. 

Christian was using some type of transportation ability to cut down the men without resistance. 

He stopped short of Lainey, staring down at her. His tuxedo was clean, not a single speck of blood on it. It was as if he hadn’t killed all of the guards, including the man he was talking to. 

He must’ve been sent to save Lainey! Perfect! Save her, Christian! She opened her mouth to scream out her thoughts, but 675 covered her mouth using her hands. Marie turned to head to look at 675, furrowing her brows.

675 shook his head. “Don’t say anything. He’ll kill us!” She warned with a low voice, pointing at Christian with her eyes.

Marie turned back, her eyes widening. Christian spat on Lainey before chuckling softly to her. “Time’s up for the disgrace of the Scornbell family.” He remarked, pointing the curved dagger at her throat. “Goodbye!”

Against 675’s wishes, Marie shouted at Christian, attracting his attention. “Don’t kill her!” She shouted. 675 cringed, taking a few steps away from her. “Don’t you dare kill her, Christian!”

Christian’s eyes turned red for a brief moment that lasted less than half a second. He didn’t appear happy for his name to be revealed. “You doomed everybody here,” Christian remarked, his voice deepening as if he was a demon. 

He turned back to face Lainey. Marie began crying, turning to face Lainey. Her jaw nearly collapsed on itself as she noticed the expression Lainey had. It wasn’t an expression that she expected. She was about to be killed, but she didn’t look saddened or shocked. She had a bright smile on, almost excited at the thought of death.

Christian noticed her expression, shaking his head disapprovingly. “You yearn for death? You poor child.” He slit her throat quickly and efficiently, watching as she bled out. Marie screamed and sobbed, watching as Lainey’s head fell forward and her body went limp. She was dead in a few seconds.

Christian disappeared, darting from slave to slave in the room. He slaughtered every slave in the room since they heard his name. He didn’t want to leave any witnesses.

He disappeared once every slave was dead, reappearing behind 675. He stabbed her through the head, grabbing her body and chucking it to the side. It gushed out with her blood, her freedom being cut short. “You doomed her as well.” He told her.

Marie turned to face Christian, sobbing louder upon seeing 675’s body. I freed her then sent her to the guillotines. “Kill me!” She exclaimed loudly.

Christian shook his head. “Your family expects more out of you. Now let’s return home.” He grabbed her arm and forced Marie to follow him. “You better become a knight or you’ll face a similar fate to your younger sister. Don’t be a disgrace to your family.” He warned.

She was taken home against her will and punished by being locked in her room until school was reopened. However, she didn’t want to go outside even if she had the chance. The experience in the Grims broke her. She was mentally drained by what she witnessed---675’s past and her death, how the slaves were treated, and how unforgiving everything in the Grims was. She wasn’t ready for the Grims. She thought she could escape her house and live a normal life as a knight, foolishly believing that she could kill two birds with one stone.

Now, she knew she couldn’t. Her freedom was put into question now. Could she truly escape her family and be free or would she be trapped under her parents’ grip until her death? Who knew? Definitely not her… or Lainey.

TBC... 

Episode Six "Phase Two Has Begun"

“I can’t believe they kicked me out!” Zane, an ex-member of the Angel’s Riders, declared. He slammed his fists on the crudely made wooden table in front of him. “People are painting me as a villain because I went “too far” with the demon lord? Demon lords kill humans, so why is everybody so concerned with them? We shouldn’t be so weak against them, that’s why they’re able to kill so many of us. They don’t care about us. Oh, poor humans, they care about their dead. Idiots!” He paced back and forth in his small hut. He lived in an abandoned hut on the outskirts of Blueway. He wasn’t given lodging anywhere else due to his damaged reputation.

His body, similarly, was damaged. He had been crippled from his one-sided beating by ‘Angry Husband’ as people began calling him. Without his body strong enough to achieve revenge, he was left seething with anger.

“Now, I’m crippled and worthless. I can’t even challenge Hillary or Tanner because they’ll wipe the floor with me. Damn!” He punched the table, wincing. 

“You won’t be worthless if you take this.” A woman stood behind him, opening the door without him noticing - holding out a blackish-blue potion. “If you take this potion, you could kill Hillary and Tanner without breaking a sweat. After you finish a task, of course.”

Zane grabbed his sword, struggling to hold it. He hadn’t noticed the weight of the weapon until he was crippled, his strength appearing faintly. “Who are you!” He pointed the sword at her awkwardly.

The woman smirked, dressed in a purple cloak that covered everything except for her head. The hood of the cloak brushed against her neck. “Me? My name is Sparrow, a disciple under Merlin.” She said. 

“Merlin’s the one who attacked that university or something? He’s a criminal right now. Why would I take anything from a criminal?”

Sparrow smiled. “Because it will make you strong.” She bluntly remarked. “You can choose whether or not you take it. In the end, you’re the one drinking it, after all.”

Zane glared at her before glancing behind him. He didn’t see anybody behind him, confident that he wasn’t going to be assassinated or ambushed. “What does it do?” He asked.

“Make you strong. That’s what you want, right? To be strong enough to kill those that mocked you - that ridiculed you? Drink this potion and you’ll be able to fulfill your revenge.” She persuaded him in a heartbeat. The ability to recover his strength and become the hero that he saw himself as, ignoring the input of others that he considered being “beneath him”, was more than enough motivation for him.

“Fine, I’ll take it.” He dropped his weapon, a sudden relief washing over him. He was straining his hands by carrying the sword. He then inched closer to Sparrow, snatching the potion out of her hand. He stared at the mixture of black and green inside the potion, hesitating to drink it. I could become stronger than I originally was. I could beat Hillary and show her that kicking me out was the worse decision she made! I will be on top of the world! Nobody will be able to defeat me, ever!

Sparrow watched as Zane thought about the stuff he would do once he recovered his strength. She smirked as if to say, what an idiot! She took a few steps backward, watching as he hesitated to drink it. “Drink the potion and become the strongest person in the world or…” She purposely paused. “... don’t drink it and stay in this hut. Remain how you are now, a worthless cripple.” 

Her words cut through Zane deeply. He was okay with calling himself a worthless cripple, but it irked him to hear it coming from somebody else. He opened the potion’s lid and drank the contents, licking his lips to take in every bit of the potion. He didn’t want an ounce of the potion’s contents to be wasted as it could be related to how much strength he has.

It didn’t matter how much he drank. The effects would work no matter the dosage.

“You will recover your strength in one day. Your ex-party, Angel’s Riders, is leaving in three days. That means you have two days to kill them, but!” She revealed two pictures from within her cloak, showing them to Zane. One of which was a picture of Troy. “You have to kill this person. This is the task I was talking about. If you want to achieve your revenge, then kill this person first. Your chance of easy and quick revenge will disappear if you don’t kill this person first. And-” She stuck her index finger out, waving it back and forth. “-we’ll know if you don’t kill this person first. If you go straight towards achieving your revenge then expect to die before you meet them.”

“You want me to kill a kid?” Zane questioned. “He’s that much of a threat? What is he? A knight or skill-user? Is he a reincarnation of a god or the Deity?” 

Sparrow nodded her head. “He’s a knight in training. His weapons are why you’re being sent to kill him. They’re known as the Dual Lazarus Swords, demonic weapons. Now can you see why he’s a threat?”

Zane nodded. “Yeah, I get it. Kill him then get my revenge. I’ll do it.”

Sparrow nodded. Not as if you had a decision.

Zane turned away from her. “One day to recover my strength - got it.”

Sparrow nodded. “Now that you know your task, I’ll be