242 A Brawl

Using Order, Graham took control of the baldie with the girly voice, making him his own bodyguard.

The tall bald man suddenly lost control of his own body and started moving against his will. He came to Graham's side and took a stance. However, his face looked confused and his expression betrayed his action.

Looking over his shoulder, Graham began muttering softly, "Luckily, Val, they're just normal humans, so that kind of Order works. If only we could use it with stronger Contractbounds as well."

Graham then looked at Derrick beside him and smiled, "Just stand behind me. I'm your bodyguard, after all."

The two men stood under the shade with the bald man as their vanguard. Meanwhile, the other gang members were steadily approaching. They had a suspicious look on their faces the moment they noticed that the baldie was acting strange, but they didn't stop their advance.

Smack!

The moment someone tried to get close to Graham, the baldie punched him hard in the face, sending him flying back.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Baldie, are you out of your goddamn mind?"

They began shouting at the baldie for his action, to which he only showed confusion. He still couldn't control his own body, so there was nothing he could do.

There was a mischievous smile on Graham's face. He then targetted another man and used Order on him.

"I order you to start attacking those close to you!"

The man in a black sleeveless shirt suddenly began acting strangely and started punching his own gang members like a lunatic.

Bash!

"I order you to attack the people behind you!"

Graham used Order on another person wearing a purple jacket. He then began to do as he was ordered and turned around to beat up the people behind him. It sent a wave of rage and surprise to those people, and the ones farther away who saw what happened were also left in puzzlement.

"What the hell is happening?"

Since the gang members were an unorganized bunch, with just three people turning against them, distrust began to ensue in their hearts. They didn't know anymore who was the enemy and who was their allies since anyone could start hitting anyone at any time.

Chaos erupted in the small street as the angry people began retaliating against their own members. There was now a brawl happening in that part of the city, with people shouting and sounds of objects breaking filling the air.

"Fuck you!"

"Take this you pussy!"

Crank!

"Why are you guys hitting each other? We're---"

Smack!

The sleeveless shirt man interrupted the person speaking with his fist, which caused him to punch back in response.

Thud!

The baldie was still standing guard, beating up those getting too close to Graham. His face looked reluctant but his actions were firm and strong.

"This is easy, isn't it, Val? Or should we go out there and fight as well? But I don't want to be in the sun, so I'll just watch from here," Graham muttered.

The sounds of bunching and bottles breaking continued on for several more minutes. After a while, finally, people started collapsing, lying in pain on the ground.

The people's faces were all bruised blue and bloody, their mouths were leaking out their painful grunting. Only the baldie was left standing. Even the brown-haired man, who had only been busy licking empty bottles, was not spared from the fight. He was lying on the ground with his hands holding his stomach tight, a quiet groan was coming out of his mouth.

"Now it's just you, bud," Graham said to the baldie, who was still under his control.

Smack!

Graham raised his cane and hit the man hard at the back of his head, toppling him to the front and rendering the baldie unconscious.

"You can start heading back to the villa first, Derrick. I'll have to do some cleaning up here first before leaving," Graham instructed the still stupefied Derrick.

With a confused nod, the man walked quickly back to the bigger street, leaving Graham alone with the beaten up gang members. He took a glance back and noticed that the detective was now sitting on the ground with his back against the wall.

"I order myself to fall asleep!"

Slowly, he felt sleepier and sleepier until his consciousness faded. Valentine then woke up, replacing him.

Unaffected by the cane's negative effect, Valentine left the shaded area and went to the other end of the small street where a pile of boxes and empty bottles were. With his dagger, he slit his finger and dropped a little of his blood behind the boxes.

"I hereby declare this whole street under the shroud of secrecy!"

An invisible wave surged the moment the blood touched the ground, and with it an Anti-Divination had been placed upon the street, rendering Divinations targetting the area useless.

Looking at the people on the ground, Valentine smiled in amusement.

"G, look at what you've done. If someone finds them like this, they will start asking questions," he muttered with mischief in his tone.

Valentine then walked over to the closest person who was still unconscious. Using the tip of his cane, he began smacking the man's cheek left and right to wake him up.

"Wake up, shithead, this is not a hotel," he said coldly.

He repeated the process to wake up all the unconscious ones while letting the ones remaining conscious be. Those people were looking at Valentine with hatred, but they were too weak to retaliate in their current condition.

"Motherfucker what do you want?!" shouted one of the men, who seemed to be in the best condition among them. He was missing several teeth and had a bruise on his cheek, but other than that, he was clean of bloodstains anywhere.

"Me? Just teaching you guys a lesson. Never go near Derrick Damreau or his family again or..."

"Or what?! What can you do? You're just one man, dogshit!" shouted another man, interrupting Valentine.

"Or this..."

There was a sinister smile on his face as his body began emitting a strange aura. There was a murmur coming out of his mouth, but it was too inaudible for those around him to make something out of.

Suddenly, Valentine's body became mysteriously elongated, stretching all the way up to many times his actual height. His body kept on growing abnormally until it almost reached the height of a building. His legs were stuck together and gradually melded into one, growing longer and thinner at the end.

The clothes that he was wearing began to be replaced by hard scales that were growing all over his skin, stacking on top of each other and glistening under the sun. His hands slowly and abnormally merged with his long body, like they were glued to and absorbed by the skin. The man's head also extended in a bizarre way, his eyes pushed to the sides and his tongue split in two at the tip.

Before long, the man in a plain shirt in front of them was no more, and in his place, a giant, menacing snake as big as a house was standing, spelling doom upon those looking at it. The snake was baring its sharp, long fangs in an ominous way.

Looking at the perplexing transformation process filled the people's hearts with fear of the unknown. What once was a human being was now a monstrous animal.

Hiss!!

"W-what the fuck is t-that?!!"

"S-shit!"

There was a terror on the people's faces that had gone pale. Their eyes were looking scaredly at the giant snake, but their bodies refused to listen to them. They had been paralyzed by fear!

"Don't eat me! D-don't come near me!"

Yellowish liquid started appearing on a man's pants around his crotch area, and the rancid smell of piss filled the street.

"If you mess with us, this will be your fate!" threatened Valentine. His voice had become distorted like there were pieces of sharp glass in his throat, "Now scram!"

The snake's yelling snapped the scared people back to reality. Mustering all their remaining power, they tried hard to get up and then just ran away in the other direction. Not even a single soul remained there in the street, leaving Valentine alone.

Once things were settled, Valentine ended his Snake Transformation and, causing the illusion to go away. His real body was then exposed again without any signs of having undergone a bizarre change into a giant snake.

"The matter here is now clear. Let's wait for Luuk to come back and we can continue with the next step, G," he muttered.

Tapping his pants clean, Valentine then left the street with the cane in his hand and walked leisurely back to his villa.

In the main lobby of the villa compound, Derrick Damreau had been waiting. His face was full of expectation and his body language, impatient. He was sitting on the sofa with his hands clenched together and his left leg shaking.

"How is it, Mr. Hymes? Did you take care of them?" asked Derrick with curiosity and worry in his tone.

Valentine smiled at the man and replied shortly, "Yes. Don't worry."

The detective then kept on walking, heading towards his own villa. Derrick quickly got up and followed the man. After seeing the person in action, although he didn't understand what had happened, his trust in the detective's capabilities had risen by quite a lot.

Walking on the wooden path with grass on both sides, Valentine and Derrick returned to the villa at the far end, closest to the cliff. They passed several other villas and the tenants who definitely looked like tourists. They were just wearing their bikinis and beach shorts, ready to hit the ocean at any time.

"Hello there," greeted one of the tenants who was sunbathing in front of his own villa the moment the two men walked past.

"Hello," replied Valentine with a nod and then continued his way.

The two of them reached the villa not long after and seeing that the main door was still locked, it meant that Luuk van der Meer hadn't returned from his mission.

Valentine inserted his key into the hole and twisted it, unlocking the door. After his guest had come in, he closed the door behind him without locking it. After that, the two men took off their shoes and walked up to the main floor platform, leaving their shoes neatly by the door.

"So, Mr. Hymes, what did you exactly do back there?" asked Derrick as he sat down on the sofa. He seemed to have relaxed a lot.

Valentine smiled slightly and gave a vague reply, "It's a trade secret."

Opening the refrigerator door, Valentine took out a bottle of beer that he and Luuk had purchased the previous day. He then sat on the sofa beside the one Derrick was sitting on and flick open the cap using his dagger.

"What are you going to do with the rest of them then? Those thugs will surely report what we have done to their bosses. We will be in trouble if they storm this place," said Derrick strangely calmly.

Gulp...

Valentine drank the brownish liquid straight from the bottle and felt refreshed right away. The fizzy drink tickled his throat as it passed and filled his stomach with gas.

"We wait for Luuk to come back. After that, we can start. Meanwhile, just do what you like," he explained nonchalantly.

Derrick smiled awkwardly and then asked while rubbing the back of his head, "In that case, can I have a beer?"

"Sure," Valentine replied casually, but then he remembered that Graham would be angry if he just gave things away to his client like that, so he added, "Just make sure to add the price up to my commission."

Derrick smiled bitterly but still grabbed a bottle of beer anyway.