Chapter 135 - To Witness

Inside Fumio's treasure fragment, Red is currently seated cross-legged.

If any of his disciples would see him currently, they would feel endless worry. That is because he currently looks like someone who is in need of urgent medical care.

His skin is swelling, red, with white and yellow blobs accumulating on its surface as spots, looking similar to a burn victim's.

The next moment however, aurora-like blue-green lights appear throughout his body and start revolving around him in a spiral pattern. Then, his flesh and skin start healing up, starting from the least damaged parts and spreads to the worst injured parts.

A few hours later, a thick layer of hardened black substance has accumulated all throughout the surface of Red's body, wrapping the man's being in it, making him look like a mummy that is not wrapped in bandages, but in pure asphalt.

The next moment, *crck* a crack appears on the layer of the black substance and quickly spreads throughout. Then, with just a shift in his position, the black flakes and crusts fall off of his body one after another until none remains stuck.

He no longer looks like a burn victim, but simply his regular healthy self only with his skin that is even more tender and smoother than ever before.

After donning a new kimono, he then tries to pick up the black crusts and flakes, which were actually his dead tissues, with his spirit sense.

After a few seconds of struggle, he finally manages to manipulate the waste products smoothly and accumulate them to a small pile.

While he is pleased with his spirit sense control, he knows that he will still need more time to rest to recover the rest of his spirit sense.

*fufufufufu* He then starts throwing punches and kicks in the air. It takes him a minute of warm up to be satisfied of the control of his body. Just like his spirit sense however, he will need more time to feel a hundred percent coordinated. This reminds him of his first month in the world, when he was still unused to his then new body. He then stops shadow fighting and sits back down to the ground.

"*huuuuuu*" He takes a huge sigh of relief.

"A bad gamble.", he utters with a bitter smile.

He was not injured from the actual fight with Dominic. After all, he won the fight with only a small cost of his spiritual energy he converted to sword energy with a fairly advanced sword art. What injured him was his soul subjugation of Dominic.

While Dominic's soul is nothing compared to his, his body cannot handle performing the soul technique without costs unlike when he subjugated the much weaker demons. Even though he looks fine on the outside, he is still injured and is only at 60% of his abilities and it will take him a month or more to fully recover the remaining 40%.

"Thank goodness, I can cheat time." Fortunately for him, he can recover inside a dimension which the time is flowing 24 times faster than the real world.

*Vmmm*

The portal of the dimension suddenly appears just a few steps away from him. This tells him that an hour has passed in the real world.

He stands up and heads to exit. Even though he is not yet a hundred percent himself, healing Dominic's wounds is nothing to him.

<> 

"..a…cy…"

"…D..r…c…y…"

"DARCY."

Darcy is awoken by Samuel shaking him and calling out to his name.

As soon as he opens his eyes, the bright sky's glare assaults him and triggers a huge headache.

"Ah…" He cannot help but groan.

"Oh. Thank f*ck." Samuel sighs in relief.

"Are you okay?" He asks.

"…" Darcy looks around the unfamiliar beach and for the next few seconds, the events that led to his current state replays in his mind.

"Yeah. I'm okay." He finally answers Samuel.

"How long was I out?" He asks.

"Around two hours." Samuel says after checking his watch.

"Shit. How am I still alive?" Darcy wonders aloud. If he was Red, he would have gone in for the killing blow.

"I thought he would have killed you had it not been for that other man." Samuel comes up with a wild guess.

"What other man?" Darcy asks.

"That man you fought wasn't alone. I saw another man appear briefly. They seemed to have exchanged a few words before the other guy disappeared, like literally. And then…" Samuel hesitates to continue.

"Out the f*ck with it." Darcy, with his concussion, has no patience.

"Dominic came here…" Samuel says and starts his report.

A few minutes later, "I don't know where Dominic is now. I just saw his smaller turtle collapse and just like that, he's gone… Along with the man." Samuel concludes his report.

"Fuck." Darcy can only whisper in shock.

"Did you call for back-up?" He asks after processing the news.

"I wasn't able to. I thought Dominic would have been enough. The moment I realized the need for help, the ship already sank, destroying the comms." Samuel looks away in shame.

Darcy then hastily searches his pockets and finds his satellite phone immediately.

"Thank goodness." He sighs in relief finding his phone still in perfect condition.

He is about to dial a number when, "I don't think we need that.", someone grabs the phone from his hand.

Him and Samuel are startled and, "Y-You son of a…" they immediately recognize Red in disguise, who just snatched the phone.

They are more surprised however as they realized who it is behind Red.

"Dominic." "Sir." Darcy and Samuel greet Dominic in daze.

Dominic simply nods at Darcy, not acknowledging Samuel.

The next moment, Red raises his finger towards Samuel and sends a small sword energy. The sharp energy easily penetrates through Samuel's skull before proceeding to destroy Samuel's spinal chord and midbrain.

Darcy sees Samuel freeze in place before quickly collapsing to the ground. He then sees blood flow out of Samuel's eyes, and nose. He realizes that the man has also stopped breathing, making him reach a conclusion: Red just killed Samuel.

He then looks at Red and Dominic wide-eyed.

Seeing Dominic not taking action, his surprise furthers.

"It had to be done. He has seen too much." Red tells Dominic.

"Of course." Dominic nods, playing along with Red.

"It was a quick and painless death. He must not have even realized that he just died." He shrugs.

"W-wha…" Darcy, hearing the exchange, immediately feels a sudden bout of dizziness.

Even though Samuel is not an integral part of the Little Family, the man still had the Little blood in his veins, so Darcy is stunned seeing that Dominic is not at least offended by Red's actions.

Dominic has a good guess of what Darcy is thinking.

"It is exactly because my blood runs through his veins that it was not I who silenced him." He tells Darcy.

"…I see…" In contrast to his words, Darcy is actually suspicious of how Dominic is acting.

A suspicion immediately crosses his mind and, "Animus meus potestatem invoco, animus meus potestatem invoco… Exorcizo te omnis daemonica potestas…", he starts chanting.

"…" Red and Dominic are stunned and they give Darcy a weird look.

"…Exorci-…" Darcy, on the process of his chant, is stunned seeing that his spell which should be working by now, has no effect.

"I'm sorry. Did I hit you too hard?" Red interrupts Darcy in amusement.

"…" Darcy immediately feels embarrassed and does not continue with his spell.

"Just making sure." He says in excuse.

He now realizes that Dominic and Red being civil with each other must have been a product of some sort of an agreement reached between the two, and not due to any other reasons.

"But yes. You did give me a concussion." He adds.

"Then let me help you with that." Red suddenly appears in front of him before feeling the man's hand on his head, startling him.

He wants to run away or resist, but his concussion makes his body feel like it is a hundred miles away from his brain. Fortunately, he feels his headache and his shaky vision ease the next moment.

"Y-you… have healing powers too?" He is stunned by the variety of Red's powers.

Red does not even bother answering.

Darcy again, suddenly has another suspicion cross his mind.

"A-angel…" He utters in fear.

"Hang on… You should be in your right mind by now…" Red smirks.

"Hey Dominic, is your peon here prone to coming up with farfetched theories?" He asks Dominic.

"Yes. He didn't want me to come in fear that I'll leave my territory powerless. He even suspected Argus Fowler, who's been a good friend of mine for almost a hundred years." Dominic too is amused by Darcy's wild guesses.

A few minutes later, "How do you feel?" Red asks Darcy as he removes his hold on the man's head.

"I feel great." Darcy is still in awe of Red's healing ability.

"Good." Dominic cuts in.

"You go back to Brisbane. This guy and I have more to talk about." He orders Darcy.

"Okay." Despite his confusion and questions upon questions flooding his mind about the situation, Darcy accepts Dominic's orders for now.

After Darcy left, Fumio deactivates his invisibility seal.

"…" He stares at Samuel's lifeless body on the ground in a daze.

He did not expect that the first murder he witnessed ever in his life, was done by someone who he considers as his father figure.

With knees that he is trying to stop from trembling, his skin continuously tingling, and his stomach he wants to stop from sinking, he steals a glance at Red.

He is startled to see that Red is already looking at him. And looking at him with eyebrows raised as if asking 'What's up?' or 'What's wrong?'.

He has received such look from Red countless of times before, but to see such innocent inquiring look from someone who just took a life, gives him a feeling that is beyond just odd.

He had always known that Red is not entirely a good man based on what he observed of Red's actions in the past, and the words he heard that came out of Red's mouth.

But witnessing Red's actions just now, turned those that knowledge into a more instinctive feeling.

The knees he tried suppressing start trembling hard. His skin that was tingling, spread bone deep. And the feeling of sinking on his stomach, has now spread to his heart.

In the sixteen months that he has known Red, this is the first time that he is feeling real fear of the man.