Lords & Towers: Chapter 187

Kaito extended his hand toward the collar on Ai's neck and made it vibrate, removing it first for safety before destroying it.

He gently set Ai down on the ground before turning toward the only two guards in the area, and probably also the only two hired people still alive in the entire Shinomiya territory.

He vibrated his hand and pierced their hearts, he had done it so many times today that it was almost a reflex, neither of them had time to react.

Several meters away, Oko, upon seeing this, made his greatest effort to stand up.

Although his exterior, being made of metal, had not suffered serious damage from Kaito's reduced strength, he still had severe internal damage to his organs.

"Impossible, they told me they made sure to suppress my emotions, how did you find me?" he asked furiously.

"Are those your last words before dying?" Kaito asked, with no interest in explaining anything.

"Ha, and to think I would die like this" Oko laughed in self-contempt. "I even thought I would die at Kaguya's hands someday, but never like this. Fine, kill me."

Kaito did not care about his self-contempt or his thoughts, he killed him cleanly.

Of course, he noticed the faint smile on his face as he died, but he had no idea why, and he did not have time to think about it.

"Is it over?" Ai asked.

"It's over" Kaito nodded. At least for now.

...

Kaito no longer felt like running today, he could not return to Gaia, so he decided to just wait in the courtyard without doing anything in particular.

There were only 5 minutes left before the countdown ended, and Kaito was not sure what to expect.

He did not expect to die, of course, but he also had no idea how he would survive.

'Maybe I should have killed Makima?' he thought.

But if he survived and gained Makima's support, it would be much easier to avoid situations like this in the future.

At that moment, Kaito was simply sitting on a bench outside the mansion, not caring about anything except the girl sitting beside him with her head resting on his shoulder.

"Are you okay? Are you sure they didn't hurt you?"

"I'm fine, I wasn't even there for long, I had just woken up when you saved me" Ai explained.

"I see, that's good."

"What about you?"

"Me? I'm fine" Kaito replied, surprised by the question, since neither his physical state nor his appearance showed anything unusual.

"You look bad...internally" Ai said.

Kaito looked at Ai for a few seconds, and finally, under her persistent gaze, he gave in. "Yeah, do you like my new hair?"

"Your hair? I think black suits you better, why did you dye it red?"

"I didn't dye it. It's the effect of a title I got in the last world, when I kill in large numbers it turns red" Kaito explained.

"To get a title like that, you must have killed many people, right?"

"Yeah, a lot, too many. I felt terrible at that time, I felt like I wasn't myself. The Kaito from a month ago was just studying normally, and now I was killing thousands of people at once."

"You're..."

"I'm fine, even though I felt bad at that time, I wasn't alone, Shiho, she supported me the whole time and stayed by my side. And then I... abandoned her. I broke my promise, thinking that would make her happy."

"You didn't do that, you were just trying to make her happy."

"I know, but... no, we're not here to talk about Shiho now. I just wanted you to know, all of you, each one of you, I would do anything to make you happy, even if it ends up changing who I am. You don't have to worry about how I feel, as long as you're okay, I'll be happy."

"But I don't want you to change who you are for us, you know? None of us want that."

"I won't."

Ai looked into Kaito's eyes for a second, and realized that he was definitely lying.

Even so, although it was selfish of her, feeling loved in that way made her happy. She smiled before speaking.

"You know? I also wanted to talk to you about something. The truth is, I don't like killing either, and I want to stop doing it."

"That's fine."

"You know? After how hard it was for me to make that decision, the fact that you're so direct and decisive, I don't know whether it makes me happy or annoys me" Ai said.

"Well, you're not that strong, you know? In fact, with Kaguya evolving now, she'll probably be one of the strongest in the territory. She can't spend all day doing administrative work, you can take her place. As for cleaning work, well, even if most of them are unused, the mansion has more than 50 rooms, I don't think you can handle that" Kaito explained his reasoning.

"Wow, thanks for calling me weak then?" Ai complained jokingly. "Taking Kaguya's place, huh? I'll do it, even if I don't want to fight and kill people, I'd like to support the territory as much as possible."

"Then I'll tell Kaguya when she wakes up."

"No. I'll tell her, not that you ordered it, but that I wanted to do it" Ai said with a smile before falling silent for a few seconds.

"Kaito" she said after a while.

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"Yeah, Me too."

After saying that, she leaned in slightly and kissed him on the lips.

"*Cough cough* sorry to interrupt, but I'd like to pass on a message."

Kaito and Ai separated and turned toward the voice.

"You know, for someone whose suit doesn't have a single tear and who didn't even collapse after killing more than a thousand people, you look like you're about to die."

It was a man, definitely a Shinomiya, after a whole day Kaito could recognize their features, however, his messy hair and careless clothes somehow made him look more human than the rest of the family.

"Unyo-sama" Ai stood up and greeted him respectfully.

Unyo raised a hand and stopped her.

"No need, there probably isn't even a Shinomiya family anymore after today" Unyo said.

"Kaito, this is..."

"I know who he is" Kaito interrupted Ai, he knew about Unyo, the only brother of Kaguya who treated her like a real person.

Curiously, the one who looked the least like family turned out to be the one he could consider family the most.

"Do you need something?" Kaito asked.

"Yeah, here" Unyo said, handing him an address.

"What is this?"

"An address."

At Kaito's annoyed look at his joke, Unyo stepped back.

"Alright, alright, looks like you don't like jokes, huh. To keep it short, we had a family relic here."

"Had?"

"Yeah, it was a mirror that answered questions, but after each use it would crack more and more. After I learned about the plan, I left the family, not wanting to be involved in that. But before leaving, I asked a question, what is needed for Kaguya to be okay?"

"What a good brother."

"I try" Unyo smiled. "Anyway, it told me that as long as you go to this address, she'll be fine."

"Then I guess I'll go, thanks."

Kaito thanked him quickly before taking Ai and starting to run.

The wind messed up Unyo's hair even more, he simply smiled as he sat where Kaito had been, looking at the ruins of what used to be the Shinomiya mansion.

...

"1 minute" Kaito murmured as he looked at his countdown.

The address was not far, he arrived in less than thirty seconds.

Although he did not know if there was really anything there, Kaito still had a minute left to live, and there was no harm in trying.

The place turned out to be an ice cream shop.

As soon as he appeared, the "ice cream vendor" widened his eyes in surprise and pulled out a weapon that obviously had no effect on Kaito.

Inside the shop, a metallic sphere that looked like a puzzle was easy to locate since it did not fit the environment at all, and even easier to destroy.

Kaito was not sure what that thing did before destroying it, but once he did, he understood immediately.

He looked at Ai and she nodded, she had realized it too.

In an instant, both of them disappeared from the place, appearing in Gaia.

Ai appeared where she had left, right at the desk she used to work at for Kaguya.

Meanwhile, Kaito appeared on his throne.

But just one second later, the countdown for the curse reached zero.

Kaito saw everything around him turn black as he collapsed to the ground.

He felt as if his body was dying cell by cell, and despite not being able to move at all, with his speed Kaito felt it even more clearly.

Every ability in his body tried to resist, but it was as if death itself was claiming his soul, rejecting any obstacle in its path until it reached his soul directly.

Kaito felt a burning pain within himself as his body convulsed.

However, this only lasted a second before stopping, what Kaito called death itself began to retreat at great speed, leaving his body.

...

A few hours earlier, in Gaia.

Viktor stood in front of thousands of men.

"Are we ready, Jake?" Viktor asked the tall, thin man beside him who was holding a notebook.

"Hell is easy to locate, there are thousands of portals spread across all continents, counting all of them from every country, we are almost 250000 in this operation. Not only that, but we also have several territorial bombs along with other artifacts, including the artifact personally delivered by the leader of the Union. Even if we tried to lose on purpose, we wouldn't" Jake said confidently as he adjusted his glasses.

"Then why don't we attack first?" Viktor asked.

"There's no need to lose lives just to test the waters, for that... we have them."

Jake smiled as he pointed at the hundreds of containers behind him, each one carried by a single man whose specialization was strength.

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"Actually, nothing" Jake said as he gave a signal through the communicator.

As soon as he did, the hundreds of containers were transported through the portals that led to Hell.

Not only here, but in more than a hundred portals across all continents of Gaia, the same thing was happening.

The inhabitants of Gaia, despite their curiosity, did not dare approach these strange groups of people.

Once the massive men, all the size of a Hulk, passed through the portals, they appeared near Kaito's territory.

This was not a coincidence, as they had specifically searched for gates that led close to it.

With everyone gathered, there were exactly 25000 containers, all identical, completely white, looking more like plain boxes than containers.

The men placed the containers down at the same time within no more than five kilometers around Kaito's territory, and slowly the doors began to open.

"Are we sure they will obey?" one of the large men asked.

The man beside him had no doubt.

"Of course, it's not like they have another choice" he smiled.

Then, from the container in front of them, hollow, repetitive sounds began to be heard, like bones clashing, no, not like, they were exactly that.

As they came out, dozens of skeletons moving on their own were revealed.

Their bodies had nothing but bones, completely against biology, but it was not as if those skeletons cared about how illogical their existence was, they simply advanced in order toward Kaito's territory.

Nearby containers also released skeletons, more and more of them, until they formed a massive horde whose bones echoed for kilometers.

The sound would have been even louder if not for the countless other noises echoing everywhere.

Right next to the skeletons, hungry growls echoed through thousands of corpses moving with ravenous hunger.

Further beyond, deer-like creatures walking on two legs, completely emaciated, looking like flesh barely clinging to their ribs, with thin limbs bent in unnatural directions, moved forward.

Elsewhere, stealthy dog-like creatures moved at high speed.

Even further, mummies advanced through the trees using their bandages to swing, their eyes glowing with purpose.

Ratmen moved in groups, ghosts passed through everything without care, banshees screamed loudly as they flew alongside the others, shadowy entities blended among the masses, tall and unnaturally thin humanoid beings mimicked the forms of those around them, several griffins flew in the sky, enormous hydras rushed forward as if to assert dominance, and the heavy steps of minotaurs shook the ground, causing some skeletons to collapse on their own.

And many more.

Anyone who disliked horror movies would faint instantly at the sight of such a collection of supernatural creatures.

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