“Don’t move! Even at your speed, there’s nowhere to run in a hallway. You’ll get hit!” one of them shouted, trying to sound firm.
Camille giggled—this time, genuinely. No illusion, no charm. Just pure, amused laughter. She looked at them with genuine delight, her posture shifting into a relaxed fighting stance.
“Just don’t aim for the face, d’accord?” she said playfully, tapping her cheek with a finger. “This visage can’t afford a scar~”
The men pulled their triggers. Bullets roared from the barrels.
But to Camille, they moved like falling feathers. Her body tense. One hand gripped the hilt of her sheathed sword.
“Technique de l’Arco, numéro un,” she thought to herself, her expression sharpening with deadly focus. “Dégainement.”
In the blink of an eye, every bullet was sliced in midair—and Camille vanished.
The men barely registered what had happened when her image reappeared—right in front of them.
“Numéro cinq, doubles,” she murmured, and with a single slash, the three men in front of her split in two.
She moved forward like a hurricane, swinging her sword as if she were playing, slicing through bullets, metal, flesh, and bone with an ease that defied her slender frame.
Camille crashed into the opposite corner and almost fell, letting out a sigh. She had gotten carried away again. When she looked back, all she saw were viscera and blood spilling from mutilated bodies and dripping over the ledge.
She walked on, trying in vain to wipe the blood off her body. Fighting was thrilling for her, and she loved the adrenaline and thrill of being in mortal danger—but the blood was always a royal pain to clean off her clothes and skin.
The sound of a weapon being aimed at her caught her off guard. She stepped back just in time, barely dodging the shot that whizzed past her face.
Spinning around, she saw a woman dressed as a maid holding the smoking gun, shaking all over. When their eyes met, Camille saw terror flood the woman’s face, as if she were staring at death itself.
The woman aimed again. Camille simply raised her arm, and from a hidden nozzle came a flash—piercing straight through the maid’s heart. The woman collapsed with tears still in her eyes.
She wasn’t a criminal. Just scared.
Though Quetzalcoatl probably wasn’t going to forgive anyone in this place.
Camille approached the railing and looked down. The scene made her uncomfortable.
The floor was completely flooded with a reddish pool of blood, dismembered bodies strewn across every inch. Desperate, terrified faces. Figures torn apart without a chance to fight back. The prostitutes trembled on the floor—though the god had spared their lives, they would likely never forget what they had seen. Even the blood Camille herself had spilled was cascading over the balcony, dripping down to the first floor. A bloodbath was the only accurate word.
And at the center, Quetzalcoatl stood panting, slowly returning to his human form. His fangs were retreating, feathers falling around him like ashes.
Camille jumped from the balcony, landing in a splash of blood. She grimaced in disgust—the smell was starting to make her nauseous.
She looked at the prostitutes.
In clumsy Spanish, she said, “I’m sorry you had to see this.” She bowed her head with sincere regret. “You can go. I can’t guarantee your safety if you stay here.”
The women didn’t need to be told twice. They stood and ran for the door, passing by Quetzalcoatl, who watched them with tired, sorrowful eyes.
The brown-haired man was on his knees, staring at the massacre of his friends and companions. Nausea hit him like a truck. He doubled over and vomited everything inside him. When he looked up again, the house had lost its previous beige color entirely.
Quetzalcoatl stepped toward him—no words were needed. The man immediately moved across the estate toward where the Capo must be hiding.
The god and Camille followed him, walking over the corpses scattered across the grounds.
Eventually, they reached a wide-open area, where a ceremonial bonfire rose—its size nearly that of the estate itself. But this wasn’t normal. Nothing about what they saw could be called normal. Both Camille and the brown-haired man felt a chill run through them.
They froze in place. Camille couldn’t move; it felt like her feet were rooted to the ground. Fear crawled up her spine. Even standing so close to the fire, her body felt cold, and her face turned pale as marble.
Hovering above the flames was a blurred figure, as big as a truck. Its form constantly shifted, a deformed dark cloak that, if you stared directly at it, showed overlapping images: the moon, jaguars, war. Camille swore she could even see the massacre that had just unfolded.
Looking up, one could glimpse a human-like face—partially. One half was a red skull, the other a gleaming obsidian mask. Staring into it only reflects your own image. Blood dripped from the being’s dual lips, and a grand Mayan crown adorned the figure of the god.
Quetzalcoatl was the only one who could move under crushing pressure.
“Tezcatlipoca!!” he shouted. The ground shook violently, and the air pressure surged so fast Camille, and the man dropped to their knees.
“How dare you use my name for your own ends?”
The monstrous being turned its gaze toward the god. There was no expression, no visible sign of emotion, but somehow everyone knew—it was smiling.
“What a lovely surprise.” Its mouth didn’t move. The voice of the deity pierced straight into their minds. The brown-haired man collapsed unconscious. Camille felt her thoughts blur into nausea and dizziness. “The feathered serpent comes to visit. My old
friend
… care for a drink?”
A yellow bottle appeared in front of Quetzalcoatl. The god scowled. With a swing of his macuahuitl, he shattered it, the liquor splashing onto the floor and corroding the tiles.
“Bastard. Answer the question. Why did you demand sacrifices in my name?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” the entity brought its face right up to Quetzalcoatl’s. “Humans are far more willing to commit atrocities if you tell them a
just
god demands it. More so than when
I
, god of death and night, ask. Besides, you're the most well-known god these days—the god of humanity and the winds. Where else could I get that kind of publicity?”
“That doesn’t give you the right.”
Quetzalcoatl swung his weapon at the entity, seemingly slicing it in two—yet the figure only warped slightly before returning to form, like smoke. The being burst out laughing, a sound so twisted it worsened Camille’s nausea.
“Coward. You’re not even here. How dare you further corrupt the souls of my children? And what in the hell are you doing interacting directly with mortals?”
“I didn’t corrupt anything. I simply played with the cruelty already in place,” the god explained, his form swelling as the flames burned down. “And I
need
the sacrifices. You know that better than anyone. The day is coming, and I can’t show myself to humanity looking like this. I only sent an illusion. Don’t worry—when the time comes, I swear by the heavens I’ll tear you apart
myself
.”
Quetzalcoatl looked up. A helicopter was rising fast into the sky. Narrowing his gaze, he spotted a man in a white suit—the cartel boss.
Quetzalcoatl raised his
macuahuitl
, calling upon the winds to bring the chopper down, but Tezcatlipoca’s influence blocked him. The capo escaped into the night.
“Don’t cry, little brother.” the entity sneered as it faded, the flames vanishing with it, a swirling cloud of black mist spiraling into the air. “We’ll see each other again—hopefully before the invasion begins. Oh, and I’ll be sure to say hello to your sister. I’m sure she’ll be
thrilled
to hear from you.”
With one final mocking laugh, the entity disappeared.
Quetzalcoatl remained frozen, his face carved in silent fury. The pressure on Camille lifted all at once, but her body still trembled. Even so, guided by pure survival instinct, she dragged the unconscious man up and ran as fast as her legs allowed, away from the compound.
Then came the scream.
A divine roar cracked the air like a bolt of wrath. Camille dropped to her knees, stunned, as the ground beneath her quaked and splintered. Looking back, she watched the compound being swallowed by the earth. The air twisted violently—its direction, pressure, and shape all in flux.
A tornado of rubble surged into the sky like a pillar of vengeance. Quetzalcoatl’s scream fueled it, shaped it. Camille could do nothing but shield herself, paralyzed, as the storm exploded around her.
The whirlwind tore away from the god, lifting with it the wreckage and the remains of the bodies.
Camille thought, with twisted humor, that someone would be lucky enough to see viscera rain from the sky tonight.
Finally, the god descended—cloaked in dust and wind, his fury still crackling in the air.
Camille managed to stand again. She looked at the god, clearly irritated. He approached her with a look of frustration she never thought she'd see on a divine being.
“What?”
“You almost killed me,
fils de pute!
” Camille grabbed a rock and threw it at him—it bounced off harmlessly.
“I gave you plenty of time to run,” he replied, unfazed.
“Go to hell!”
The god turned to the man lying on the ground. He walked toward him and raised his macuahuitl.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Camille asked, her hand drifting toward her weapon.
“You didn’t really think we’d let him live, did you?”
“We promised. We can’t just kill him.”
“I think we can.”
Camille stepped forward, positioning herself between the god and the mortal.
“You’re really going to defend this trash? Move.” The god’s grip on the weapon tightened.
“And you’re really going to break your word? I thought you hated lies.”
The god clenched his jaw and stared directly at Camille. He considered simply moving her out of the way—but even then…
“I have une idée,” Camille began, trying to reason with him. “Let’s take him with us. That way we can keep an eye on him. Plus, he looked Tezcatlipoca in the eyes and saw the massacre we caused—he’s probably going to
off
himself the moment he wakes up.”
“It was just an illusion. How can you be so sure?” the god asked, loosening his grip.
“Because right now I have the constant urge to slit my wrists.” The god blinked, startled by her words. “It’s a horrible feeling. That bastard messes with your head. And even with my
très haute
self-esteem and the mental resistance from my blade, the urge is still there. It might fade in a few hours if I’m lucky—but we can’t be sure it’ll be the same for him.”
The god understood instinctively. Why risk breaking a promise if the man might already be doomed?
Quetzalcoatl lowered his weapon. Camille felt a wave of relief crash over her and collapsed to her knees, breathing heavily. The god felt pity for her—mortals who looked upon Tezcatlipoca were forced to confront the darkest corners of their own minds.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
He stabbed the macuahuitl into the ground. The weapon transformed into a massive serpent, over fifty feet long. Its head was thick and powerful, its lips striking red. It hovered in the air, a mane of feathers cascading along its body.
“Where to?”
"Where else? China. I'm sure you'll want to see the lord your order prays to," he explained, leaping onto the serpent’s back. "Pretty sure you could even sleep on it—I'll make sure you don’t fall off."
"And this guy?"
"I’ll handle it."
The god snapped his fingers, and the air itself gusted with such force that the unconscious brunet was lifted and laid gently across the serpent’s back.
"Hold on—my legs are shaking like I just…," she paused mid-sentence, "ran a marathon."
"Yeah, I’m
sure
that’s what you were going to say," the god teased. For the first time all day, he smiled—just for a moment, before his stony expression returned. Camille blushed at the joke.
"Répète ça… go to hell."
End of Chapter