Playboy Cultivator in the Apocalypse

Chapter 26 June 15th/16th, 2032 | Kaze's True Nature

"You killed everyone?" Evalyn asked with a strained expression.

—

"Cutting Blade!" Tanner yelled while cutting at the door with his sword.

"Destructive Slash!" Matthews followed.

"Combusion!" Kyle roared while pushing his hands forward.

The wall split in half horizontally with Tanner's attack, Matthews' strike caused the door to explode, and Kyle's attack caused the room to explode.

From the outside, the attack appeared open and closed. The destruction was devastating and would kill anyone. Moreover, the walls began collapsing inward as Tanner's slash destroyed the support pillars in the area.

"Did we do it?" Matthews chuckled with madness swirling in his eyes.

"Wait. Why isn't there a fire?" Kyle asked in perplexion, "I just used combust—"

BOOM!

A massive piece of the wall crashed into the man at a surreal level of force.

Tanner and Matthews looked to their left in disbelief.

While Kyle was considered a top-class cultivator at that point, the man's head was reduced to blood spatter inside the drywall. His body's chest had crashed through the wall, and his decapitated corpse was leaning in the indent as if it were a recliner.

"O-Open fire!" One man yelled out, snapping everyone out of their daze.

Machine gun fire shot into the room; a hail of bullets returned to them instantly, riddling the first layer of men, reducing them to flesh piles.

Tanner looked inside the room and found the atmosphere warping and twisting but couldn't see the emperor anywhere.

Kaze was behind a spatial barrier glancing to his right at the bed he was having sex on moments before. Tanner's attack sliced Ms. Jacobs in half, and the fire charred her remains.

"Well, at least my conscience is clear." He sighed, "It's better than doing it myself."

—

"Everyone?" Evalyn asked Kaze with a strained expression.

"No. The mercenaries Brandon Jacobs hired killed his wife." Kaze replied, "I just killed Brandon Jacobs and his mercenaries."

—

"W-What the fuck is happening?" Matthews yelled in a frenzy.

"I don't know!" Tanner yelled, "Look alive! … Matthews?"

The man next to him disappeared through the floor. A moment later, he heard the man screaming from outside. His voice got louder, and louder, and louder before—

BOOOOM! Boom! BOOM!

Matthews crashed through the roof and attic before slamming into three mercenaries and crushing the floor next to them. It had a sickening impact and shook the ground.

No one saw what happened because the ceiling caved in, hitting the men in the head with wood and other debris. It wasn't until they looked up and saw moonlight peering in that they got a clue.

"W-What the hell just happened?" One of the men asked.

"Are you blind? The man fell from eighty feet in the sky, crashing back into the room. Surly nothing else would explain this scene." A charming voice called out from the room.

Everyone trembled in fear. "W-Wait!"

"Foolish mortals." Kaze scoffed, "You try ambushing a man during sex and beg forgiveness after? Is there not a warrior among you?"

"Cutting blade!" Tanner yelled.

The sharp strike warped the Qi in the air, preparing to slash through everything. However, when it reached Kaze, the Qi warped and twisted.

Sheeeelsh!

An unnatural sound whistled before bodies collapsed, and many began coughing blood or screaming.

"M-My arm! Where the fuck is my arm!?" Tanner asked in physical shock. The arm holding his sword was missing, and blood poured out of the stub.

"Hoh? You mean this?" Kaze asked while picking up the man's arm and displaying it before him.

"H-How the fuck are you doing this?" The military man stuttered.

Kaze's vicious green eyes peered into the man's soul as he approached. The atmosphere twisted, pushing blood away from him as he walked, leaving his body clean and pristine.

Tanner looked away from his eyes and turned away again when he saw the emperor's uncovered penis.

Kaze scoffed in disgust. "You tried to kill a man while he was having sex, but can't stand to face his naked body?"

"I….."

Crrraaaack!

The man's head snapped to the side when the emperor slapped him with his decapitated arm, causing both parts of his body to snap.

Brandon watched the scene in horror, trying to scurry backward on his butt and hands. However, he felt frozen, and his body wouldn't move.

The man saw Tanner's Cutting Blade warp in Kaze's Qi and then shoot backward in a direction that sliced the remaining men to ribbons. Then he saw the emperor snap a cultivator's neck with their own arm.

Kaze Lexicon looked like Lucifer himself as he walked down the hall.

"G-Get away from me!" Brandon yelled.

"Silence!" The emperor ordered with the authority and countenance of an emperor. The atmosphere immediately became suffocating, and the man held his neck, desperately trying to breathe.

Kaze stood before Brandon like a god. "I have one question, and you have one answer. If you do not give me that answer in 15 seconds, the coroner will have to solve your body like a Rubik's cube."

Brandon's eyes trembled in fear.

"Did you tell anyone about this, and were you foolish enough to take a recording?" The emperor asked with a sharp gaze, "Fifteen seconds. GO!"

His blood lust dissipated, causing the man to gasp for breath.

"I-I… yes. Everything is… recorded, but the recording teams… left. I… wouldn't have filmed myself… killing you." Brandon said.

"Thank you for complying, you pathetic baboon." Kaze said coldly, "At least your life amounted to something."

The emperor turned around and returned to the room to collect his clothing. While Brandon wanted to run, his body was frozen, gasping for air.

He watched in fleeting breaths as Kaze returned, tucking his pristine, cottontail-blue button-up into his medium grey slacks.

"I lied." Kaze chuckled breathlessly, "You do have a purpose yet."

"T-Tell… me…." Brandon requested between sharp breaths.

"To serve as a warning to others." The emperor replied coldly while waving his hand.

The entire back wall burst into flames, and the royal blue drapes in the room turned purple in the flickering light.

Kaze walked past the man indifferently on the way downstairs to leave.

"W-Wa…it…." Brandon cried with red veins popping against his light blue eyes.

The emperor stopped on the stairs.

"Only people that once supported me can beg my forgiveness." He said ruthlessly, "And I only allow that so they can repent and die without disgrace."

—

"Kaze…." Evalyn whispered with trembling eyes, "How can you treat this so casually?"

Kaze closed his eyes when her shaky demeanor.

"The same reason that you could." He replied, "It was common sense. Those men burst through that door, attacking me unprovoked. I'd be dead now if I didn't do what I did. I was a genuine victim in all regards, Evalyn."

Evalyn scoffed at his bold assertion. "Common sense? Victim? Don't joke around."

"Are you mad, woman?" Kaze scoffed in disdain.

"I was a victim. The man murdered his wife and tried to kill me because I provided the service he requested.

My strength doesn't make unprovoked murder acceptable, yes?"

"Kaze, I understand your point." Evalyn swallowed nervously.

"However, killing one person isn't an acceptable solution to any problem, let alone thirty.

Moreover, if you had the power to resolve it peacefully, then your actions went far beyond self-defense. It's hard to find you a [victim]."

"Unbelievable. You're a thoroughbred chimera of delusional beliefs." Kaze scoff-laughed in disbelief, "What do you think would have happened after I left that home?"

Evalyn's eyes glided to the left and thought about it. Every scenario was disagreeable.

"I'd walk out unpaid, and that man would claim I killed his wife with dozens of false witnesses." The emperor laughed mockingly.

"He didn't have a problem with murder, let alone falsifying crimes to prevent prison time."

The blonde's eyes trembled in shock and horror. "Couldn't... you have just sent a message or threatened them?"

Kaze laughed in disdain. "Use your head. If I assaulted even one person in self-defense, it would've given them false evidence to explain why they blew the room up.

With his level of wealth or influence, I'd end up in prison for walking out peacefully. "

"You... you had money and influence to fight them, though." She whispered.

"Grow up, Evalyn." Kaze scoffed, "Laws won't save you from the strong. Only personal strength and power can do that."

Evalyn turned away in shame. She understood his point but couldn't come to terms with sociopathic behavior two weeks after living a peaceful life.

In her nineteen years of life, a mundane single murder inspired documentaries.

Now, the person she was attracted to had casually killed thirty-one people and claimed it was the only option.

"Kaze... if I ask you never to follow me, would you?" Evalyn asked while considering her internal dilemmas.

Kaze closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Would you be satisfied if I protected you from a distance until you're strong enough?" He asked.

"Or would you ask me to gamble with your death, knowing you'll quickly regret asking for such a thing?"

She swallowed, and her chest tightened. "I… don't know."

Kaze scoffed breathlessly. "Then ask that question when you do. Until then, go home and think about this. Take time to 'process' or whatever foolish mortals used to do."

He waved his hand, shooing her away unceremoniously.

Evalyn's eyes filled with bitterness. "Is this how you used to treat me?"

Kaze turned and locked eyes with her. "Did I treat her like this? The Evalyn I knew tried to kill me, just like the rest of the people that threatened her ambitions and desires for control. Not once, not twice—dozens of times."

Her eyes welled in shock as the Evalyn Skye of the future fused with the one in the present. Those were two aspects of herself she skillfully kept hidden.

He shouldn't know those aspects of her, considering she abandoned both to follow him.

"I never had to convince the Evalyn Skye I knew the importance of killing one's enemies." He chuckled.

"She was so used to it that she couldn't see allies she didn't buy or force to kneel."

Evalyn dry swallowed and turned away in fear, fear to face herself.

"Then why, Kaze? Why chase someone like that?" She asked.

"Why?" Kaze chuckled, "I accidently saw her pink underwear, and she tried to kill me to hide her secret love for cute things."

Her eyes trembled in shock.

"Then she tried killed killing me every time I saw her." He said with a reminiscent smile, "But after the first time, she never gave me a challenge I couldn't win."

Evalyn held her breath as she stared at Kaze's contorted expression. His human side was far more oppressive than his charming side. Unbearable.

It left her suffocating naturally as if its unnaturalness threatened the world's balance.

"That continued for eighty-two years." Kaze laughed while looking at the ceiling.

"It continued until the war the cultivators farmed us mortals for finished. By then, one hundred million people had died in direct battle. Billions if you count the Mortal Plane."

Kaze turned to her with a deep expression that warped her soul. "So no, I didn't treat you like this; that's because that was then, and this is now."

Evalyn turned away and began walking to the door. "Will you at least tell me what I was to you?"

"Was." He replied coldly, "You're not the same you, and I'm not the same me. So stop looking to a past you can't comprehend to search for irrelevant answers to your insignificant woes.

If I had my way, anything you'd learn from her would be just as worthless as your internal conflicts."

She chuckled awkwardly, unsure how to express her emotions. After a moment, she walked to the door and opened it.

"Well then, I'm off to process, or whatever us foolish mortals do." Evalyn scoffed breathlessly, walking into the night and shutting the door behind her.

—

[A/N: Is Kaze's language too overbearing? I'll tone down his pompousness if it is.]