Zhang, Zor Empire. As/A Year: 3084.

Milen Geyr

...

The forest was solemn and its creatures minded their business, scurrying about on their jolly way. The lush green evoked a sense of peace that rode the wind which permeated the space, washing away the filth that pervaded the mind of every single creature just a moment before. The creatures both big and small basked in this cleanliness, stealing a moment of the holy reprise mother nature offered without cost.

Golden rays from the sun descended like a sacred maiden, filling the forest with warmth and energy, and causing the emerald leaves to glimmer, as well as the blood stained ground somewhere far off to the east of the forest, where a lonely house of tin stood, and a half-naked aloof youth was constantly tormenting a female in black.

"I'm gonna end you now miss. So come faster!!" Milen sadly added, and screamed at her to come at him. Although sad that she was wasting his time, he also felt elated. He enjoyed watching his prey struggle as well as how would trample on their wasteful pride, beckoning them to plead for the mercy of a swift death.

"Faster!" He screamed again at the female assassin who was already in motion to dish out a second swinging attack. She was fast, but his punch was faster, as it pummeled her abdomen, making her gasp for air.

She groaned in pain, but still swung, which he dodged, and landed another fist on her face. The hit forces her back, making her drop on her back. She gathered her energy to stand, but before her arms saw the strength to pull her body high enough for her legs to take over, a kick crashes into her cheek, cracking her jaw and pulling out a teeth.

"Hmmm! I see! You took a vow of silence or something? Ain't you trying so hard not to scream and beg?" His eyes were cruel and dead. Remorselessness camped about him, choking her like a giant hugging her so tight that her bones began to creak, while she struggled for the fleeting and solid air that escaped her grasp.

Milen stood there, and gave her a chance to stand, which she did, and immediately pulled off her black cowl. The dark hood was off, revealing her white freckled face, ginger hair, sad yet loopy green eyes, and really small soft lips already broken as blood clung to its surface, making the pink have a glaring lush of red.

She reached for her ankles, pulled out another set of daggers, and ran to attack again.

Milen could see her coming, but as she neared him, his right hand is raised across his face with the back of his hands facing forward, and as she reached his attack range, he smacks her face, and almost instantly launching his right leg, aiming his heel for her left knee. She was unaware of this attack, and only felt his heel crashing into her knee, making her joints and bones to splinter into hundreds of pieces.

She wailed as the bone crushing impact, decapitated her leg.

"Faster!" Milen was cruel, and since she rejected his earlier goodness for trifle things like pride, he would fill every ounce of her with a soul rending despair.

Milen screamed at her again, urging her to attack. "Bitch, faster!"

She struggled another attack, but weakly missed.

Milen was clearly enjoying this. Every single second of it were sending rushes of pleasure rocketing all through him. Seeing her blood made him intoxicated, and it in turned forced out his outlandish savagery.

His opponent saw no chance at close combat, and jumped away from his attack girth with hurdles of random slashes that sent emerald energy beams lurched at his face to aid her escape. Milen shielded his face with his elbow, and the attacks didn't leave as much as an imprint on him, but she had grabbed the chance to hurry into the trailer.

"So fucking stupid! Just run away!" He said softly, almost pleadingly as he watched her hurriedly limp into the trailer.

From where he stood outside, he could hear the cries and screams of the naked ladies inside that had kept him company the night before. When he'd awoke they were asleep, and he was certain that their skirmish must have woken them long before, just that they didn't dare take a step outside or they'd be decaying corpses fueling the large forest's fertility.

Hearing the two whores he had ravished the previous night, Milen sighed and went towards the camper. Inside, he stopped and watched all three of them at the other end. Their screams where stifled, tears ran down their face, and their eyes were ridden in intense fear.

He sighed again when he saw the assassin all battered in bruises and blood, leaning slightly to the side because of their broken leg, and using the poor naked ladies as a shield against him. His gaze shifted to the table that laid to the right, walked over it and picked up his Glock, cocked it and aimed it at her.
Seeing Milen's action, the assailant tugged closely the naked crying whores, with a blade held against their throats, her eyes threatening to slit the naked women if Milen were to make any sudden movement.

Milen facepalmed in frustration as he approached them.

"That is a very bitchy move young woman," He tightened his grip on the pistol, and concentrated his aim more. "In four shots you'll be dead, so you might as well tell me, who fucking sent you to kill me...among other things that is." He giggled lecherously, and clasped the gun tighter preparing to shoot.

His assailant also responded by holding the women even tighter, causing Milen to scoff.

"Are you messing with me?" Milen said softly with his face holding no emotions. "Is that some sort of threat? Uh?" The emotionlessness was ripped away replaced instantly with fury.

"Urgh! I guess I'll have to force out the words, or cut out your tongue if I have to." Milen added in spite.

He groaned angrily again. why is this bitch so dense.

Milen moved forward and began a count down.

"One!"

Bam!

The gun sounded, and one of the whores dropped limply to the floor, with a bullet hole straight through her head.

He took another step forward,
"Two!"

Bam!

He shot the second prostitute, making the assassin run backward, but stopped upon meeting the walls of the trailer.

She was scared. She never had imagined that Milen would treat other people's life so casually as dust. She wasn't sure why she threatened him with these women. Maybe she wanted to hurt Milen through them, just like she too was severely wounded by him, but never expected Milen to be so coldblooded.

Bam!

"And Three!" Another gnashing bullet bored into his assailant's right leg, causing her to burst out a scream this time. The power of a bullet was more cruel that Milen steady breaking of her bones. This might be the first time she was wounded by a bullet, and she never expected such an excruciating pain. Clearly, the gun Milen used clearly must be augmented using magic.

Milen took his time to walk to where she laid bleeding.

"I told you, you would be dead by my fourth shot." He cocked the gun again, and pointed it directly at the her head "Tell me, who the fuck sent you after me? Although I can make a guess, but I still wanna know everything you know."

Her eyes were full of agony and fear, but her lips were sealed, even after her agonizing screech earlier.

Milen sighed and rolled his eyes at her faux bravery. "Is dying in such an honorable manner worth staying quiet for?" He asked, and continued. "You may and may not die, but if you should die while your lips are still shut, I promise to make sure that even the air you breathe out is expelled from this world."

Milen's gaze immediately chilled. The assassin was hesitant, and Milen clearly saw that and spoke.

"A warning, I can hear your pounding heart and every striking pulse. I can easily tell when you lie and when you don't. So..."
Milen calmly placed the tip of the gun's muzzle against her head "One... Two. I will count to four, and on my fourth count, will my fourth bullet do it's job. Three... Fo-"

"There's a bounty on your head! -" The woman frightfully screamed "- Milen Geyr," She carefully said his name with a smoulder, as pride flashed through her eyes. "All the empire's top Mercenaries and assassins are on a hunt for you." She pulled out a rumpled sheet from her black cloth with his name and a vague sketch of his face on it, and pointed it at him.

He stared at the sheet, and back at the unnamed assassin in bewilderment.
"Who placed this bounty on me, and why?"
Milen's irritation was getting peaked. This bounty seemed different from the one before. Could it have been someone else, or was it a doubling of effort? Although his emotions were slightly shifting, Milen was careful enough not to press hard on the trigger.

"Seventy Thousand Dunari was what is offered, but nobody knows who it is you'd pissed off. We all know that it's one of the big shots, probably a Valrian, or somebody very powerful and possibly higher-"

"Higher?! You're fucking kidding me! You're saying that the emperor could possibly be outsourcing for my head delivered at his doorstep, in a sack?"

Milen knew that this was not a joke. Although Zor's emperor wanted him, those he sent after him were tasked at capturing him, not killing him. This new bounty was strange, or did the emperor's patience finally so thin that he could no longer care if he was dead or alive, as far as Milen was brought to the emperor?

As for those Valrians, Milen couldn't care less. Although fighting one face-to-face would be suicidal at best, but simply disposing of their subordinates would be a piece of cake for someone with his level of strength. The more they sent his way, the more he would kill. Since they were willing to play his game of death, he would wholeheartedly welcome them into his loving arms.

"Who knows?" She shrugged at Milen's question, with mockery riddled on her face. She knew that if an existence as untouchable as a Valrian wanted this man dead, him struggling would be worse than hers currently.

She did not voice her scorn, but continued to answer Milen's question. "I only heard rumors of something called the Amarethean, with orders to kill you, nothing more." After speaking, a striking pain seized her leg causing her to whimper from the bullet injury she'd received, while cowering from the heartless interrogating beast.

"And you accepted it?"
He jestly pulled up a brow.

"The pay is good. Even ten dunari can set me on a twenty year streak as a queen in my clan, and in my own fucking castle, so forgive me for choosing my greed over the life of some fucked up maniacal stranger!"

"Wow, you yabber a lot much for someone who'd taken a vow of silence. Or are you bound by some insane religious oath?" The woman's gaze chilled at Milen's mockery, but he didn't put any of her subtle tantrum in his eyes, but asked. "What is this Amarethean?"

"The Amarethean is something nobody knows. At least I do not know, and not even the leaders of my clan can ascertain what it is. I only stumbled on their conversation coincidentally, and they too seemed equally lost at the word." She responded calmly, but chest was pounding.

Milen leaned over, had her jaw in his hands, and pulls her face into his. Seeing his face close enough to hers, she spat on him. Though she still wasn't unsure why she had to rile the beast up, but if today happens to be her last, she wouldn't go while satisfying him with a smug.

The expression on Milen's face was different from what she had intended. He seemed unfazed and indifferent to her taunts. He casually wiped the spit on his face and took a few steps back before he spoke.

"What is you name?" Milen asked.

"Melany!" She responded coldly.

Milen sighed then spoke.
"Well thank you Melany." Milen said and widened a grin "Hope you understand why I cannot let you live. I know you're just doing your job, but Sorry...Four! "

Bam!

He sent a bullet straight through the her head, causing a splatter of blood over the wall behind. He kept his eyes fixed on her, as she slid down the wall, until reaching the floor, which he the shifted his gaze to the blood rolling down the same path.

Killing three people left an unwarranted aftertaste in Milen. He loved killing, the thrill of hunting, and the pleasure of inflicting pain, but deep within these taught guises, he felt disgusted at death, disgusted that he had just stolen away somebody's live.

No matter how many he loved to kill, he stilled hated killing. And right on top on Melany'a corpse, Milen was forced to his knees as hurled barrels of vomit.

He didn't like killing, but at an early age was taught to reap the lives of every and any, and also enjoy himself while doing it. But every time he did it, he would find himself offering an incensed vomit to the departed souls lost at his hands.

This was controversial. A paradox that hid his deepest struggle and scars.

Three hours of his later were spent on dragging the corpses out of his camper, pouring gasoline on them and setting them on fire. He sat on a log, with a bottle of beer, watching his entertainments go up in flames.
He scattered the ashes and bones after, grabbed his leather jacket, mounted his motorcycle, and and drove to town.

Danger, that's what loomed around his head. The bounty hunters were a work over, but if it's the emperor coming after him, then those he will personally send will be the actual challenge. That didn't matter now, as it finally was the time for him to set his plans in motion once again.

Peace and comfort, was what he knew he would never find, not after what he had done. It was a crime punishable by the grim reaper seeking to smoulder his soul in the darkest flames of hell.

But Milen had enjoyed the dimmest of comforts in the Kingdom of Zhang, the lowest of the three Echleons, 'the slum' of the Zor Empire.

Zor continent had three layers, separated by ringed barriers all over the whole continent. They were the lower Echleon which had a few kingdoms and many villages, that held the lowly of the the low: the dump of the high states and the government. It was the outer ring and one closest to the sea.

In this lowest ring, the rules here were a glitch, greedy lords and rulers strutted around in their wealth, the laws changed as the lawmakers saw fit. This situation also made it a bit more perfect for Milen for hide. Though the taxes drove many to starvation and homeless, and most to the brink of death, but neither of those were his problems, as his major concern was hiding and surviving. The forest he lived in, far away from the habitation of men, proved to be the safest.

This degraded lower region had shielded Milen for years, from the hawk eye of the Empire's high seats. Five years had gone by since the chase for him ended, and the sudden resurface of assassins for his head, and the whole Amarethean story, once again set him on the move; not into hiding this time, but in search for answers. Maybe this answer will let him have glimpse at the almighty emperor's thoughts.

__________________

Milen held firmly the brake, and came to halt at a local pub: home of the drunken and the unsober, soaking in unsolicited carnality. He slowly dismounted the motorcycle, walked into the pub, and went straight for the bartender, a young caramel lady he hoped to seduce to bed before leaving.

"Pour me a cup of something strong and manly." Sitting by the bar, Milen spoke as he pushed a smile to his face and a wink, still within the arm of his wide spread lip, making the bartender's cheek heat up while pouring in his request.

Poorly brewed scotch were still available these days, though many of the old age's top liqour and alcohol were lost to the last war, and anything better than the crap he was about to drink, were only accessible to those in the upper strata of Zor.

He sniffed it for poison before taking a sip, and then turned to the bar woman and smiled, causing another paint of redness on her cheek. She pressed down her left lids at him, and turns away to attend to a drunk customer.

Milen's senses were very acute, and his casual sniff could make out if his drink was laced with poison or not. Milen had to be careful and not leave any room for his enemies. He wasn't sure what schemes were set in place for his head, and how many people had already locked in on him.

He gestured at the Bartender, calling her over again.
"Hey!" he smiles as he looked directly into her shuttering eyes, inches away from his. "I know you hear stuff. Tell me what you know about this latest bounty and the whole story behind it?"

"Cute and very handsome too, and I can tell that bad boys like you will bring heaven to slutty bitches like myself, but right now, my fingers are a bit dry... If you could grease it a little bit, and I would-"
Milen growls in discontent, slipped his hand in and out his pocket, and hands her two golden musc, which she swipes from his hand, and folded it within her fingers.

"Let's see." She began to speak. "I hear the bounty is huge. It's for some guy; I hear he is strong and all, but most people don't knows him that much, and only a few should be able to recognize him. And for any other story as to why, I know nothing about it." She leans over the counter, and placed her lips on his, and not giving Milen any chance to respond, she scurried away. "Bye sugar!"

"What a waste! Even the dead bitch was helpful for free." Milen sighed and returned to his drink.

He spun around on his seat, to have a clear view of the whole bar. The whole pub was full today, and Milen knew that most of the faces here we're in town for his head, but him coming to the pub this time was mostly out of his routine, and not necessarily to poke the hornet's nest.

Milen drew his face into his glass, when two burly men with weapons-one with a crossbow, and a sheathed sword wrapped round his waist, the other with a pair of tomahawks-walked into the bar.

He kept the glass against his face, as an attempt to shield most of his face, as there was chance they might recognize him from the posters which he had noticed hanging around town as he drove in.

Milen's discreet gaze never left them. He watched them take a seat, call out the waitress, and smack her behind after she took their order.

Seeing them, Milen had the urge to get information from them, and decided to wait them out until they were drunk. Luckily Milen was immune to the intoxicating effects of alcohol, but his counterparts were heavily affected nonetheless. Like a serpent, he slowly sorted out the perfect opportunity to strike, a chance at those he stalked. After a while of surveillance, he knew who they were; they were lowly bounty hunters following the trails of hearsay and indiscriminate gossip.

They were worthless to him, causing him to feel seriously irritated. He wasn't sure why, but somehow knowing that they were a useless bunch and that they knew nothing about what he would ask, he felt an unknown frustration and intense agitation.

"Heard the tale of the griffin beast of Traè?"
One of the drunk bounty hunter with a crossbow on his back climbed to the top of a table and shouted, pulling in the attention of others.
"Me mate and I slayed it, ripped it head for sports, and its claws for a trophy..." He began to wail on and on about the adventure and the experience of fighting a Griffin, a winged beast very rarely seen by humans even in the haven of Traè, the home of beasts and other non-human creatures.

"But you look so pale and frail like you could not lift a barrel of beer for even a breath."
Milen intruded, cutting short the hunter's tale of heroic ventures. His words questioned the ingenuity of the hunter's tale, ending the crowd's choruses and cheers, and brought in a dead silence.

"So you dare say we tell lies?"
The axe bearing bounty hunter stood from where he sat, clearly furious.

"I don't know. Griffins are really rare and powerful winged creatures, and forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical that wannabes like you two could kill one." Milen scoffed and took a last sip, dropped his cup and calmly turned to face the man who was now breathing over him.

A smug was plastered on Milen's face. He loved trouble.

The hunter growled, and raised his fist to strike him, and with ease, he stopped it half way, and followed through with a punch straight for his face, which knocked him out immediately.

Milen watched him drop, obviously had fainted. The second drew his sword, and came running. Milen slightly shifted from the trajectory of the sword, grabbed his feeble neck, lifted his feet above the ground, and slammed him against a table, breaking the table and some of the bones of his back.

A few people got affected by the damage, and as violent ready as the drunken lots were, they saw Milen's stunt as the lighted flare of the olympics, and engaged themselves in a brawl. The bar turned into a pen of hungry wrestlers fighting for absolutely nothing of worth.

Milen expressionlessly watched these drunks shoving shoulders and pummeling each other, and although him knocking out those two did not ease the agitation he felt, he chose to end things here by leaving. He dropped a few bronze musc, and slipped past the unconscious hunters and the raging mob, and hurried into town.

Going through town won't be a problem, even if he is sorted for: dead or alive.

Milen needed to find somebody, a woman, one who could give him answers, the town's infamous harlot: Czarina. If anyone knows something, that trickstar will. She must've slept with one of these men seeking him out, or probably the ones he expected.