Chapter 188: Uhtred’s Decisiveness
Everyone remained silent, looking at Uhtred to see what decision he would make. Glorious Eagle Vance had an unreadable glint in his eyes. King Alexei folded his arms, his face settling into a weirdly calm mask. Isolde Castiglione, the main person who was benefiting the most from Uhtred’s retaliation against the Vanezzi family, stared at the black-haired young man with a hesitant, yet eager look.
She, like everyone, knew this was a dilemma. Uhtred had just been cornered into a spot where his morals were being tested publicly.
Of course Don Luciano Vanezzi was being heartfelt in his request — anyone who knew the man knew how ambitious he was. He truly wanted to thrive in this new reality of endless possibilities. But now that it was sure he wasn’t going to see the exciting future of being fully integrated into the Grand Multiverse for himself, he passed that ambition down to his last son.
But in doing so, his natural guile and cunning couldn’t help but influence the way he phrased the request.
He positioned his sixteen-year-old son as an innocent. Someone who had no hand in the conflict between the Vanezzis and Uhtred.
Uhtred himself had said it, the reason he had killed the other sons, uncles and entire fighting force of the Vanezzi family, was because they had chosen that path after being given an easier option.
Don Luciano Vanezzi’s last son, however, wasn’t hostile. He didn’t look like a warrior. He wasn’t even an integrated human yet. And very likely, he hadn’t yet been introduced to the dangerous side of being a Vanezzi man — though he also might already have. One couldn’t know.
Could Uhtred raise his hand and kill him despite all of this? Discussions had been made just now about several humane laws to end needless killing — something even the World Government came to agreement on with Uhtred.
His decision here would set the precedent for how he would be perceived as a global power going forward.
Glorious Eagle Vance was particularly interested in Uhtred’s decision, and so was the Shadow Brokerage, who looked on with deep interest beneath their hoods. They both wanted to know where Uhtred’s limits lay.
So far, they had seen a young man whose position of power could be chalked up to lucky talent, class, and perhaps fortuitous encounters. Of course, they weren’t discounting Uhtred’s efforts. They knew he had for sure fought his way to his current position. But perhaps it was ego, many of those in the World Government and Shadow Brokerage secretly felt he was just lucky with his talent grade.
In fact, many among them — GLorious Eagle Vance most particularly — felt Uhtred would eventually drop the ball, and they would catch up. Surely not in individual power, but in overall organizational strength and influence.
And there was one reason for this:
They believed no one here had what it took to be a Global leader... To be in the position of Global power... To make decisions that kill many just because it threatens your interests, even if there were innocents among those many.
This was Uhtred’s first test. And Glorious Eagle Vance was eager to see what his decision would be.
Uhtred sighed after listening to Don Luciano speak. He looked at the person the Don had called a "young boy." Brown hair, a light spattering of beard beginning to form on the sides of his face. And hazel-colored eyes that looked at him pleadingly.
Despite himself, Uhtred felt a trace of unwillingness. He was human after all. It was somewhat arbitrary, but he never even felt such hesitation when faced against Vanezzi’s other sons. They had attacked, and he had done the same.
Uhtred closed his eyes for a second. Chuckled at the feeling of still being human even after all the numb killings he had done to get to where he was. Just like the many that currently topped the global power rankings — previously normal humans without a single kill to their name on pre-integration Earth — he had never really felt anything after his first kill, or the second, tenth, hundredth, thousandth. Not even against humans.
Just like the other powerhouses, he probably also had a screw loose somewhere in his head that prevented him from acting like the billions of normal humans after the integration. Unlike them, he had thrived in this new reality. Like a fish in water, he found that he even enjoyed this new reality. It made more sense to him than the boring, performative world of before.
He could be himself here. He could do what he truly wanted without all the performance and pretenses.
Perhaps this was why, after Uhtred savored the unwillingness he felt, he smiled.
Beneath that unwillingness, was his true stance. His true self.
He opened his eyes, his smile fading away.
"I will admit, a part of me wants to let your son live. He poses no threat to me... now," Uhtred paused, and Don Luciano’s face became black. He could already sense where Uhtred was headed.
"But unfortunately, no matter how powerful I am, I’m not one to leave a potential threat running around out of over-confidence."
Uhtred raised a hand, and several things happened in an instant.
A terrifying spatter of elements, just like the one he used after his arrival the previous day, materialized right at his pointed fingertip.
Don Luciano Vanezzi roared and shot to his feet, all his rage, pride as a mafia Don, instinct as a father, and unwillingness, thick in his voice. His body glowed a bright orange with increasing intensity by the second. He was most definitely an elemental — some specialized fire class of at least a Rare-grade for sure.
His expertise with the fire element was even enough that he was able to self-ignite his very body to a combustion state. He wanted to go out in a violent bang, literally. And he intended to take Uhtred along with him.
Behind him, the Vanezzi men were trying to shield Don Luciano’s last son and run away at the same time.
Around the open lawn, Glorious Eagle Vance looked shocked by Uhtred’s decisiveness. He hadn’t thought the young man had it in him. The same went for the Shadow Brokerage. One couldn’t see their expressions, but they were the most shocked. Their analysis of his personality which they had formed a picture of over the past day was now different.
Their business was trading information, and the information they had about Uhtred had now been updated with a surprising twist. They knew now to what extent he would go against his adversaries, they knew that in those morally grey situations that demanded a tough choice, he would most definitely make that tough choice.
For Don Luciano and the remainder of the Vanezzis, it felt like time had slowed down in those final moments of death. However, for everyone else, it all happened in a blink.
Needless to say, Don Luciano’s suicide attack, despite his magic reaching a level of versatility he had never naturally achieved right at the last moment, was still useless against Uhtred. In reality, the man was only slightly more powerful than Dennis. That wasn’t a gap that could be bridged with a dying-minute insight.
Not to mention, Uhtred’s unified elemental spell seemed to reach a new level of understanding in that strike. Perhaps it was his mental state in that moment, but the spell was the cleanest and most powerful he had ever cast it.
It traveled for nearly a mile before dissipating, taking Don Luciano, his last son, and the Vanezzi men remaining all in one go...