Chapter 65: Pale Smoke
He turned his head back slowly to look down at Teo, who instantly shivered and shrunk back in fear.
He tried to make himself as small as possible in front of the counter, desperately pulling his limbs close to his body as if he could somehow disappear if he did that.
The strange man’s appearance was simply terrifying to look at from such a close distance, with the disgusting black whirlpool pulsing on his navel, the blank grey eyes, and the deathly pale skin making him look like a creature pulled straight out of a horror movie.
There was absolutely nothing human about the aura he radiated, and the dim, flickering lighting of the empty bar only amplified his ghoulish features.
The fact that his body looked so frail and malnourished, showing his skeleton through his open jacket, while his face looked completely normal made the entire visual contrast even worse.
It was like a normal human head had been forcefully stitched onto the decaying, starved frame of a monster, creating a deeply disturbing image that made Teo’s stomach churn with intense nausea.
Teo wanted nothing more than for the man to leave him alone and walk out of the bar, but he couldn’t dare say it out loud.
His throat was completely dry, and he knew that uttering a single wrong word or showing even a shred of disrespect could result in his immediate death.
He remained frozen on his knees, his hands pressed flat against the dusty floor as he forced himself to endure the suffocating silence, praying silently that the nightmare would somehow come to an end without any blood being spilled.
That was because this strange man was the one widely known as Pale Smoke, an A-rank player!
He was a notorious high-level powerhouse whose name alone was enough to make entire street gangs and rogue factions flee in terror.
’That bastard Leon! Why did he have to come meet me to sell those fangs?! I didn’t even get a single penny from them, so why am I the one facing all this trouble?!’ Teo cursed inwardly, gritting his teeth in frustration.
He felt strong resentment toward Leon who had dragged him into this chaotic situation. He had taken every single gold coin from the transaction, leaving Teo with absolutely nothing but a terrifying target painted squarely on his back.
He felt like crying right then and there, a deep sense of despair washing over his mind as he realized an actual A-rank player had come personally to find him in this hidden tavern.
A player of Pale Smoke’s elite caliber usually only moved for high-profile political assassinations or massive guild operations, meaning that the sale of the Sabertooth tiger fangs had triggered a major alarm somewhere high up in the city’s hierarchy.
His situation would have been significantly better if he was just a normal citizen with a regular job, but he was a black market trader, and black market traders weren’t exactly seen in good regards by the major guilds.
Pale Smoke coughed, a sudden, raspy sound that made his thin, skeletal frame shudder slightly against the bar stool.
With that cough, another dense wisp of grey smoke came rolling out of his pale lips, twisting lazily in the cold air, before vanishing.
He turned his completely blank, pupil-less grey eyes back down to Teo, his voice dropping to a low, chilling whisper that sounded like dry leaves scraping against stone.
He leaned forward slightly, his gaze piercing straight into the shaking man as he said, "Once again, you’re sure Leon Allistar was the one you met? If you dare lie to me... I’ll roast you from the inside-out until you become nothing than a dry sack of bones, understood?"
Teo nodded desperately, his head bobbing up and down so fast it looked like it might snap right off his neck.
He was crying now, not even knowing exactly when the heavy tears had already began to drop from his eyes and splash onto the dusty floorboards beneath him.
His entire body was vibrating and his voice was caught in his throat as he tried to absorb the horrifying mental image of his own flesh being slowly vaporized from within.
He didn’t doubt for a single second that Pale Smoke would do exactly as he had just said, knowing fully well from rumors that this man was one of the most wicked players in the entire country.
He was an infamous monster who always went to the absolute, bloodiest extreme to get the truth out of people, completely ignoring any concepts of mercy or human rights.
To Pale Smoke, information extraction was a twisted art form, and he left behind a long, horrific trail of charred, hollow corpses wherever he went.
His unique, high-level talent was perfectly and terrifyingly suited for that exact type of brutal torture also.
His talent allowed him to control the temperature and properties of the vapors he created, meaning he could easily force someone to inhale a mist that would cook up their internal organs while leaving their outer skin completely intact.
It was a slow, agonizing process that broke even the most hardened criminals within a matter of minutes, making him the ultimate interrogator for the guilds.
"He is the one, I swear on my life! On my mom! On my fucking ancestors! He came here, he even threatened me... and h-he, yes, he had a weird smoky blade! The bastard almost sliced my throat with it!" Teo spoke quickly, as he tried to save himself from that gruesome fate.
He was willing to sell out every piece of information he had on Leon if it meant escaping this place alive.
He pointed a shaking, sweaty finger straight to his own neck, tilting his head back as far as he could to give the pale man a view of his skin.
He desperately gestured toward a thin, faint red line that was barely visible against his flesh, his voice rising to a panicked shriek as he said, "See... see... this is the wound here! I’ll never lie to you."