57 [Bonus chapter]Payback (part 2)

'How did that actor say it? The more terrifying of a villain you play, the more you should smile?' Theo thought, recalling a distant memory that just happened to appear in his mind as he looked at the terror-struck girl.

She wasn't all that bad in terms of her looks. Her body had nice proportions wrapped in a tight fit of the sect robe. Due to some small changes that she implemented to her clothing, the sect robes ended up roughly resembling the qipao, exposing a lot more skin of her legs than the creator of the sect robe intended.

And now, her naked knees were shaking while tears appeared in the corners of her eyes.

"Don't you know that it's not nice to bully others?" Theo asked, keeping a smile on his face while a new battle started in his heart.

'I never knew that overpowering others could feel so… good,' he thought, taking deep breaths to keep his newfound emotions in check.

He didn't really care about those bullies. But now that they were all at his mercy…

Theo jumped forth, using Clara's shoulder as a support as he disappeared from her vision only to reappear right behind her. And using the momentum of his move, he sent his free hand flying… Only to deliver a feisty smack right to the girl's bottom!

"Hmm… not bad…" Theo muttered in a surprisingly loud manner.

He didn't want to imprint fear upon the girl and girl alone. He simply decided to make an example out of her so that no bullies would come to waste his time later on!

"Clara!"

The leader of the group was still fighting with the waves of pain on the ground. The guy who took the left flank of their attack was currently busy emptying the content of his stomach after Theo's kneed him right into it. And that left only the two lovebirds who made bullying others into their past-time activity of choice.

Theo didn't stop there, though. He now moved fully behind the girl, holding her in place with his left hand while putting his right underneath her robe and reaching out for her chest. His eyes, however, weren't fixated on the girl. Being the wholesome man he was, he didn't even enjoy this kind of forced play.

What he enjoyed though, was the look in the eyes of Clara's simp. The sheer desperation, and powerlessness that ate away at his soul as Theo gave the girl's tit a painful squeeze.

Still, Theo crossed the line. By touching the girl in such a way, he forced the animal out of Robert's soul, making him stand up while groaning, ready to launch himself back to save his maiden in distress.

Theo pulled his hand out of Clara's robes and reached out to his belt. There, he kept a simple, small knife that he used to cut the herbs into smaller pieces for easier preparation. And now…

Theo brought the knife up and to the girl's throat.

"Are you really sure you want to play it out?" Theo asked, moving his left hand to cover the girl's mouth and raise her head up, tensing the skin on her throat.

The desperation, the pain, the powerlessness…

The emotions flashing in Robert's eyes gave Theo a strange high. It tickled his brain… and even sent a pleasant shiver down his pants.

'This authority… This… POWER…!'

Theo took a deep breath, feasting upon the pain in his former bully's eyes…

Before exhaling the air out of his lungs, and forcing all of those villainous emotions out of his mind.

His left hand moved up from Clara's tear-and-snot-covered face and up to her hair. Her long, lustrous, blue hair that the girl had to be extremely proud of.

'I don't feel like bullying them back any further,' Theo thought, taking another breath as he stelled up his resolve. 'But I can't just let them walk away with a simple beating, can I?'

"Consider this a mercy of your lord," Theo said in the same, calm and nearly friendly tone that he used when he first encountered the group. "It's a small price to pay for what you did to me in the past," he announced, grabbing the girl's hair and pulling down, forcing her chin up. He then raised his knee, bruising it across the girl's bottom cheeks only to rest it on her spine…

Before removing the knife from her throat, twisting the hand he held her hair in to bring it all to a single strand…

And cutting the great majority of the girl's precious hair off with a single slash of his small, utility knife.

Theo then decompressed the muscles of his leg, sending the girl down to the ground with his knee.

The look of immense relief in the tear-filled eyes of Carol's significant other… somehow brought a strange sense of relief to Theo's soul.

'I guess I am not a villain… yet,' he thought, gulping his saliva down as a strange sense of dread shook him to the core.

"This is the last time I show mercy to trash like you," he said, his voice turning cold as Theo's composture shook.

"Now go, and spread the news," Theo said, his tone darkening at the same rate as his terror caused by the new side to his soul that he discovered spread through his brain. "Cause I won't show this kind of mercy the next time it happens."

***

Far away from the scene of Theo's bloodless carnage, far beyond the sight of second or even third-stage cultivators, a group of five people stood.

There was something terribly wrong with all of them. They all wore the sect robes, two of whom boasted the robes only the inner disciples were allowed to wear.

And still…

The three of them in the outer sect disciples were all bloodied, with not a single inch of their skin free of cuts and bruises.

One of the inner sect disciples was in an even worse shape, a huge number of the bones in his body broken, his cultivation shattered, and his face no longer recognizable, even by the man's very own mother.

Out of all five of them, the last one who wore the inner sect robes wasn't free from the damage. His injuries, though, were limited to his bruised and bloodied knuckles.

There was a somber look on that man's face as he looked into the distance, keenly observing the scene from beyond the range of the vision of its participants.

The man's eyelids were slightly lowered, his mouth closed.

Only the pained groans of the four that he beat up could be heard anywhere near.

Then, he opened his mouth.

"Just like I thought," he whispered, his face darkening as his eyes filled with a distant echo of… sadness? "There really is something wrong with him."