8 Red moon rising

All Zhang Wei could do now was let Tibs handle it. Before he stood up he pocketed the small knife and looked at Old Tibs warily as if to say I am sorry I can't help you.

The two stooges and the blonde guy watched him going away and waited until he was out of hearing range.

As he walked into the wilderness darkness was encroaching the land as if it signaled the darkness that was coming towards Old Tibs. Zhang Wei could only sigh in helplessness.

As he was about 300 meters away from the camp he stopped and looked back at the camp. Suddenly there was a ray of light coming from the wilderness in front of the fortress as an enormous moon started to rise. Wei turned around and looked at this phenomenon with his mouth agape.

Soon he turned back to the camp and he could see the smaller stooge holding Old Tibs by the collar. He wanted to rush back to camp to help him but then he saw the guy pushing Tibs away and running towards his direction.

"Oh, shit." He exclaimed before he bolted in the opposite direction.

As he ran he turned his head around and saw the stooge was closing in on him fast. He cursed the stupid moon rising at this moment since it illuminated him in the wilderness instead of shrouding him in the darkness. He cursed his slow legs.

He kept running and as he looked back he saw there were now three people running towards him. The first guy was already less than a 100 meters away from him as the blonde and other had just started running towards him.

He was out of breath and he knew he had to rest a few seconds for him to even have hope to defend himself so he stopped. As the first guy closed in on him he noticed a strange change in his direction. He was not running towards him anymore but a bit to the left.

Suddenly he stopped and started to swing his knife at the air and yelled.

"I will kill you! What was in that cup?"

The other two were closing in fast so Zhang Wei ignored him and started running again.

The man kept swinging his long knife around as the other two caught up with him. They tried talking to him but he swung his knife at them. As they saw Zhang Wei running from them they also decided to ignore him and started running again.

Soon the other stooge started yelling.

"You are dead. I saw you were killed… How can you be here?" He stopped and got into a defensive stance.

The blonde guy stopped also but since he didn't see anyone near them and as Zhang Wei was gaining distance he decided to ignore him and kept after Wei.

As the distance shortened between them Wei could feel his lungs burning and his legs becoming increasingly heavy. He panted and coughed. He was feeling regret for all the cigarettes he smoked now and for not going to the gym.

To be honest he didn't have time for gym and cigarettes was his way of handling stress.

Once again he decided to stop running and face the blonde man with his 10 centimeters long knife.

The blonde man was starting to feel the effects of the drug also. Suddenly he stopped and took out his machete looking knife and swung it.

"I killed you!" He yelled at his invisible opponent. He was around 30 meters away from Zhang Wei's location and he swung his machete like a crazy person.

Zhang Wei hurriedly looked at his other two pursuers and they were both down on their knees clutching their heads with their hands.

'Jinx is it possible that the toxin got a lot more potent? I ate four of them and I had nowhere near as strong a reaction,' Wei asked in his head.

'Well, you did eat them slowly so they were metabolized by your system before a high enough concentration could be reached for such symptoms. Also the concentration of the poison stew you brewed was a lot higher and as Old Tibs mentioned you seem to have a high resistance to it since you only spent half a day with a headache.' Jinx quickly analyzed.

'It's good I only took it to my mouth then and didn't drink up…' Wei sighed a breath of relief.

The blonde guy soon collapsed on his knees and also started to clutch his head.

"Don't kill me. Don't kill me," he yelled as he rammed his head into the ground.

'I guess his past demons are haunting him.' Wei thought as he slowly closed in wary of any movement his way by the blonde guy.

As he stood five meters from the guy who was by now begging on his knees he was uncertain what he should do.

'Are you sure I will get his karma points if I kill him,' he asked Jinx as he eyed the bright red number. It was 354 considerably high for him who had exactly zero.

'I am sure. Make sure to hide your tracks though.'

Wei was in a dilemma.

'Should I go for the carotid, axillary or the femoral artery. Maybe the heart. Kidneys or liver?'

Looking at the length of his knife and the blonde guy who kept flailing about with his machete once in a while he decided to forgo everything that faces the front. So the liver, the femoral artery and the axillary were out of the running. The carotid was maybe doable but he could not be sure he would not be caught by a wild swing to the back.

He thanked his biology professors in his mind as he was choosing what to do. They would probably curse him to high heavens if they knew what he was doing with the knowledge they so carefully imparted using drawings and models.

Finally he decided and jumped forward from the back of the blonde guy and stabbed his small knife at the back of his head into the brain stem. The flailing and screaming immediately stopped like someone pressed the off button on a robot. The blonde guy was kneeling for a moment and then collapsed like a broken doll in the dirt. Death was instantaneous.

Wei's heart was pumping almost like when he first heard his parents were in an accident and he took several deep breaths.

'Congratulations on your first kill!' Jinx resounded in his head.

'Shut up! Shut the f#"# up.' Wei said as he dropped to his knees.

He looked back and saw Old Tibs moving towards the other two in the distance.

'I might as well go all the way now,' he told himself as he got up from his knees and picked up the machete.

He swung it a few times and ran to the nearest stooge who was chasing something around his head while kneeling. A dark red 98 number was hovering in the center of his outline.

Wei got behind him and swung the machete as hard as he could at his neck which surprisingly offered little resistance as a fountain of blood erupted from it. The momentum of the swing caught Wei off guard as he stumbled and fell.

He picked himself to his knees with the machete supporting him and looked towards the last one. Tibs had almost reached him and he was looking at Wei.

He stood up and walked towards The last stooge who was yelling towards the moon while on his knees.

"I will kill you! You mother%%#ker I swear I will rip your tongue out! Just let me catch you. I swear."

Zhang Wei ignored him and got behind him.

"What will you do?" Old Tibs asked suddenly, looking at Wei.

"What needs to be done." Wei replied before he swung the machete for the second time.