"Well it is a bad day for you Joseph. They sent somebody from the IIC and I am sure she is going to twist your balls or cut them down. I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe your time has finally come."
"Oh, now that is exciting, Marcus." Joseph said as he smiled but it was the type of smile that Marcus knows he has something more to say. "But you still owe me twenty million."
"For what?" Marcus asked back with a faint smile on his face and light shaking his head of the absurdity of the situation.
"There's nothing funny about it. The drone got shot down, so now I have an angry arms dealer who will probably demand his money… allegedly."
"You know Joseph, there is a bigger threat for you right now. Just—" At the moment Marcus began to speak the door behind his back started to open up and it was a whole experience, that just showed that Joseph was not an orderly person.
Locks were being opened like a golden vault was being opened up and then a woman stepped into the room with a folder in her hand and Joseph only needed to take one look to know she was not the type of agent that would go easy on him.
"I really want to cut off your dick, but the IIC doesn't like that sort of thing." She said as she smiled and sat down next to Marcus.
Well Marcus wasn't lying about cutting down some sensitive body parts, though Joseph found it funny as he started laughing. "My dick has already been cut off."
"Really?" The woman asked back almost immediately with a little amusement on her face and well a bit of disappointment, though it was enough for Joseph.
She exactly looked like the type of agent who do not really give a single fuck about any rules. She looked like the one that tortures, not for information, but for her own enjoyment and pleasure and for a second, Joseph was frozen, surprised by her eyes, because he knew exactly what kind of agent she was.
He had seen people like her before, the type who had already seen too much and done too much, the kind of agents whose morality was no longer truly human. Their sense of right and wrong was no longer built on normal human feelings, but on a cause, or at least a cause they believed in deeply enough to follow without hesitation.
To them, the world is divided in a very simple way, and once someone stands on the wrong side of that line, nothing else really matters anymore, and she is one of them.
Laws exist to protect criminals in a way, to stop them from being tortured or abused, and to make sure justice follows rules instead of anger. But agents like her rarely care about the rules or laws.
They do not see the law as the true form of justice. For them, justice is something else entirely. For them, justice is a personal vendetta against criminals like Joseph. Criminals who do not deserve to be dealt with calmly through laws. No, they believe in causing as much pain as they can.
Though the thing was that she was up against Joseph and not any other criminal.
"Yeah, a cartel really wanted some information, but shit, I gave them my dick instead." Joseph said though he corrected quickly. "I mean, of course, I just happened to be there and knew nothing." As he said it Marcus wanted to laugh… he literally fought back the urge because of the obvious bullshit while on the other hand the woman looked at Joseph for a little longer, maybe trying to intimidate him, then she simply opened one of the folders, picking up a paper.
"Before I read your end, I just want to ask one single question. Why did you turn into this evil being?"
It was so strange for Joseph because this woman suddenly changed from this agent into just a simple woman asking an honest and genuine question.
"Evil being? I am just a man." As much as Joseph tried to answer jokingly, the woman could see it in his eyes… the remains of the light that once was there once, in the old days, when he was somebody who was on the right path, so she pushed it further.
"You could have been one of the Heroes, one of those who are for humanity, but you decided to kill as many as you could… but why? You are the second person in this country who reached level 100, not once but twice, and you decided to kill more and more people rather than just wish for something good, something that could actually save the world, and it's not just about the wish, Joseph." She truly looked genuine, it was as if she was talking with frustration and anger, like a disappointed mother. "You could have used your wish to do good, eliminate terrorists, murderers, and so on, be the front man in a war, but no, you decided to become a criminal. Why? Just why did you choose this path? To be this lowlife? It make no sense."
Silence as for the first time Joseph was actually thinking about it, but the answer was obvious and everybody in the room knew it, but still she wanted to hear it from Joseph, to hear it with his own words.
"Because it is easier to kill people and I enjoyed every moment of it." Joseph said as he looked dead into the woman's eyes. He didn't even blink nor smile, not a single emotion was on his face or in his eyes. "It is completely impossible to reach what I have reached on the so-called good side, the Heroes side and the government side. "And most importantly, I have never killed innocent people. Am I evil for murdering thousands of other evil people?"
"You are not justice, and you never were." She answered, but oh man, she got caught in Joseph's eyes… in the nothingness.
It was strange because it was everything but what she expected, what she had been taught and experienced in her whole life. Murderers, serial killers, and gangsters all have the eyes of predators, especially when they open up. Their eyes show who they are, and it is especially true for those who have Systems… but now there was nothing in Joseph's eyes, yet it terrified her.
The emptiness of it was just impossible.
"Funny, because the people who call themselves justice don't do anything. They let real evil beings stay outside, and when somebody comes and kills them, you and many of your colleagues pretend that what I did is wrong. I chose to become the exact person, or the so-called evil being, you all needed but were too afraid to be."
"How poetic you are." She answered, though she felt it, her legs were slightly shaking as she imagined how far you needed to go to become this empty, but she carried on. "You hit max level twice. You killed so many people it is incredible that you still have your humanity, that you are still sane. But don't you think you could have fixed all of it with the Divine Wish?"
"The wish is a bad deal." Simple… too simple answer from Joseph.
A bad deal?' she asked back as she shook her head, and, well, she got a bit angry, or more like jealous, as she was nowhere near a wish, not just that, she had no System. "You are Blessed."
"Blessed? By what? That I level up if I kill others?" Joseph laughed because, for his perception, it was just absurd to call it a blessing.
"It's on you. You could have used it in a good way, to stop wars, to actually become somebody who benefits the population. But no, you turned into a fucking drug lord. Ahh…" She sighed. "You two motherfuckers, you and Albert, how selfish you guys are, wishing for personal things… rather than, I don't know, wishing for peace—"
Joseph started laughing even more, interrupting her. "You're so funny." He said, shaking his head. "For peace? You all want to dictate something you don't even give a fuck about. I already said the wish is just a fucking bad deal."
"Then say it. What did you wish for? What was the wish that was such a bad deal?"
"Actually, I tried to wish for something great for humanity."
"Another joke?" She asked back.
"No. There is so much war and death and despair, so I wanted to wish for world peace. And the System, well, it didn't want to execute it how I wanted it." Joseph smiled. "It wanted to destroy humanity. It said, 'To have peace, all humans need to be wiped off the face of the Earth.' So I said, then fix world hunger. It said the same, 'If there are no humans, there is no hunger.'... and anyway, you can only wish for yourself." Joseph explained, and Marcus and the woman just looked at him with disbelief, because it actually made sense.
The end goal of the System is that you reach level 100, and you get a Divine Wish. But it's only you who completes the quest it says to do, and the wish will affect only you or is it?
"Let me hear your real wish." She asked, raising her voice, though she didn't think that Joseph would actually say it.
"My mother had stage four brain cancer, so I wished that she could live longer and well, I fucked up."
"What happened?" She asked, and she heard it… that little crack in Joseph's voice, that he was showing some emotion, even if it was not much, but he was doing it, which meant he was telling the truth.
"The System calculated that I have a life expectancy of 70 years old. So it did what it could best and made the bad deal. It removed 40 years from my life. First, it gave 10 years to my mother, and the rest was part of the deal."
They were falling into more disbelief. There was no way that actually happened.
"What, then you have—?"
"One year left, but it doesn't matter." He held the woman's eyes. "What matters is that I wished for my mother to live and she died a month later. Was it a good wish? Was it a deal that made any sense? Was it a wish that actually worked? Because no, I don't think so."
Once again, she felt it. The emptiness of those eyes staring at her, but something was off. She knew it. Something was off with the story, with the wish and she knew what it was.
Joseph's mother had died because of him, because his enemies had targeted his mother and his sister. It wasn't the wish that made the bad deal, but it all happened because Joseph. They both died because of him, but as she thought about it something again felt off and it was not the story, not the lies or truth about it… but once again the eyes that were not the same empty one, no Joseph eyes changed.
She felt that a truly evil being was looking at her. Not a monster, not a predator, a hunter… but straight evil and with it she got her answers.
Joseph is someone that the System broke. It stripped away all the humanity, shaping him into something far worse than a criminal. Joseph Santino the man who brings chaos wherever he goes.
Drug Lord of Alexandria, the Warlord, Don of Dons, who profits from slaughter, wars, drugs, the man who only lives to kill more and more.
The one and only known person on the continent whose System requires him to kill, to murder, to take lives away.
The only one in the entire continent whose System type is Blood Emperor.