Chapter 73 All Hell Breaks Loose
Once we were finished, Alice had a really confused look on her face as she looked around and on the table.
"Are you looking for a check?" I asked.
"Yeah," she said. "What gives?"
"I paid in advance for the meal. I wanted this to be the perfect night for you and Victoria to reunite," I said.Nôv(el)B\\jnn
"What about the tip?" She said.
"Oh he got the tip, and then some," I said. "I'm going to resist the urge to wink."
"Are you sure?" She said.
"Do you really want me to tell you how much I paid for this meal?"
"Yes. I do!" Alice said, throwing her cloth napkin on the ground in fake outrage. She ended up picking the napkin back up and putting it on the table. "Sorry. Actor's habit."
"I get it," I said. I narrowed my eyes at Alice and really made eye contact trying to make her look away, but she didn't. I sighed. "Ok, I'll tell you." I leaned in and whispered in Alice's ear how much I paid for the entire meal, $60,000.
"What?" Alice's jaw dropped. She went deathly pale, and started to shiver. She fell out of her chair and fainted. She actually fainted. I literally had never seen a person faint in real life. Man, she was just as dramatic off stage as she was on stage.
I gently slapped her awake. "Alice! Are you with us?" I said.
She looked up at me from the ground. I was leaning over her. She grabbed my collar, pulled me closer, and said, "How can you afford to spend that much money on a meal?"
"It's actually kind of hard to explain. Let's just say, I kill evil monsters and sometimes it pays well, while other times, it pays really well," I said, trying to smile reassuringly.
"I don't believe you. You must be in debt up to your eyeballs! What is your net worth good sir? Negative a million?" She said, still pulling at my collar.
"Over $1,400,000,000," I said. "As I said, monster killing sometimes pay really well!"
"I guess it does," she said. "I'm in the wrong business."
"Alice, stop being so dramatic and get up off the floor," I said, wrenching my collar from her grip.
"Stop being dramatic? I'm an actor!" She said, as she got up and brushed herself off.
"I know that, but I wanted to do something cool for you and Victoria," I said.
"Oh, ok. What is it?" Alice said.
"I have seen you perform, and wonderfully so I might add, but you haven't seen me perform," I said.
"Oh, really? You're going to perform for us?" Alice said. "I'm warning you right now, I'm a harsh critic."
"I demand nothing but the best from myself, so I can't exactly expect others to do any less," I said.
"That's really weird philosophy," Alice said. "But go on." Your journey continues with empire
"So I'm a vampire cultivator. It basically gives me super powers. And I wanted to use one of those super powers to put on a show for you both," I said.
"Ok, I'll bite," Alice said.
"Yay! That sounds so fun!" Victoria said.
"Sit, sit. Both of you," I said.
They both sat in their chairs but they moved them so the table wasn't in between them and me. This would allow them to get a full view of my performance. I began to concentrate Vi into every aspect of my being, condensing it and purifying it.
I drew my sword and began a sword dance. There were a lot of pivots and twists as I slashing my sword through the air rigorously, completing every swing of my sword and twist of my body, until I suddenly stopped. I stopped in a pose where the sharp side of the sword was facing up, and the tip was resting against my wrist.
I quickly and suddenly turned the blade over and slashed my wrist very shallowly. Using blood manipulation, I pulled a large amount of blood from my wrist. It shone white from all the condensed Vi contained within it.
It looked like a luminescent pure white liquid. I stimulated my bone marrow to produce more blood at a rapid rate. I withdrew more blood at the same rate until I had a large white orb of it in front of me.
I twisted and manipulated my hands and it transformed into a beautiful white rose facing my audience. It spun and split into twelve individual white roses that circled around my body in a criss cross pattern.
I split the roses further into twelve more and twelve more. The layered multiple criss cross patterns over each other. All the while I continued my sword dance, until I stopped, and the roses transformed into faceless enemies.
I cut them down one by one, removing their heads from their bodies. For every one that fell, a new enemy rose to challenge me I cut them all down in my dance, until a man dressed as a pirate ran into the lobby of Bella Luna Cucina.
This was quite unexpected. I looked at him to assess if he was a threat. I got a system message.
[Pirate Pawn Lv. 12]
It didn't provide me with any other information other than the enemy's name and their progress level. Although, it didn't need to provide further information, because I knew what he was and where he came from.
He was one of the enemies from the portal dungeons. He was an enemy who had escaped the underground from a dungeon break. I didn't even stop to tell Victoria or Alice that the performance was over and this was real.
I waited for the pirate to advance on me. Luckily, I was standing between the pirate and my audience. As soon as he got close enough, I made another sword strike, severing his head from his body. I got a system message about gaining life essence but I ignored it.
More pirates ran into the lobby. A dozen, in fact. They all ran at me at top speed. I changed the petals of the roses to be razor sharp and I made them spin rapidly.
I cut down the pirates I could, while directing the razor sharp rose blenders to cut straight through the faces and heads of the assailants. They all collapsed to the floor.
A four meter tall monster with one eye in the center of its chest, a mouth where its head should be, and numerous rocky protrusions sprouting from its body, barreled through the front door of the lobby, smashing it to bits.
I advanced upon my foe this time. I directed the roses to burrow through and remove the arms and legs of the monster while I stepped on Midas's back and flew up to chop the monster's head off.
That seemed to be the last of the assailants for now, so I turned around and bowed to my audience. I received many claps from Victoria and surprisingly more claps from Alice. She seemed very impressed with my performance.
Maybe it was a performer's appreciation of performance? They often say the people who enjoy art the most are artists themselves, in some form or another. Who says that? I don't know, some people I just made up.
After I had kicked all of the corpses out of the restaurant, Marco, Johnny, Johnny's men, Victoria, Alice, Midas, and I all gathered around a small tv in the back and watched the news detailing what was going on outside. They were all expecting to get an answer about the attack, while all I wanted to know was how wide spread was the damage?