Bound and Broken: An Isekai Adventure Dark Fantasy (Melas Book 1) by V.A. Lewis (autobiographies to read .TXT) 📕

"If they have an alarm, then we’re screwed," Rin finished the sentence for me. The Cat Beastkin met my gaze, and I saw her eyes glinting like I had never seen them before. She said, "Nn, but that just means we have to be quick."

The young woman spun around, and faced the rest of the group. "We go in, and go in fast. Take them out before they even realize we’re there. No need for subtlety or sneaking around. Do not spare a single life, got it?"

She looked around at the nodding faces, and smiled. She looked hungry; as if she had been waiting for this moment for ages. And perhaps it had been ages. She had been locked up for months by the Mancis Company, unable to do anything but sit around and chat. Plus, Beastkin have a slightly shorter lifespan than humans.

Relatively speaking, she has been waiting for quite a while; and now is the time to go all out. Not just for her, but for all of them.

The door creaked open, and one by one the Beastkin went in; Shang led the way, followed by a Rabbit Beastkin, and then the others. I saw all of their faces as they funneled in through the door, and they were ready.

One of the last to go was Feri. The young man held back, whether it was out of fear or for some other reason, I did not know. But the man went down, and I followed after him. Rin walked beside me, and she held my hand as we went down the spiral stairway; it was not a long way down, perhaps only 40 steps before we reached the basement.

At the bottom of the stairs, we were met with a set of wooden double doors. Muffled noises were escaping out from the other side, barely audible enough for me to pick out a single sound to decipher it. There was clearly a commotion going on beyond the double doors, as a clamor of voices mixed into an incomprehensible mess. But suddenly, all at once, the voices collectively erupted into a cheer— like one you would hear when someone scored a touchdown in a football game, or a point in a basketball match— before returning to the previous hubbub after a moment.

Shang paused by the door, and checked back on us one last time. He then gave us a nod, and threw the doors open into the basement.

They swung open, and inside I saw a large room. It was not as big as the main hall of the warehouse, but it was at least half its size. Long tables and benches were strewn about the room, organized into rows similar to the ones you see in a high school cafeteria.

Around the center, tables and chairs were pushed aside to create a small open space: four tables were used to form a box in the middle of this area, with about four dozen guards crowded around it in a circle.

Two men were standing in the enclosed space, fighting each other. For less than a second, I thought that the guards had set up a makeshift boxing ring for themselves to brawl in, but I quickly dismissed the thought. It was not for them, but for slaves.

The two men were dressed in tattered clothes, and had chains tied around their ankles. They were bloodied and battered, and yet they still fought on. They heaved and wheezed with every punch thrown, and their movements were sluggish, as if they had been fighting non-stop for half an hour. And perhaps that was the case.

It was a terrible thing: to be forced to fight in a blood sport just for the entertainment of others. And yet, for some reason I was relieved.

I was glad that the worst of my imaginations didn’t come true, even though this was arguably just as terrible. I knew I should not have felt this way, but I did.

It was probably a preconceived notion I had from my world; rape was one of the greatest sins in my point of view. It was something unforgivable— robbing the free will of another, and violating them for your own pleasure. It was disgusting.

But, and the thought crossed my mind, is what’s happening here not the same?

Was evil really just evil? Should I even compare two different acts of evil, and weigh them against each other? Was that even necessary? I did not know. And now was not the time for any of these philosophical questions; it was the time for justice.

Shang and the others saw the same scene I did, and they immediately began moving. Whether it was because they wanted to put an end to such an abhorrent display, or because they took this as an opportunity to act while the guards were distracted, I did not know.

But they moved. And they were fast.

It was not like a scene from a movie where the main character slowly approached the first guy from behind: Shang did not tap the man on the shoulder, and waited for him to turn around before he threw a punch. In fact, Shang did not even throw a punch!

The Dog Beastkin ran up to the back of the crowd, and bit into the back of one of the guards. His fangs sunk deep into the man’s neck, instantly severing his spinal cord. The man collapsed to the ground and lay unmoving.

At the same time, a Rabbit Beastkin threw a flying knee at another man. The back of his skull caved in like it was made of papier-mâché. A blood curdling scream erupted from the back of the man’s throat which finally alerted everyone else in the room as to what was happening.

All eyes turned away from the brawl at the center of the room, and to the back of the crowd. But