Blessed by Night

Malachi was currently letting the hot water from the shower wash the dried blood off his body.

His mind was still addled with the reactions of the girls when he returned.

They didn't ask any questions, nor did they cast judgements.

Their only request was that if he should go through something again he not shy away from the people that loved him.

'I know I said I would listen to them but..'

Malachi shut off the water and grabbed a towel from the rack before proceeding to dry off.

He briefly glanced in the mirror and got a look at his body's newest edition.

Ever since he'd killed Arthur, Malachi's eyes had not reverted from that predatory orange.

He didn't know if it was a symbol of the stain on his soul or some other factor, but he now went even farther out of his way to hide his eyes than before.

Malachi began to get dressed before grabbing his bag with spare clothes inside and heading out.

The girls appeared to be waiting for him and were surprised when he came out with a bag over his shoulder.

"Where are you going?"

Malachi patted his inquisitive sister's head and gave her a warm smile. "I have weapons training today, kiddo."

"Mal are you sure you should.."

"I can call Rose and tell her you.."

Sei and Aisha each began trying to dissuade Malachi from heading into other things so soon after the events of last night but he felt like a good distraction was what he needed best right now.

"Sigh, alright then. If you're determined to do this then I guess there's no other way." Aisha pulled out her phone and began texting rapidly.

-

Bianca Tate was having a pretty good morning.

Even though she was the newest member of immortal moon, she was already the most popular.

Her bold yet cheerful personality made it easy for her to make friends with her fellow guild mates and she had quite the large social circle. ｂ𝚎ｄｎ𝚘ｖ𝚎ｌ.𝚌𝚘ｍ

The young girl checked her watch and saw that it was about time for her favorite part of the day.

She smiled and skipped merrily to the fourth floor training room.

Along the way she got knowing smirks from most of the women in the guild but she didn't pay them any mind.

When she arrived at her destination, the metallic door slid open to reveal Malachi browsing over a table full of weapons with a thoughtful expression.

Rose was standing next to him and seemed to be giving him details about each of the weapons present.

Bianca was about to call out to him and blow him a kiss when she noticed the training room was a bit more crowded than usual.

Standing against the wall were three women, but she only recognized two of them.

One was Aisha and the other was a young girl she remembered to be Malachi's sister.

'But who's that woman there?'

The last member of the group was a mature woman with long soft brown hair and eyes to match.

She had a large bust that made even hers look inadequate and a warm motherly aura.

Suddenly, the door opened behind Bianca and Luna walked in. "What's wrong?"

"Do you… know who that woman is?"

Luna followed Bianca's gaze to the mature woman next to Aisha.

When Aisha texted her about visitor's passes earlier, she was too busy so she just agreed without asking who they were for.

But seeing this incredibly beautiful woman who's eyes never left Malachi for s single second, she could only think of one possible answer.

"I think.. that's his girlfriend."

"Oh that's his… what?"

-

Oblivious to the storm brewing behind him, Malachi had just listened to Rose's long summary of all the weapons available to him.

"So? What do you think?" Rose asked.

She was hoping Malachi would chose a good pair of gauntlets due to his monstrous physical strength and improvement in hand to hand combat.

As he stared at all the weapons in front of him, Malachi couldn't help but think about the events of last night.

He didn't much enjoy the feeling of having blood all over him, so if possible he'd prefer to mainly fight long range.

With that in mind he picked up a belt that contained several gleaming silver knives.

"Throwing knives?" Rose looked slightly disappointed. "Are you sure?"

"Yea.. I think these will work great."

"Alright then… wanna do a test run?" Rose didn't really understand Malachi's choice but she knew he had pretty good instincts.

Malachi nodded and slipped on the belt.

"Hard light simulation G-26."

At Rose's command, several holograms of large muscular kobolds materialized in the room.

The training rooms were capable of producing ultra realistic simulations of monsters inside gates.

They looked real, felt real and the damage they could do was real as well.

But of course they could be weakened for beginners.

Although Rose had neglected to activate training wheels mode due to her being too deep in thought about why a physical fighter like Malachi would chose something like throwing knives.

"3."

"2."

"1!"

"ROOOOOOAAAAA!!"

After the simulation's countdown, the hulking monstrosities launched forward.

'I've never seen him use throwing knives before I hope he'll… be...okay…'

The scene displayed in front of Rose gradually made her lose her train of thought.

The kobolds had taken no more than three steps forward when the silver knives launched from Malachi's belt at a speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

Howls of pain filled the air as the pack of kobolds were diced into chunks in only ten seconds.

Cuts accumulated all over their massive bodies until entire pieces of them hit the ground and they broke apart into fragments of light.

When all the projections disappeared, Malachi returned the blades to his belt and nodded in satisfaction.

Truthfully, there was another reason why Mal had decided on a long range weapon instead of a close quarters one.

Malachi had chosen this as his main weapon to keep his animal instincts in check and it seemed like the idea was working smoothly.

After all, if he wanted to fight close range there was no better weapon for him than the massive black claws that he could grow from his fingertips.

But after completely losing himself when he killed Arthur, Mal wanted to avoid having to use those as much as possible.

Mal looks for his trainer to ask for her input and turned around to see her staring at him like he was a freak of nature.

"Rose? You good?"

She didn't even know how to answer him.

Malachi was not the first to use telekinesis to better control his weapon, but he was the first to control so many simultaneously.

Not only that, the speed at which he'd launched those blades was…frightening.

She thought she knew the full extent of Malachi's capabilities but he was once again showing her he had so much still in store.

"Fucking unreal.."

"Huh?"

Rose shook her head indicating for Malachi not to pay her any mind.

'That settles it..' Initially she planned to train him a little while longer but after what she'd just seen, she didn't have any more doubts.

"Mal I think you're ready for your first gate."