Chapter 22: 2

‘swish’

Two figures were clashing in the middle of the night, no to be precise it was a red-eyed man chasing a green-clothed man who wore a badge on his shirt, the badge appeared to be one of a police officer.

The officer realizing, he couldn’t escape pursuit decided to attack, he abruptly stooped hit his feet against the ground and kicked towards the area the red-eyed figure was approaching, almost synchronizing with his movement the earth cracked and numerous stones shot towards the red-eyed figure who was dodged all the attacks making various flexible movements impossible for the normal human.

The blood-red figure moved his arm in a bending posture and with his movements, his opponent became inexplicably still with blood-red frost showing on his skin.

The blood-red figure stopped in front of the icy corpse and stared for a moment confirming the police officer was dead before leaving the scene disappearing into the night.

“so, how is it.” A gloomy middle-aged man standing in front of an intact corpse that gave off an ominous chill questioned the old woman who was manipulating water to clean and inspect the corpse.

“Well the blood in his body has been frozen stiff, if you look at the traces of the battle the blood was frozen instantaneously, forcibly stopping all his various organs and leading to death.” The old woman replied in her old croaky voice while tidying up the scene and corpse apparently done with her inspection.

.....

The old woman was wearing a deep blue winter jacket that covered her whole body with a white scarf on her neck matching greatly with her gray long hair which was tied in a bun.

Although she was old one could see by her demeanour and her clear eyes that she was still very healthy and judging by her skilful manipulation of water during the inspection one could judge that she was in no way frail but an experienced and powerful bender and by her still surprisingly well-preserved skin one could see that she was once a beauty that enchanted the souls of men when she was young.

The stern-looking middle-aged man was quiet for a moment while looking at this scene before stating “So it’s them again” with a hint of anger apparent in his tone.

Noticing this the remaining officers who were near the crime sciences closing off the area quietly shifted away apparently they were already aware of the volatile temper of their boss.

“*Sigh*, Raiden you know you can’t convince the parliaments based on the evidence present they will just label it as a powerful water bender gone rouge.”

The woman sighed while shaking her head in disappointment, apparently also dissatisfied by the inaction and indifference of the parliament concerning the murder cases involving these red-eyed monsters.

“So I lost one of my best men for nothing” Raiden clenched his fist in anger inadvertently making the temperature of the surroundings, the earth around his feet already beginning to melt.

A short but loud cough brought Raiden back to his senses.

historical

“I am sorry May” Raiden apologized to the old woman who despite her proximity to him and wearing a full winter jacket was not even breaking a sweat ignoring the alarmingly high temperature and melted earth.

“*Chuckle* it’s okay I’m not too old to the extent that I can’t bear one of your temper tantrums, besides don’t apologize to me, you should apologize to your frightened men, I have no idea how they keep on working for you despite your short temper. Stay safe Raiden” May said in her croaky voice with a nostalgic smile on her face while picking up her bag and leaving the street.

The statement of concern brought a smile to Raiden’s gloomy face, he watched may with a doting smile as she left the street, sinking in some pleasant memories that he had inadvertently remembered.

“Sir this was found under some rocks that were suspected to be used during the fight.”

The voice of his lieutenant sounded snapping him from his reverie while giving him some pictures of the rocks.

Raiden frowned and took the pictures, he recognized the obscure patterns inlaid in the rock, this was the code he had agreed upon with the dead officer to be used when delivering secret information.

The patterns when deciphered spelt out only one-word “wall”.

Seeing this word Raiden’s already gloomy temperament got darker, he squeezed the pictures and turned them into ashes, although wall could mean anything but Raiden had an ominous hunch that the wall talked about by his dead officer was the great wall and if those red-eyed monsters had anything to do with existences that came in from the wall then these monsters were far more dangerous than they seemed.

“Pack up and bury our dead comrade’s body” Raiden ordered to his men, at his words they all scattered around and started tidying up the crime scene.

“Otto follow me we are going to pay a visit to the wall,” Raiden said to his lieutenant who was putting the corpse into a body bag.

“I have a rather unpleasant guess I have to verify.”

Otto dropped the bag and handed it over to one of his colleagues then silently followed Commander Raiden behind attached to him quietly and swiftly like a shadow.