Lord of Annihilation

Seeing the four of them enter the cafeteria, an unnatural glint passed through Lucius' eyes. He then took a deep breath and started to act. According to what others should know, Lucius' was a weak, smart and unrelenting 17 year old boy. He was very smart, but that was it. He was physically weak and had never retaliated to their precious bullying.

Putting on an act and pretending not to notice them, Lucius started heading in a specific direction. He was currently in a very bad mood and wanted to let off some steam.

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The four members, immediately upon entering the cafeteria, started looking around for Lucius. One of them looked in a certain direction and saw a weak boy walking in a certain direction, "Leader, I see him." He immediately alerted the other.

The leader looked in the direction, one of his members was pointing and confirmed, "That's him. Let's follow him."

After hearing this command the others nodded and started walking after Lucius.

The cafeteria was a large building, with many floors. Each floor provided students places to sit and have their meal in a comfortable environment. Of course, one does not necessarily has to eat inside the cafeteria. Students could also take their lunch and have it with in other places. Littering was not an issue, as cleaning robots were present everywhere in the campus, cleaning 24x7.

The four, intently followed behind Lucius. By now they had almost been walking for 10 minutes.

One the them, angrily cursed," Fuck, does this kid want to eat or tour the campus. We left the cafeteria 10 mins ago."

The others nodded their heads at his reamark.

What the other's did not know was the Lucius was specifically dragging for time. He wanted a certain someone to catch up to them, for his plan to work. After walking for another 5 minutes, Lucius noted the location around him and sat down. 'She must be arriving soon', he thought to himself.

The area Lucius was currently in could be described as, deserted. It was off the main paths, and was closer to one of the older unused buildings. The path went around the old building with a sharp curve. Upon turning one would be met with a beautiful scene. A partly broken stone staircase stood unmoving in the corner. It had collapsed halfway to the top and the rubble just remained there. Weeds and other beautiful plants grew all of the broken staircase.

Opposite to the broken staircase, occupying the majority of the area was a broken greenhouse. Various beautiful plants grew all over the place. It could be seen that someone had been taking careful care of all the flowers as they were in perfect bloom. Even though it was August, the season of fall, the climate control system of the academy kept the environmental conditions at the peak of spring.

A small clear pond, surrounded the greenhouse and had beautiful lotuses growing in them. Lucius did not take much notice of the area as, he had been here many times over in his previous life.

Seeing that it was almost time, Lucius sat down and started eating his lunch.

The four others who had been following Lucius all this while, halted near the curve. They then surveyed the area around, to check if there were any students or cameras around. Noticing that nothing was around, they started heading towards Lucius.

The guy who cursed earlier suddenly spoke up,"Leader I think something is wrong."

The leader hearing this was suddenly confused, "We checked the surrounding area. No students nor cameras were present. What are you worried about?"

"Isn't it weird that this location has no people or cameras. Boss did tell us to be cautious and secretive, but isn't this place too good to be true. Hell, the location is almost perfect.", he replied.

Hearing this question, the others also started thinking. They had been thinking how to get Lucius away from a crowded location, but coincidentally he had led them to the perfect location.

"You think this might be an ambush?", the leader asked.

"It could be.", the guy replied.

As they were wondering what to do, one of the others suddenly spoke up, "Leader, he's already done eating. If we lose this opportunity, we might not be able to rob him if he enters a lecture hall."

Hearing this the leader grit his teeth and spoke up,"We must act now. If it's a ambush so be it. The mysterious man wouldn't go as far as to kill us. Worst case scenario, we all end up hospitalized. But I refuse to believe that four of us can't bring down a single person."

The other's felt convinced with the leader's words and set into action. They stepped in and headed towards Lucius.

"Stop right there, Lucius!", they bellowed. Lucius who had just finished his and was about to up heard this. He immediately looked up and saw four big, muscular guys heading towards him. Lucius put on a 'fearful' expression and ased, "Wh-who are you guys?".

Seeing the boy trembling and looking at them with a fearful expression, the hearts and minds of all the members eased a bit. Still they maintained their alert and prepared for possible ambushes.

"Kid, you better obediently hand over your research to us.", the leader spoke.

"Why is everyone after my research. This is the third time in 2 days, someone has come after me.", Lucius cried out with an aggrieved look on his face.

The leader immediately replied, "You don't need to know all that. All you have to know is that the young master of the Cline Family wants it. Do you dare not obey?"

Hearing this the 'look' on Lucius' face changed. His face became very pale and his entire body was trembling. He then cried out.

"Why doesn't your young master do his own research. Does he only know how to snatch and steal from other people? We are all students of the same academy. Is he not afraid of the teachers finding out?"

The leader sneered and spoke,"Teachers? Our boss isn't afraid of mere teachers. What would a country bumpkin like you know about, how influential the Cline family is. If our boss wanted he could easily kill you and no one would ever find out"

By now two of the muscular guys had approached him and held Lucius by his hands. Lucius tried to struggle but was evidently weaker than the others. He then stammered a few times, before eventually his body slumped.

"You ,you,....Please leave me alone.", towards the end his voice whimpered. It seemed he was on the verge of crying.

The boss smiled at this reaction and thought to himself, 'He was broken too easily. I guess that's what a weakling like him accounts too." He then neared Lucius and spoke into his ears, "I promise if you give up your research right now, we will leave you alone. Of course that is under the condition that you don't speak of what happened here to anybody."

Lucius did not reply immediately and just nodded. He then looked at the leader's face with listless eyes and said in a grieving tone."In..in my left pocket"

The leader heard this and and reached his hands into Lucius' pockets. His hands then grabbed an object and he pulled it out. In his hands was a storage device.

"Is it in the disk?", the leader asked.

Lucius listlessly nodded and replied, "Under a file named 'Mental Fluctuations during Interstellar Travel'."

The leader nodded his head and suddenly punched Lucius on his stomach. Lucius body spasmed and fell down. He slowly curled up from the pain.

"We got what we came for. Let's leave quickly." the leader spoke up and left with his 3 members.

What the 4 muscular guys failed to notice was, while they were bullying Lucius, a slim shadow had hid near them and watched the entire process. Watching the four of them walk out of sight, the shadow slowly came out of the hiding place and hurried towards Lucius.

"Are you okay?", a voice asked.